Development Team
March 27, 2024
OASV Newsletter: March 2024
Please take the OASV Survey to Let Us know – Will You Attend an In-Person Meeting?
OASV Intergroup Wants to Know!
We would like to know if you would be interested in attending an in-person Overeater’s Anonymous meeting in Santa Clara County, or if you are content to continue attending our various OASV meetings online. What would you prefer? Please take our survey (find the link below) to help us better meet your needs.
If you are not located in Santa Clara County, or unwilling to travel to this county for your in-person OA meetings, we ask that you not participate in this survey as that would skew the final results. However, we would like to encourage you to join us for our our online meetings and hope you will enjoy them as much as we do! We are simply hoping to get to know the needs of our local members so we may better serve them.
Thank you for your understanding. Click here to take the survey.
Are You Available and Ready to do Service?
If you are ready to serve, we have great need for OA members who are interested in being of service. Service is the BEST way to help ensure continued abstinence, as well as to give back what has been so freely given to you.
Check here regularly for open positions on the OASV Intergroup.
If there is an already filled role that is of interest to you, please keep in mind that we do rotate service positions regularly. Sometimes we find that changes in health, living situations, or other circumstances create a sudden service opening that may need to be quickly filled. Please make sure to let the OASV Intergroup Chair know of your interest in any position! Be sure to email your name, contact number, and the name of the service role that interests you, so that OASV Intergroup knows to give you a call should the need arise.
OASV Intergroup is always looking for alternates and has the need for ‘backup’ service people, such as when an illness or vacation arises. You are always welcome to attend an Intergroup monthly meeting to check out what we do and to learn a bit about the various demands and responsibilities of any position which may interest you. This is always a wise thing to do prior to assuming any service role!
Be Sure to Register for the OASV Annual Spring Retreat
Our upcoming OASV retreat will take place April 19-21, 2024. This year’s theme is “Eye of the Beholder: Through Whose Eyes Do You See Your Body?” A Body Image Workshop.
This will be an in-person retreat – no online or hybrid options available at this time. To register, please click here!
Our annual retreat is held at the Villa Maria Del Mar Retreat Center in Santa Cruz, California. It is a beautiful and restful retreat center located oceanside with a lovely beach to enjoy, ideal for taking a pleasant stroll during the various breaks of the day, or to sit and meditate as the waves gently crash on the shoreline.
To have any of your issues, concerns, or questions addressed regarding this annual retreat, please send email to: oaserenityretreat@gmail.com.
It’s that time again for the annual Overeaters Anonymous World Service Business Conference:
WHEN:
May 7-11, 2024
WHERE:
Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid North
5151 San Francisco Road NE
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87109 USA
NEW REGISTRATION DEADLINE: March 27, 2024 (No virtual attendance. In-person only!)
If you are interested in reviewing the 2023 World Service Business Conference (WSBC) Wrap-Up Report, please visit our Delegate Role web page for complete details.
If you have any questions about this report or would be interested in serving as a Delegate for OASV, please send email to: wsbcdelegate@oasv.org.
To view or download this year’s WSBC report on the group conscience voting results by the 125 Intergroups regarding proposed new OA Motions and Bylaws that will be discussed at the upcoming WSBC in May 2024, please click here.
R2 OA Convention
Be sure to sign up for the R2 OA Convention taking place on July 12-14, 2024 in Sacramento, California (virtual and in-person options)
For further details, click here. To download a flyer with active links for your personal use or for sharing at in-person meetings, click here.
The Latest News from OA World Service – Take the Recovery Survey Today!
Please make certain to complete a recent survey put out by our World Service Organization entitled, “What Works for You?”
The Board Approved Literature (BAL) Committee is revising a piece of literature on the topic of what recovery actions are most helpful to our members. Your answers to this survey will provide very valuable insights for this express purpose.
Remember that OA honors anonymity, so feel free to openly share your experience of what works for you and how you work the OA program. Individual responses will be kept anonymous. The survey responses will be reviewed in the aggregate with a plan for the survey findings to be shared at the World Service Business Conference in May of 2024. Take the survey here.
