Good Afternoon Saturday, January 10, 2015

Hello Everyone,

This is an afternoon post because I am in Sarasota at the Area Assembly for Area 15 and I had to leave this morning at 6AM to make it for my “GRAPEVINE” meeting at 9AM.  I had a reservation at the “overflow” hotel which is about 3 miles from the Hyatt which is where the event is taking place.  Now that I am here at this hotel, I realize that this District 4 has hosted it before at this same hotel.  The other day I got a call from Heather telling me that there was a room at the main hotel set a side for me so I offered my room to Steve so he could come to the Quarterly also.  So I was really happy because my room is AWESOME!  4th floor with a balcony that looks over a little harbor with beautiful boats and lots of action.  Here are a couple of pictures:

View from my room at the Hyatt Sarasota

2nd View from my room

3rd View from my room

Final picture of my room.

So I’m going to see if this will fit 4 pictures in a row on the blog (I edited it to have the pictures in 2 rows – the 4th picture didn’t show side by side).  This is why I come to these quarterlies.  I get the room for free – the District pays for my room for being the Grapevine Chair.  Then “if” I get elected to be the Secretary of District 20, I get a free room for that too.  I’d never just take a weekend away on my own and you can see how beautiful this room is – it’s worth all the anxiety of going away for the weekend.  Although sometimes, the rooms aren’t so great, but many times they are fantastic!  I need to have “something” to do and boy oh boy they keep you busy at these meetings.  I went to the Grapevine meeting this morning which was really good.  The chairperson Peter (who was the “secretary/treasurer” during the last couple of years) started the meeting with an “amends”.  He said that for the election last October (I didn’t go to that quarterly), he said there was a requirement of 5 years sobriety for the position.  He subsequently found out that that was not the case and that there was no sobriety requirement.  Because of that issue, he felt that the election was not fair as someone who had less sobriety could not stand for the position.  The current secretary, Mina, was elected and was at the meeting today, doing her “secretarial duties” and I’m not sure she was aware that he was going to offer that amends.  So of course that took up a major time block trying to decide whether we should have another election and change the Composition, Scope and Procedure of the Committee.  Back and forth it went, ultimately deciding that there was a motion to say that there should be a 2 year sobriety requirement and that has to go to the “Current Practices” committee to approve that motion so that we can come back next quarter to vote on the motion and then we need to decide again whether to re-vote for the secretary or stay with Mina.  We never do anything quickly in AA.  It takes “years” to get things done, but it’s all part of it and that is what makes it so interesting.  So now Mina is probably upset about this whole thing (I know I would be) but more shall be revealed.  I think I’ll end up supporting her and keeping her on for the 2 years as she seems qualified.  But we’ll see how it turns out – tune in next month – I’m going to BOCA next quarter!

Now for news of the family:  Jon and Ale are in Egypt!  WOW – look at these two pictures:

The Great Pyramid of Giza

What day is it?????????????

Now that is a place I would never think of visiting personally.  Don’t know why really, just wouldn’t!  Now that they are posting all these pictures, I can live vicariously through their camera and that is fine with me.  But it looks pretty exciting.  They sure know how to have “fun in retirement”.  All it takes is money!  God Bless Them!  Pray for their safe return!

Well, I’m going to end this today.  Time for a little down time before the banquet tonight.  I wasn’t going to go because I didn’t want to spend the money (plus with this new diet plan, I doubt I’ll get “wheatless/grainless” food), but was “talked” into it so I’m going to try rest a little before the dinner which starts at 7PM then we have a speaker until about 9:30.  After that it’s to bed and get up early for the meeting tomorrow.  I don’t think it’s gonna take too long for meeting tomorrow and I should be on the road tomorrow by 3PM.  Guess I’ll ask for a late check out.

So see you tomorrow or the next day.  Thanks for visiting.