The first annual Firecracker Round Up will be held at the Renaissance, Philadelphia Hotel Airport on the weekend  July 4 -7th. The marvelous list of speakers are Marty S, Dennis N, Pat Y, Vince Y, Billy N, Clancy I, Tom F, and Lebra N. There will be a Saturday night Banquet and Dances Friday and Saturday, and Marathon Meetings through the weekend. More information and the registration form are available on the links page. If you can't make the whole event, why not try to at least enjoy part of it, you'll be glad you did.

Area 59 and District 36 are sponsoring a Panel Discussion and Workshop on "Getting sober in your teens, and staying sober." on Sunday July 14, starting at @ 2 or 2:30PM. The event will be held at the Friendship Fire House, 171 Mount Joy Street, Elizabethtown. Jane S. L. (DCM for District #36) will be the panel chairperson; the panel members are Dave B from 19th Street and Mt Joy, Brian D from There's More to Life and Secretary of District #36, and John S from Out of the Dark. The three panel members all got sober in their teens and have a combined total of fifty-one years sober. This is a panel who have experience doing what they will be talking about. Directions: At the Elizabethtown Square, where Market St (Rt 230, Rt 743, and Rt 241) crosses High Street, turn left if coming from Harrisburg/Middletown/Hershey, or turn right if coming from Lancaster/Marietta/Mt Joy. Proceed three full blocks to Mount Joy Street and turn left - go a block and a half, and the fire house will be on the right. For questions or information, call (717)367-4985, before July 14th.

Mark your calendar for Saturday August 3rd so you remember the HAI 17th Annual Picnic at New Cumberland Borough Park. Get your tickets from your Intergroup Rep before July 11 so that a barbeque chicken will be waiting for you. There will be games for the kids, and for the adults. The doings begin at noon and clean up at 6:00PM. Bring dessert or salad if you'd like. Tickets will be available from your Intergroup Rep for $5.00 (Children are free). Barbeque chicken, hot dogs and hamburgers will be proffered. There will be an open discussion meeting at about 4:00PM. Bring a comfortable chair if you don't enjoy picnic benches. This is always a fun affair.

Keep in mind that PENNSCYPAA XIV will be held this year July 26-28th in Pittsburgh at the Ramada Plaza Suites & Conference Center at One Bigelow Square, Pittsburgh (In the Heart of Downtown). The handle for the conference will be ROCKETED INTO A 4th DIMENSION. This conference is always enjoyable for those who are able to not take themselves too seriously. Tickets will be $15, and rooms run from $90 per night. The flyer and registration form are available on the links page, you can click on the logo at the left, and print at 135%. New and lasting friendships have been formed at previous PENNSCYPAAs and the speakers and workshops have always been stimulating. If more information becomes available it will be shared in the future.

The 9th Annual Pennsylvania State AA Convention, "Release from care, boredom, and worry" will be held August 2-4. At the Clarion Hotel and Convention Center in Carlisle there will be alcothons, speaker meetings, discussion meetings, AA entertainment, banquet, dance, indoor pool, etc. They plan a scenic motorcycle ride, golf, and midnight bowling for those who want to participate. Registration is $15 (banquet, buffet breakfast and other activities extra). Click on the logo at left for the hotel and conference registration forms. Sounds like fun.



The 5th Annual Sunlight of the Spirit Conference at the York Holiday Inn will be here before you know it. Avoid the disappointment of finding it's already filled and register now. The hotel reservation cutoff date is July 25th. You can get the registration form from the links page, or by clicking on the picture.
     The speakers begin on Friday August 16th at 8:30PM with Dave D from Alexandria Virginia. Sharing her enthusiastic 50 years of experience in recovery will be Liz B at 9:30AM on Saturday morning, August 17th. At 11:30AM Saturday will be Dennis N from Charlotte, NC with his message of powerlessness and of recovery. Karen G from Venice, CA will thrill us at 3:30PM and Saturday will wind down with Don M from Louisville, KY and his powerful story. This Conference is always an excellent enthusiasm stimulator.
     If you don't have internet access, you can call Bill or Linda M at (717)741-9021, or there is still time to write to SOS Conference, PO Box 3538, York, PA, for a registration form.

The Intergroup Bookstore at 19th Street is still open Saturdays from 10:00AM till 11:00 AM for Groups to restock their literature cabinets with books and pamphlets.

*Many of the above have Flyers on the http://www.aaharrisburg.org/links.htm page. Some of these provide additional information. If you wish to print copies of the flyers, be aware that to reduce the enormous file size of scanned flyers for transmission on the internet, the physical size rather than resolution has been reduced. Therefore, to print you should adjust the print size of the document using whatever program your system uses to view these files (not the printer icon on your toolbar). It may take 30 seconds or so to download, so be patient.

