Chairing a meeting

[drewi2009]

Any one have any experience chairing a meeting and all hell breaks loose?
What do you do?
How do you regain control?
Or how do you stop someone from a 15 minute rambling?
just curious to see who out there has done this and how.

[Dallas]

[quote="drewi2009":spam]Any one have any experience chairing a meeting and all hell breaks loose?
What do you do?
How do you regain control?[/quote:spam]

Just toss their butts out!

If you want to see a meeting where all kinds of big-time hell breaks out... to go one of those AA business meetings for a club house!

I learned not to go to meetings where it was subject to all hell breaking loose... I looked for the one's that had structure, discipline, recovery, and long-time sobriety.

I did enough fighting in the bars... I was ready for some peace by the time I got to AA.

Dallas

[GeoffS]

To stop 15 minute ramblings try something like -

"I need to stop you there, good to hear you, but we need to make time for other members to share, perhaps we can talk after the meeting."

As for all hell breaking loose, you don't have to wait until the end to use the serenity prayer for the group.

[Danni]

I'm with Dallas on this one. I don't go to meetings that do not have structure, sanity, recovery and discipline. Those are the things that I seek to have in my life. When a meeting runs wild it's time for me to run to another meeting and not keep going back to the wild meeting. I want long-term sobriety so I try to do what people that have long-term quality sobriety do.

Danni

[gunner48]

There is a great AA pamplet called the AA GROUP. Talks some on chairing. Your group conscience should address the problem within the group. It is not your duty to fix the problem but it is to bring this before the group for a solution. Try it. If I am a member of a sick group I try to resolve problems within the group. If others are happy the way things are then I might consider a different meeting.
I attend a meeting in Sweet Springs Mo on Tuesday that is recovery dedicated. The average soberity in the group is about 20 years. We have from a few days to 44 years attend on a regular basis.
Hope your group learns and grows in a positive direction