I wish that I had your sense of faith!

K.
 

maybe nana will guest chair...
 

I've been thru this so many times. It's so difficult, I know.
 

Good suggestions. Another might be to try bringing in a speaker from time to time.
 

All ggod suggestions - especially dAAves.
 

spirit of rotation is a good thing
praying is even better
 

We rotate chairing responsibilities in my morning meeting, and it works very well. I take Wednesday's, and this past week I asked a relatively new guy if wanted to do it, because he had expressed interest and has been very involved. I think the more people who take ownership of duties like this, the stronger a group will be. The group I'm speaking of averaged 5-8 folks in April, and now we have 18-21 per day. Not bad for 6:45 in the morning. Each group has its own attributes, and ours is pretty laid back, so we're comfortable with anyone contributing in the capacity that suits them best. Good luck!
 

Wow, strange to read this today. My home group, which meets on Sunday seems to be dying, and lots of members are going to new groups. I asked about this today and people referred to the ebb and flow of meetings and that it would eventually bounce back. I didn't know there was any ebb and flow, but I guess it makes sense.

I suppose it will work out the way it is supposed to for both of us.
 

good luck with your meeting... our little men's meeting has somehow managed to survive over three years. We average about 6-8 guys each week.

I hope yours works out!
 

Sounds like good ideas. I hope that the meeting survives.
 

Your sponsor had some excellent suggestions. Funny how that works...I've seen many meetings come and go, move from one location to another. Generally, the Ultimate Authority on whether a meeting survives or not is G.O.D.
 

those are great suggestions from your sponsor :)
 

Well, all it takes to start a meeting is a shared resentment and a coffee pot, right? Are you sharing a resentment with enough people to keep it going? That's only half in jest -- there has to be some compelling reason for people to attend one meeting and not another.

Special-audience meetings are especially troublesome. A women's meeting, for example, is supposed to be a safe place, free from the Thirteenth Step and the dismissive attitudes of cranky old men who "really had a drinking problem" -- but then you are constantly fighting the need women will have to prove that they don't need to be protected from the world. (Substitute "gay", "young persons", "cross-addicted", etc., in the previous statement and it'll still be true -- there was nothing sexist intended at all. Men's meetings are the worst in that respect -- they usually die a quick death when nobody can figure out how "real men" would act. Oddly, the problem never arises at an "ordinary" meeting with nothing but men in attendance. You figure it out.) Attendance will wax and wane as cliques form and break up -- they'll make decisions about meetings as a bloque.

What is the general tenor of the meeting? Does it strive to be as inclusive as possible? Is it "fundamentalist" to the point of scaring off newcomers, or perhaps so "liberal" as to dilute the message beyond effectiveness? Is the time or day of the week inconvenient for the target audience (keeping in mind things like common family-activity situations in your community)? And this one that I almost hate to bring up -- are there strong personalities that might be interfering with the success of the meeting?