A.A.'s Country-wide News Circuit

Representing several thousand years of individual sobriety, more anniversaries are reported to the A.A. Grapevine. The 350 A.A.s who attended the sixth anniversary dinner at the San Diego Club, San Diego, Cal., heard the founder of the Group, a friend from Los Angeles and two men who aided the club in its start. San Diego also reports two new Groups, North Park and Down Town Study, and a celebration of "Goblin Night" by the Dry Mates. Changing from the banquets in honor of one-year members, formerly held twice a year, The Alano Society of Minneapolis, Minn. gave double significance by combining it with the Founders' Day Banquet to be held each year. The sixth anniversary dinner was held at the Nicollet hotel on November 16. Columbus, O., Groups gathered on a Sunday afternoon last month in the grand ballroom of the Neil house where 750 A.A.s and guests celebrated the fifth anniversary. A Columbus member gave a short history of the founding and growth and then introduced a Cleveland doctor who was the principal speaker. Following the meeting there was a social hour and banquet. Guests included invited members of the clergy, medical profession, judiciary, social workers, welfare workers and public health representatives. The South Bend, Ind., Tribune devoted more than a column and a half to an account of how more than 200 from 10 cities gathered there and "gave evidence of the miracle which had been performed." This dinner, the third anniversary, drew representatives from South Bend, Mishawaka, Elkhart, Laporte, Warsaw, Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne, Ind., Benton Harbor and Kalamazoo, Mich., and Chicago. The speaker said, "The secret of A.A. is the technique of surrender. We surrendered ourselves to victory." The newspaper concluded the account by listing the postoffice boxes of the groups for those desiring information.