The original Melbourne AA Steps Weekends were held between in 2005 and 2009.
How did it come about?
There was a bunch of AA members from various groups at a Dandenong Steps for Beginners meeting in February 2005. One of the members, Baba, suggested that he would like to hold an AA convention about the AA steps and knew of a venue in the city that could be used.
So a committee of experienced and enthusiastic members was formed on the spot – Chris from the Steps in St Kilda Group, Darryl from the Triangle Group, Glenys, Baba and Cherri from the Dandenong Steps for Beginners Group and David from the City Group.
The first Melbourne AA Steps Weekend was held 3 months later on the last weekend in May 2005. The opening night speaker was Don B.
The following year, because of the success of the first, the weekend moved to a new, bigger venue at the Victoria University Conference Centre in Flinders St. The opening night speaker was again Don B.
The next year a new bunch of members got involved who were keen to bring out a guest speaker from the US. They enabled us to invite Myers R from Texas in 2007 and then Nancy M from Minnesota in 2008. In 2009, our guest speakers were both indigenous Australians – Lillian H from Adelaide and Stan Y from Melbourne.
After 5 very successful years, it was decided not to continue the event – the original members that were still on the committee needed to move on (in the spirit of rotation) and closing down the event now paves the way for some other members to create some new event(s) to carry the 12 Step message in Melbourne.
Then in 2015, the Working With Others AA Group in Heidelberg started up the event again. Let’s hope it continues for many years.
David