While this survey is in English, we encourage service bodies to help non-English-speaking members with translation to complete the survey.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This survey is open until June 15, 2024. Thank you for sharing your recovery experiences with us. Your openness and honesty is greatly appreciated!
New Letter Template: To Healthcare Educators & Their Students
To help OA members serving on local PI/PO Committees, OA World Service has just released a new letter template, titled, “Assisting Medical and Health Care Students and Professionals.” This letter assists OA service bodies around the globe to more successfully approach and engage with institutions of higher health care learning, particularly around making arrangements for any interested doctor, nurse, counselor, and/or other healthcare professional-in-training to view a free presentation about OA and its Twelve Step recovery program.
In addition to the letter template, the document includes suggestions and links to such important outreach tools as the OA Public Information and Professional Outreach Service Manual and Guidelines for Professional Outreach Committees as well as a privacy disclaimer.
SERVICE OPPORTUNITY: If you are interested in serving as a member of the OASV PI/PO Committee, please send email to publicinformation@oasv.org. We are in urgent need of committee members who can help with public and professional outreach as well as assist at OA information tables at health fairs and other special public events whenever and wherever OA may have a table that needs staffing or a presentation that needs to be delivered.
To learn more about how OA works with professionals, please visit: https://oasv.org/
To gain a better understanding of PI/PO committee work, visit: https://oasv.org/pi-po-
NEW e-book from OA: PI/PO Service Manual
The recently released Public Information and Professional Outreach Service Manual is now available as an e-book for the PIPO committee member on the go!
This newly updated manual contains comprehensive instructions and recommendations for outreach activities, including suggestions for writing press releases, bringing the message of OA to correctional facilities, engaging with health professionals, reaching out to the military, giving interviews to local news sources while protecting anonymity, and more. Our past OASV PI/PO Coordinator has many helpful OA presentations, outreach templates, key county contacts, and more to share with anyone who is interested in doing PI/PO service to carry the message to the media, general public, professionals, and students in the professions.
You can find the e-book link on the Public Information and Professional Outreach Service Manual product page in our bookstore, or you may find it through Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, or Apple Books. It’s an essential guide for PI/PO committee coordinators and members. Be sure to purchase and download it today!
OASV Website Seeks to Share the OA Program of Recovery with the World
Please help get the word out about all the wonderful content available on our OASV website by sharing this March 2024 Newsletter and the following links with anyone who has interest, but especially those individuals who might find value in learning more about our Twelve Step program of recovery from compulsive eating, poor body image, and all manner of food addictions – OA has a design for living that really works!
For non-English speakers, OASV offers the language translation of your choice – look for the language options icon in the lower left corner of the website and click on your preferred language!
- VISIT OUR RECENTLY ADDED SECTION: News & Science
- How to Get Started in Overeaters Anonymous
- Are you a Compulsive Eater?
- Get Inspired! (Stories – Poetry – Art – Humor)
- OA Slogans: All About Abstinence – Be sure to check out the featured presentation from OA on abstinence!
- Listen to a Podcast
- Attend a Recorded Workshop
- Check out Our OASV Blogs
- Get into Service – Open Positions
- Are you Concerned About a Compulsive Eater?
- Introduce OA to a Professional
- Looking for a Meeting?
Looking for Recovery Inspiration – Check out the OASV Blog!
If you’re looking for recovery inspiration or wanting to learn more about OA members and their unique experiences, strength, and hope (ESH), then check out our most recent blogs on the OASV home page (to view them, scroll down towards the bottom of the home page) or link directly through to the blog archive (known as The Chronicle).
Below you’ll find some quick links to our most recent blogs for your reading pleasure. Please be sure to share these with anyone who may need some support, encouragement, and inspiration!
Still looking for your “happily ever after” weight-loss fairytale, and wondering if it’s at all possible?
Well, be sure to check out this wonderful blog by an OA member in Mountain View, California, who shares how working the Twelve Steps, practicing acceptance, and living life on life’s terms has given her a happily ever after inside… in spite of… no matter what!
