History of virtual meetings in Nar-Anon

The purpose or this webpage is to document the evolution of virtual Nar-Anon groups. Many are not aware there is a history of online/virtual meetings in Nar-Anon before COVID. What I am sharing here is based on what I think I heard members say - so it might not be entirely accurate. If you have better information, please share it so I can make corrections and updates.

Around 2012 groups in Russia began to use Skype for meetings. Many communities and many members are physically isolated because of the vast size of the country. It took time and experimentation to create the organizational structure they now use.

Virtual groups in Russia now belong to a region of virtual groups. Their preferred communication tool is Skype. Members who want to join a group first send an email to the group. The Skype coordinator then adds the newcomer to the Skype call list. When it is time for a meeting to open, the Skype coordinator initiates the call, and makes an outbound call to everyone on the call list. Members can then accept the call, and join the meeting.

Around 2014 a group in Maryland began a teleconference group. Their group ID is CC-001 - which stands for “conference call group number one.” Today they use Free Conference Call, which offers both teleconference and online versions.

Around 2017 a group in San Francisco began experimenting with a hybrid format. Some members of their face-to-face group were not able to physically attend, so the group began offering a teleconference option to supplement their face-to-face meeting.

With the arrival of COVID in 2020, groups all over the world suddenly went online or virtual and we needed new ways to describe these group formats.

• Face-to-Face - a group that has a physical meeting.

• Teleconference - a virtual group that meets over the telephone.

• Online - a virtual group that uses an internet service for their meetings.

• Virtual - a phrase picked to include both teleconference and online.

• Hybrid - a group that meets face-to-face and has a simultaneous virtual connection.

• Temporary Virtual - a group that is meeting virtually today but wants to return to face-to-face.

By mid-2020, most of the virtual groups listed on the world service website had been face-to-face meetings before COVID. They kept the same meeting format, elect the same group service positions, and retained pretty much the same membership they had before COVID. The one challenge each struggled with was the 7th Tradition. Some groups asked members to hold their weekly contribution until the group could meet face-to-face. Some groups asked members to mail a check to the group treasurer. Some groups asked members to contribute to their region or to world service instead of contributing to the group. Many regions responded to this by adding electronic payment to their websites.

As social distancing began extending, a new type of format was created.

• Purely Virtual - a group that is virtual today and plans to remain virtual permanently.

The Sunday Step Study was the first group to register with WSO as a purely virtual group. Others quickly followed and a new page was added to the world service website to list purely virtual groups.

The purely virtual groups have mostly evolved from existing organizational structures. Many were face-to-face groups that decided to sever their ties with physical meetings. Other groups were formed with support from their regions - United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Rocky Mountain are three examples. The Wednesday Mens’ Group might be the first purely virtual group formed without a home region.

The purely virtual groups had two new challenges. They need to be able to communicate with their members, and they need technical support within their group.

The Sunday Step Study group was the first to respond to the communications issue by creating a website dedicated to the group. The Wednesday Men’s group quickly followed. Other groups turned to their regional websites to share information about their group.

Some groups then began building email and telephone lists - similar to what face-to-face groups had done in the past.

When face-to-face groups first began moving online, many relied on a member’s personal account for an online service. The Rocky Mountain Region was among the first to respond to the COVID crises by arranging for a regional virtual meeting account. This created a new challenge. An individual account can be shared with others if the owner of the account are comfortable doing so. The question was how to both share access to the regional account and protect it at the same time. The Rocky Mountain daily group chose to select a small team of group members who all share access to the virtual meeting account. Eventually this evolved into an elected service position called “Host.” The hosts are responsible for administering the technology.

Around the same time, an ad hoc world service committee chose the phrase “Technical Moderator” to describe this service position. The Wednesday Men’s Group was the first to adopt this name for an elected service position.

By the summer of 2020 a new trend started with regions paying for an online service and then sharing it with multiple purely virtual groups. This provides continuity as members can join several different virtual groups always using the same meeting identifier. It also provides a pool of members who can fill in if the technical moderator for a group is unavailable.