At the 2021 December Assembly in our YPAA committee meeting, most of our discussion was centered around how to drive attendance in young people’s meetings. Some places are struggling with attendance at their young people oriented meetings or struggling to get young people into the rooms at all. This opened a discussion of how young people’s in other areas drive attendance and what they do to keep young people’s AA alive. Here are some highlights from that discussion:
Young people’s meetings can be found on Zoom, yet some find that young people don’t like zoom. The in-person energy is different and young people seem to prefer that.
Some groups have group chats or utilize social media. Group chats help coordinate fellowship plans, like going out to eat before the meeting, and otherwise hanging out outside the meetings. When everyone is in one messaging group, no one feels left out because everyone in the group has access to the same information at the same time and anyone can choose to participate. That before-and-after-the-meeting fellowship is important because it shows that there is fun to be had in AA. Facebook groups can be made private in order to protect anonymity.
Game nights were brought up by several groups as a great fellowship activity. These fun events help get people coming back to the meetings. In terms of how to get young people to meetings in the first place, we discussed the idea of not shying away from mainstream society and socializing in bars with other sober friends. This allows us to meet people where they are at.
One group reached a very high level of attendance after hosting NMCYPAA. They also do outreach with juvenile probation and corrections.
It was suggested that we have a traveling workshop that could be hosted in different districts around the state. This might help unite some young people within their districts. This is something the committee can start to plan at our monthly meetings.
It was also suggested that this committee have a focus on more remote communities and how to do outreach there. When asked about what we can do in a community when the closest treatment center is 3 hours away, and all other communities are 1.5 hours apart, we discussed how even if young people don’t seem to be coming into the rooms, we can be out there to plant the seed and be the example. Networking, staying in touch, and reaching out are important in keeping young people active. Keeping in touch can be as simple as following someone on social media. We plan to talk about what more we can do for remote communities and rural areas at future committee meetings. Those meetings are on the last Sunday of the month at 7pm on Zoom.