The following is from an article written in Box 459, News and Notes from the General Service Office of A.A. Vol.48, No.1/February-March 2002.

A Lot of History Enlightens Work of
Intergroup/
Central Offices Today

A.A. co-founder Bill W. considered Intergroups essential to “the panorama of A.A. in action.” Fifty years ago, in the November 1951 issue of the Grapevine, he said bluntly that “intergroups do those area chores that no single individual or group could. They unify regions; they make A.A. tick.”
(The Language of the Heart, p. 133)

Both Bill and his fellow A.A. co-founder, Dr. Bob,
saw the early need for the development of intergroups, which have been around almost as long as A.A. itself. So when about 100 representatives of intergroups and central offices across the U.S./Canada gathered at the 16th Annual Central Office/Intergroup Seminar in
Edmonton, Alberta, last September for shoptalk and fellowship, they were aware that the effectiveness of their own operations owed much to the trials, tribulations and collective sharing of their predecessors. As Jan D., manager of the Edmonton, Alberta, Intergroup that hosted the seminar, points out, “Nothing in A.A. today is original. Everything we know anddo came from our predecessors, whether the Oxford Group, or intergroup/central office workers who came before and shared freely of their spiritual experiences and solutions
gained the hard way.”

In the beginning there was the Central Committee in Cleveland, Ohio, where by October 1939—hardly more than four years after Bill and Dr. Bob first met—a committee of seven was meeting once a month “to coordinate efforts regarding hospitalizations and sponsorship.”
Dr. Bob was not only a supporter but an
active participant, according to fellow Akron member Dan K. “Doc used to play an important part in the Central Committee,” Dan observed, and the going could get rough: “During the meeting, sometimes, the words would fly like you were in a barroom.”
 One time,he related, “Dr. Bob stood up,
hushed the crowd and said, “Gentlemen, please. We’re still members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Let’s carry the principles of A.A. into these business meetings. You are servants of your group, here to take the ideas formulated by the committee. Let one man talk at a time, and let us conduct this business meeting as a service to the Lord and a service to our fellow members. . . .’ After that, we had no more brawls when Dr. Bob was around.”
 (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, pp. 288-89)

Another early intergroup sprang up in Chicago,
where an A.A. named Sylvia used her $700 monthly alimony checks to rent an apartment in the suburb of Evanston, where the first A.A. meeting in the area was held in 1939. The phone was so busy that nonalcoholic Grace Cultice, Sylvia’s personal secretary, rapidly evolved into an A.A. girl Friday. By 1941, after publication of the Jack Alexander Saturday Evening Post article about A.A., Sylvia’s place “became something of a Chicago Grand Central,”

Bill W. affirmed in A.A. Comes of Age (p. 23), and something had to be done. So [the A.A.s] rented a one-room office in the Loop, where, Bill
wrote, “Grace was installed to direct the stream of applicants for Twelfth Step attention, hospitalization, or other help. This was A.A.’s first organized local service center” . . . followed by New York City in 1942, which was then operating out of a clubhouse on Manhattan’s West 24th Street.

A Columbus, Ohio, intergroup started up in 1943, followed by the Los Angeles Central Office a year later.
“In those days A.A. wasn’t easy to find—and we kept it that way,” one oldtimer, sober since 1940, remembers.
“A carefully selected group of priests, judges and policemen knew about A.A.; our phone number wasn’t listed and could be gotten only from information. That way we knew that any newcomer who found us had generally made enough of an effort to guarantee the sincerity of his desire for sobriety.”

In 1946 the Twelve Traditions were published, and the Third Tradition— “The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking”—raised the level of tolerance by rendering subjective judgment superfluous when it came to who was sincere and who wasn’t.

Many service offices, such as those in Chicago and Los Angeles, have grown out of a phone number, listed as belonging to A.A., that was in a member’s home.
Some—in New York City, Newark, New Jersey, and Edmonton, to name a few—were outgrowths of A.A. clubhouses that had been set up as hubs for A.A. activity and social events. Sometimes the clubs served as distribution points for A.A. literature, then began providing
other services as well. Over time the service
operations became entities separate from the clubhouses.
In a surprising number of other localities—
notably in the Upper Midwest and in Canada—intergroups or central service committees were in existence (some still are) long before there were actual offices.

In Charleston, West Virginia, the term “intergoup” was first used in 1953. The association evolved directly from the first treatment center in the state, which was founded in 1944. It was called the Alcan Center, Inc., but was fondly referred to by locals as “the jitter joint.”

Before the first General Service Conference was held, in April 1951, at least 16 central offices/intergroups were serving local groups. Since they predated the formation of the General Service structure and performed a different function, they were not a part of the structure (except in Chicago, where the Area Service Office and Area Committee are essentially one). Sometimes over the
years there was some overlapping of services, especially when both entities were performing similar services, in Public Information for instance, but eventually, thanks to shared experience and better communication, inter-groups and General Service have pretty much come to work hand-in-glove. No one appreciated more than Bill W. the value of intergroups. Back in 1946 he exclaimed
in the June Grapevine, “Heaven has surely reserved a special place for every one of them.” Today there are approximately 1500 intergroup/central offices in the U.S. and Canada, including local answering services.

Intergroups and central offices are established and supported by local groups. Each intergroup is unique, reflecting the needs and wishes of its own community, and is responsible to the groups it serves.
Typically each participating group has an intergroup representative. These reps meet periodically to elect a steering committee, or board of directors, responsible for administering the office. They report back to the group
representatives who, in turn, keep their groups
informed. A continuing flow of communication is vital, because the groups give financial support of the office that services them.

At last September’s Seminar, the theme aptly
enough was “Networking.” Jan, who notes that the Edmonton Intergroup officially started up in 1950, reports that “we had many a fun time at the seminar, but we also rolled up our sleeves and candidly shared our problems, solutions and ideas with each other.” In a variety of stimulating workshops the participants— ncluding intergroup office managers and staff, along with a few trustees of the General Service Board and A.A.W.S. and Grapevine directors and staff—discussed subjects ranging from Twelfth Stepping,volunteer activity and office equipment needs to financial support and the dissemination of A.A. Conference-approved literature. This last is a particularly vital aspect of intergroup work, and all the offices are constantly looking for more efficient ways to deal with the vast amounts of
material they handle.
Dennis Manders, who served as A.A.’s nonalcoholic business administrator/controller from 1950-85, says that “the enormous growth in volume of A.A. publishing in the 1970s alone would not have been possible were it not for the work of the intergroups and central offices.” G.S.O., he explains, “had only to establish a network of warehouses from which to supply the local offices with literature in a timely fashion. It was this close partnership that led to the Intergroup Seminars as we know them today.” Jan reports that “the seminars encourage a strong sense of community and remind us that by networking freely all year long, by borrowing freely from each other’s experience, we can do ever more to help the alcoholic.” She notes that copies of the Final Report of the 2001 Seminar are available. To order, write: Jan D., Edmonton Central Office, 10010 - 107A Avenue N.W., Suite 206, Edmonton, AB T5H 4H8; (780) 424-5900; e-
mail edmontonaa@hotmail.com. A $10 contribution is requested to help  cover production and mailing costs.

The 17th Intergroup/Central Office Seminar was hosted by the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Central Office, September 27-29, 2002. For information, MaryLou M., Central Office, 239 Fourth Avenue,
Suite 713, Pittsburgh, PA 15222-1712; (412) 471-7472; or e-mail pghareaoff@aol.com.