CoDA: Friday Fellowship Item #5: The CoDA Messenger

 
From: "CoDA Announcements" <codalist@codependents.org>
Date: April 7th 2018

(Mailing list information, including how to remove yourself with 1 click, is located at the end of this message.)

The following is an email we originally sent on 5/11/17

It was vetted for republication by the Friday Fellowship subcommittee of the CoDA Communications Committee, ffirg@coda.org

 

Friday Fellowship Item #5: The CoDA Messenger

Written by a CoDA member, CoDA content approved by Communications Committee

In 1997 CoDA volunteers put out the first issue of a newsletter titled The CoDA Messenger. Four pages, printed for distribution by mail and by hand, apparently, showing so much about the Fellowship of the time. For one thing, the meetings were bigger; 75 people attending at one time, for example. But this meeting then shrank to only 6, so they felt they had to take action and started experimenting with different formats.

The formats that were routinely used gives the impression that more structure was typically employed. Speaker meetings and focused topic meetings were on a rotating schedule, which, to reinvigorate themselves, this meeting expanded by adding Step and Tradition focused meetings.

Here is how they were described:

"During the Step format meetings, participants focus on how a particular Step has helped members change their lives and      what their struggles and successes with that Step have been. The Tradition format is similar: members share how a  Tradition has helped them with their individual recovery and to participate in the CoDA community."

"Other changes were to reduce the service time for officers to three months, and with this that meeting started to grow again, eventually to fifty members."

There may be stimulus here to thoughts for our own struggling meetings. But also how interesting to read this now, twenty years later, with meetings much smaller and most meetings devoted entirely to sharing less closely tied to a topic, in this author’s experience.

But perhaps not. Another contributor relates, referring to the present,: “...at my home group we alternate topics every week like this:

week 1 - step

week 2 - tradition

week 3 - topic of choice (related to CoDA literature)

week 4 - patterns and characteristics of codependence (denial, low self esteem, control, compliance, avoidance) - we  alternate between all 5 of these patterns

week 5 - gratitude - for the months which have 5 weeks - this happens 4 times per year”

This all illustrates how, through the action of individual groups, our living CoDA changes over time, accommodating changing needs and developing awareness of ways to serve struggling codependents and of the depths of the program we are growing in.

If you have more copies of The CoDA Messenger, we would love to see them. Send them and any other comments to ffirg@coda.org

Send comments to ffirg@coda.org

 

 

You can review previous emails here: http://codependents.org/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/main/


If you have a friend who would like to subscribe, please have them go here: http://www.codependents.org


If you have a general question about CoDA (as opposed to the specific content of this email), please email info@coda.org .


If you wish more information by phone, please call (888) 444-2359 {Toll free} or (602) 277-7991.


For Spanish inquiries you may email espanol@coda.org or call (888) 444-2379 {Spanish toll free}.

  • This mailing list is a public mailing list - anyone may join or leave, at any time.
  • This mailing list is announce-only.

The purpose of this list is to share information with any & all CoDA members, especially that which may effect CoDA as a whole.

We will be sending out regular emails with CoDA events, announcements, issues & CoDA business of interest to both specific regions & to the entire CoDA fellowship.

Per the 2nd tradition, For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority, a loving higher power as expressed to our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern. Developing a group conscience requires an informed fellowship, & to be effective trusted servants those you've elected must know the group conscience of the fellowship.

Privacy Policy:

Per the 11th & 12th Traditions this list is private & anonymous.

https://coda.org/privacy/