The dance at Fellowship House on 19th Street is held on the third Saturday each month, starting at 8:30PM. It costs only $3.00 for adults, and please, no children under age eleven. Isolation is not a good alternative to enjoying the fellowship of dance. Come and have a good time.

Trying times are not the time to stop trying.

1. Honestly now, do I do all I can to help AA (my group, my central office, my  

    GSO) remain self-supporting? Could I put a little more into the basket on

    behalf of the new guy who can’t afford it yet? How generous was I when I  

    was tanked in a barroom?

2. Should the Grapevine sell advertising space to book publishers and drug 

    companies, so it could make a big profit and become a bigger magazine, in

    full color, at a cheaper price per copy?

3. If GSO runs short of funds some year, wouldn’t it be okay to let the 

    government subsidize AA groups in hospitals and prisons?

4. Is it more important to get a big AA collection from a few people, or a smaller 

     collection in which more members participate?

5. Is a group treasurer’s report unimportant AA business? How does the   

    treasurer feel about it?

6. How important in my recovery is the feeling of self-respect, rather than the

    feeling of being always under obligation for charity received?

Just For Today

July Speakers
The Friday 8:30PM speaker meetings for the 19th Street Group for July 5, Jim G; July 12, Phil R, July19, James C; and July 26 is Anniversary Night. The Sunday 8PM Bridge Street speakers are: July 7, Kevin A from the Ain't You Had Enough Group; June 14, Julie M from There's More to Life; July 21, Hilary M from Sober, Sane, and Serene of Elizabethtown; July 28, Lois S from Bridge Street; and August 4th, Louis A from Elizabethtown. The July 6 speaker at Hershey will be Jane L from the Hershey Group and the speakers for August 3rd are Cheryl H and Bob H from Middletown. The Middletown Survivors speakers for July 18 to be announced and for July 25 will be Alice H.

Service to another Alcoholic
We can only stay sober ourselves by reaching out to another alcoholic. We can do that by getting our home group to volunteer for a particular 2 hour period each week, allowing group members a brief opportunity to answer the central office hotline. This will also provide the cell phone operator a two hour break which allows planning those things like going out in public where it is quite inconvenient to answer the phone (to say nothing of damaging to anonymity).
     You can help assure that help is available for the suffering alcoholic, alcoholics needing meeting schedule information, literature, or other assistance by volunteering to operate the central office hotline, or by getting your group to take the cell phone for a month. Why not give Tina H a call at home (238-3545), or Email (spicee308@aol.com), or you can volunteer through your Intergroup Rep. Central Office needs phone volunteers to handle the phone during the day to help reduce the burden on the cell phone volunteer. This is rewarding service work, and Central Office hours are pretty flexible.

You can't direct the wind,
But you can adjust your sails.

JUNE Intergroup Meeting
Craig introduced Tom K as the new member of the Archives Committee - Welcome aboard Tom. Ted C reported that the Perry County Prison meetings are going well but more volunteers for prison meetings would help. The State Hospital meetings were covered in June by 40th Street, Carlisle Area will visit during July, and Out of The Dark will attend in August. The 19th Street Group volunteered to answer the Cell Phone during June, the Women's Serenity Group will cover in July.  Groups represented at the May meeting were 19th Street, 40th Street, Ain't You Had Enough, Bridge Street, It Works, Joy of Living, Keep It Simple, Millersburg, Progress, Rule 62, Survivors, There's More To Life, Trudgers, Up the Creek, Winding It Up, and Women's Serenity Groups.

STEPS = Solutions To Every Problem In Sobriety

Groups Continue Supporting Intergroup
Information about the amount and groups contributing to the Intergroup Fund during June was not available at press time. Our Treasurer was hospitalized for knee surgery for a few days and will have the names and figure's a few days late for publication. We all wish Troy a speedy recovery and will check the website in a few days, or attend the Intergroup meeting July 11 to get the amount of the June contributions. Of course, we still would like to thank all the groups and members who continue to donate time toward Intergroup's activities. These activities include speaker meetings, picnics, men and women's prison meetings, Internet Website, meeting schedules, literature, the AA Hotline, and the many other vital AA functions that help alcoholics recover in our community. Intergroup performs those services for our community which no single group is prepared to handle, and it coordinates activities between the 56 groups it serves. Remember that we can do together what none of us could do alone.

SOBRIETY NEWS  
Is published monthly, and is usually available on the website the Tuesday night before the first Thursday of each month, so paper copies can be distributed to Reps at the Intergroup meeting. You can locate this newsletter, as well as lots of other stuff that would interest members of groups belonging to the Harrisburg Area Intergroup, at http://www.aaharrisburg.org