COVID-19

Letter from GSI Service Board

As elected members of the GSI service board we write to you today to share experience, strength and hope, promote the safety of our meetings and lessen the impact on our  OA community in regards to the COVID-19 virus.Each of us individually must make the best decisions for both our health and our recovery program but we need not do it alone.

What can be done:

  • Please rely on group conscience to make decisions about whether or not your meeting will continue to meet in person. Discuss alternate options such as converting to partial or complete phone meetings, utilizing online options for free conference calls or video calls. There are several simple and free options on the internet. “An OA group ought never endorse, finance or lend the OA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.”
  • Make an emergency plan, such as creating a phone tree to notify regular members of last minute changes. Make sure newer member have contact information. Create back up service positions.

What GSI can do to help:

  • If you decide to continue to meet in person please let us know and we will list you as a confirmed open meeting on the website. Please contact the GSI webmaster @ webmaster@seattleoa.org
  • Visit our website to see updates on meetings https://www.seattleoa.org/meetings/
  • Here is a link to all meeting formats on the World Service OA website: https://oa.org/find-a-meeting/?type=0
  • Please notify the GSI webmaster @ webmaster@seattleoa.org  if your meeting has suspended in person meetings or is having to meet in an alternate location. We will do our best to keep the meeting page on the website up to date with this information.
  • If you are meeting either partially or completely by phone and want to provide the contact information for others we can post it to the GSI website (with the knowledge that this information is accessible to anyone who visits our website).
  • We are self supporting – please consider ways you can donate to 7th tradition – such as online payments to your groups treasurer or mailing a check to your groups treasurer so that your meetings expenses will be covered.  If your meeting is concerned about the inability to make rent payments due to decreased attendance we suggest discussing this with the church or meeting location.
  • If your meeting is unable to find a solution using the resources above, please contact Erin F @chair@seattloa.org and we will discuss what other options may be available.
  • We will also be updating the website in regards to in person GSI business meetings and future events. We will monitor the severity of the situation and adjust our operations accordingly.
  • To promote unity and carry the message we will be launching special topic conference calls. Details will be posted on the events page at https://www.seattleoa.org/events/ 
  •  *****If you would like to be a speaker or host one of these conference calls please email Cate O. @vicechair@SeattleOA.org

Monthly Telephone Workshops (once or twice each month)
Phone Number: 1-515-606-5360, PIN: 781502#

From The OA Region 1 Board:

As we hear more and more about the corona virus from various sources, here are some ideas that you may want to bring to your face to face meetings to keep attendees healthy:

  • It would be a good idea to wipe down the table area where you sit and the hard surface contact areas on your chair before and after your meeting. 
  • It would be prudent to maintain a “social distance” of 3 feet from others if possible. 
  • Do not hug or hold hands. Send support with a smile and a friendly hello!
  • Place tissues and hand sanitizer on the table in your meeting room..
  • Do not attend a face to face meeting if you feel unwell. Plan on meeting virtually till you feel fine. Use OA.org to find a meeting for virtual meetings. These meetings take place almost around the clock, every day of the week.
  • If you cough or sneeze do so into your elbow or in a tissue. Take any tissues you use with you. 
  • Wipe down book covers after use and do not send books around to be read. Let one person be the reader or those who bring their own copies share the reading.
  • Use your own pen to sign in, not a pass around pen. 
  • Masks work to keep a sick person from spreading their droplets. They do little to nothing, in informal contact, to protect from getting the virus. 

The outbreak is an event in motion. That means that the recommendations about meeting in groups may change depending on your community’s situation.

Remember in the Big Book it says we do not panic. “…we pause when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.” This trying situation gives us all a chance to try to be kind and caring: in the grocery store, in meetings, with our families. Fear can take us places we don’t want to go. Trust can get us through.”

We don’t always get to choose our challenges, yet we can choose how we respond to them.

“Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the compulsive eater who still suffers.”

Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can and wisdom to know the difference.

Stay connected, make outreach calls, call fellows you haven’t seen for a while, call fellows that fall in the most vulnerable populations, call newcomers and call old timers.

We cannot do this alone.In Service, GSI OA Service Board