Home Group Hosting

AA Home Group Hosting

$2/month gets your group online

Carrying the message online doesn't require special skills. If you know where and when your home group has meetings then you can have a website for your home group. Your domain name and a $2 per month gets you a website focused on the next newcomer.

What is this, and why?

When I first got sober it was hell to find a meeting. It seemed like every meeting I found was either cancelled or had moved. Online was even worse ... no easy format, a mysterious code with a legend that made no sense at all to me as an outsider looking in, and - again - damn lists were out of date! I gave up and drank more than once over it.

As a sober long-haul trucker it was almost as bad: I knew what the codes meant, and I knew about area groups, and I could even find what zip code I was in. BUT I sure couldn't tell if I was walking distance to a neighboring zip code. NO ONE made it easy to find a meeting!!!

That's what this is: a website maker that works for the newcomer and the travelling member to find meetings that happen to be nearby. "Meeting codes" are there, but - more importantly - Carrying The Message comes first.

Can my experience benefit others? I believe so!

How does this work? What do we do?

I could do this for my home group and be all "yay" about myself, but I'd like to light a thousand candles if I can.

Your home group will need a domain name (with domain privacy to protect anonymity), and you need to sign up for your free trial here. After you try it out, at your next group conscience meeting you will have to decide if you like this software or not. If your group decides "yes this is a good thing" then you pay a $2 per month (in advance, 12 month minimum), and I send you the info you need to point your domain to this hosting platform.

Don't worry about the technical stuff: I'm pretty good at walking people through the few bits you'll have to do after your group decides to go for it :)

It'll always be billed in US dollars. I figure paypal can handle currency conversions...

Some geeky details if you're into it ...

Your site will be powered primarily by bootstrap which gives us mobile-friendly straight out of the box. A wee bit of PHP coding, some MySQL data storage, and a sprinkling of jQuery and suddenly we got ourselves a website! In fact, we have a framework that works well for an AA group with a validation method and forms to add / edit site content.

Five forms to fill in info about your group: who you are, where you meeting, and - of course - your meeting schedule. You fill it in because you know all that stuff, this software turns it into a simple 2-page website that is designed entirely for your group's next member ... and the traveler looking for a meeting.

The coding can be expanded if need be, my server space is pre-paid through 2027. All your group has to do is decide to use it. So simple even an alcoholic who has recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body can do it ;)