Trending Today: Weight Loss/Appetite Control Injections – What Works Best for OA Members
Today’s media, more than ever, is talking a LOT about weight loss, appetite control, and new “miracle” medications that promise a great deal – but do they actually deliver the things we OA member have come to value – things like the gift of abstinence, food neutrality, a healthy body, and peace of mind? Check out the blog below to learn more about this timely topic.
Going Viral – Top OASV Blog Posts:
BRAND NEW WEB PAGE: Healthy Eating
OASV has just launched a brand new web content intended to be reflective of our members various plans of eating entitled, Healthy Eating. It will come to contain and reflect various plans of eating together with a collection of member shared recipes.
Although this is but one new post, we want to grow this section of our website and invite you to submit some of your favorite abstinent recipes to webmaster@oasv.org, along with a brief description of your plan of eating (and/or a bit about how you came to join OA) so that other members can come to appreciate the diversity and growing options for abstinent eating.
Be sure to share your most delicious and nutritious, whole and healthy abstinent recipes with us so that all may know that living as an abstinent member of OA doesn’t mean starving yourself, following a restrictive or bland diet, counting calories, or making separate food for others in your household or when any ‘normies’ (non-OA members or ‘normal eaters’) come to visit.
Given we each determine our own particular plan of eating with the aid of our sponsors and the guidance provided by the Higher Power of our own choosing, some of these recipes may not meet your unique needs or reflect your personal “nonalcoholic” or “greenlight” foods. They are, however, provided here as examples of what abstinent members are preparing, eating, and sharing with their families and friends as a daily part of their OA Twelve Step recovery.
Help OASV Make this Newsletter Meet Your Needs – Share Your Thoughts and Suggestions with Us!
At OASV intergroup, we hope to make this newsletter something you will want to read regular for its useful OA recovery information and insightful content. OA is a ‘WE’ program and so we are asking you to help us make this newsletter the best of the best in OA. Should you have something you would like to contribute to a future OASV newsletter – recovery art, poetry, an OA story, a slogan, a favorite recipe with a bit of your story, or something special shared with you by a fellow OA member or your sponsor – then please be sure to send email to info@OASV.org by 4pm the last Monday of the month. Your feedback to this first Newsletter of 2024, and any suggestions, special contributions, or unique ideas for future issues, is greatly appreciated!
OASV Intergroup is Making the Most of RSS
If you’ve ever wanted to find a way to be able to easily gather and view everything you might need or want to know about OA, recovery from compulsive eating, or the Silicon Valley Intergroup, then you’re going to love this! Rather than wander all over the internet trying to get the latest OA recovery news and events from all of your favorite websites, blogs, or podcasts, you can automatically enjoy this OASV Newsletter thanks to its RSS feed capabilities.
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It refers to files easily read by a computer called XML files that automatically update information. To learn more about RSS and why RSS is so useful, please click here.
This Newsletter is RSS enabled. What that means is more people all around the world who use RSS to find information about compulsive eating, how to stop binge eating or restricting, and what to do about food cravings and food obsession, will come to discover this newsletter automatically within their RSS news feed.
To get your own RSS feed for any internet-enabled mobile device or for your home computer, please click here.
Gentle Reminder: Seventh Tradition Contributions Have Dropped – Please Contribute if You are Able!
This past month (February 2024), our Treasurer reported a modest $60 in Seventh Tradition contributions per the OASV Intergroup Treasury Report. This is down considerably from previous months, and reveals a serious decline upon examination of our contributions for the exact same month year over year.
If you are able to contribute, please be sure to send your monthly meeting contributions to Intergroup via mail or you may contribute via PayPal located on the OASV website home page.
Recurring contributions are especially welcome and encouraged to ensure our continued financial wellness, allow OASV to offer expanded numbers of meetings, events, and web content, and so our Intergroup may contribute its fair share to Region 2 as well as to the World Service Organization (WSO) to carry our message of hope to the still suffering compulsive eater.
Please mail any checks made out to “OASV Intergroup” and address them as follows:
OASV Intergroup
P.O. Box 5603 San Jose,
CA 95150 (USA)
Your generous contributions are greatly appreciated as they help us better serve our current members and also reach out to the still suffering compulsive eater!
Never forget: WE GET BETTER TOGETHER!
