On May 1, 2023, the Central Ohio OnLine Alcoholics Anonymous (COOLAA) Intergroup began serving the online-only groups of Area 53. This new service entity is registered with G.S.O. as an Intergroup for online-only Area 53 groups that are registered with G.S.O. This is the first online Intergroup within the United States-Canada General Service Structure to be registered and recognized by G.S.O.
Initially, the new Intergroup will provide only one service, a meeting list of online-only registered A.A. Groups that is connected to the Meeting Guide App. This assures that all meetings of A.A. Groups that are recognized by G.S.O. as Area 53 Groups will be available in The Meeting Guide
App, the now universally recognized best source of A.A. meeting information.
Membership in COOLAA Intergroup will not be available to all online meetings, only those groups that are registered with G.S.O. as Virtual Area 53 Groups. The act of registering serves as a group’s declaration that it is a local, not an international, A.A. online group. This distinction
between Area-based and International online groups was created by an Advisory Action of the 71st General Service Conference to “recognize online groups and encourage their participation, listing those groups who ask to be listed within the group’s preferred district and area... which supersedes the 1997 Advisory Action that designated online groups as ‘International Correspondence Meetings.’”
The COOLAA Intergroup meeting list will necessarily be small in number, more like a District than an Area website. There are currently about thirty groups that potentially qualify for membership. COOLAA Intergroup will not include hybrid groups because these are already listed in the Meeting Guide App through the other four Area 53 Intergroups.
The initial action of the new Intergroup will be to reach out to the qualified groups to encouragethem to register with G.S.O. and join COOLAA so their meeting(s) can be included in theMeeting Guide App. The planned actions are those associated with lighting up a dark district.
For more information, visit the Intergroup’s website, https://coolaa.000webhostapp.com, where you can find the existing meeting list, information on how to apply for membership, a link with instructions/forms to register with G.S.O., and email and phone contact information. Please pass this information along to any online-only meetings you think might be interested.
The Central Ohio OnLine Alcoholics Anonymous Intergroup is grateful to have the opportunity to complement the work of the four existing Area 53 Intergroups so it can be said that:
No matter how someone reaches out to A.A., whether in person or online, the Area 53 hand of A.A. can now be found in the Meeting Guide App.
