Greeting #2:

The Greeting which welcomes a new member to A Serenity Place.

Dear ,

We are pleased to welcome you to A Serenity Place. We hope you will find here the healing we have been fortunate to receive. This is the purpose for which A Serenity Place was created.

To many of us the first comforting words we heard in Al-Anon were: "You are already surrounded by people who love you in a very special way." Please accept a cyber hug from A Serenity Place:

((((((((((((((((((((((((((Name)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Cyber-hugs feel good; we give and receive them a lot. They contribute to the ambience of A Serenity Place. It has been created to be a warm and healing "meeting". Here, relatives and friends of alcoholics can come together for the loving interchange of our experience, strength and hope. This is how we help one another in Al-Anon.

Different people have different needs for anonymity. Some are comfortable with very little while others need the most anonymity that they can get. A Serenity Place is devoted to maintaining personal anonymity and in line with this we follow certain policies:

1. Members are asked NOT to repeat (copy) any part of another members� shares to anyone outside ASP at any time or to quote personal shares publicly within the group.

2. Fingering (tracing an e-mail user to their source), and use of any other similar technologies to identify a member, are unacceptable at A Serenity Place.

3. To "flame" is to make critical, ridiculing or antagonistic remarks to others. To do this at A Serenity Place is to deny the very things our Al-Anon program fosters. If you receive such mail, please notify Denise.

4. In Al-Anon we help each other by sharing our experience, strength and hope and refrain from giving advice.

5. At A Serenity Place we use ONLY Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature (CAL) and refrain from discussion of therapy or other 12-step groups.  Please remember that jokes, poems, inspirational writings, etc. are not CAL and should NOT sent to the meeting.  Exceptions are brief references to the AA Big Book and things you have written yourself.

While these are some of the group's policies, online Al-Anon is particularly vulnerable to enforcing the unenforceable. If you have a particular need for anonymity, you may want to discuss it further with your service provider or our Greeting Committee or the List Administrator.

In order to share with the group, you must put ASP�s address, and only ASP�s address, in the �To� field:

asp@asp-afg.org

The server will then automatically send it to all members of A Serenity Place.

We use subject lines that identify the mail as coming from A Serenity Place. Subject lines are always preceded with the abbreviation ASP (A Serenity Place) to identify them as A Serenity Place mail and then by topic, general share, request for experiences, strength and hope (E,S & H) or business as follows:

ASP TOPIC - Trust
ASP SHARE - Gratitude
ASP REQUEST - E,S & H Needed
ASP BUSINESS - Volunteering for Position

When you receive email from ASP, if you wish to reply to the sender, just choose "reply" and it will go only to the original sender. If you wish to send a reply to the entire group, you will need to delete the original sender's name from the "to" and paste in asp@asp-afg.org

In Al-Anon we do not give advice but rather share our experience, strength and hope. We do not bring into the meeting non-Conference Approved Literature (CAL), therapy, or discussion of other 12-step groups. We keep the focus on us and not on the alcoholic. In this way we help one another in Al-Anon.

Online we tend to use acronyms and symbols quite a bit, such as: : - ) for a smile or <G> for grin or <VBG> for very big grin. We'll try to explain the acronyms and symbols as we go along, but we may forget, so please feel free to ask. We encourage all our members to visit the Members only web page often for general updates, business updates or to volunteer for a service position (please do not give this address out; it is only for members of A Serenity Place):

http://www.asp-afg.org/ASP/MembersOnly/index.htm

If you have any questions at all, please ask the Greeting Committee.

Again, welcome to A Serenity Place. We're glad you're here!

Love & Hugs,

[greeter's name]
[greeter's e-mail address]

Revised: 05/18/08