A CONVERSATION ON PI

Special thanks to Donna S. at Dallas Metroplex for her Feedback and Input.  Responses from Beth M., Tucson.  Do you want to add something to the PI area on the web?  Please send inputs to Beth M

Here is a brief rundown of the PI activities for the Dallas Metroplex Intergroup for the last six months. Slow but steady -- A booth at Nortel's wellness fair; newspaper listings for Unity Day, 20-minute presentation to the medical staff of a large Dallas OB-GYN clinic. Presented literature to a local family practice clinic. Contacted a representative at a local hospital and delivered literature to their community wellness center which also houses the diabetes education center. Have been asked to contact them again in September to possibly start a new meeting in one of the hospital classrooms as well as supply information at their booths at wellness fairs in coming months.

My next goal is to recruit a committee. One of the more difficult tasks is getting listings of meetings in local newspapers and the large paper, the Dallas Morning News. It is "space available," and OA never seems to get the space available. Any suggestions? First, a question, do you have statistics for relapse in OA as compared to relapse outside of OA? I thought I remembered something that OA had the best recovery/relapse percentage. Outside contacts want to see results, and since we cannot show "before and after" pictures, some favorable statistics would greatly help my pitch to the media and others. Additionally, in my opinion, OA is the ONLY method to arrest the cravings. As I said when I last spoke to a large OB-GYN doctors group, " You can re-route the food in the gut, but what are you going to do about the cravings?"

I do not have statistics on relapse in OA as compared to that outside OA. That would be very interesting.  I find that the online calendars for Tucson at least always accept our meeting announcements. We haven’t tried to put things in the the hard copy newspapers, but advertise from time to time when we hold a public information day.  These by the way rarely get more than a handful of people here. We have a must better response from putting meetings in the online calendars.

Some things that have been successful in Dallas - OA members talking to their private physicians and counselors about OA and giving them literature for their waiting rooms and to give to other professionals that the doctor knows. - Having meetings located in hospitals.

Thanks for the feedback about talking to Doctors, displaying literature and having meetings in Hospitals. That’s a great idea. We’ve been doing something similar in Tucson. We have at least one OA meeting in Tucson in a hospital but I don’t have a feel for how visible it is there.  

Here are some things that have put a crimp in the PI function at DMI -- There is one major newspaper in the Dallas Area. The Dallas Morning News does not seem to want to include OA listings in its space available "Community Calendar." The Dallas Morning News ""Healthy Living" weekly special section about lifestyle, health, weight, etc. has never responded to requests from me to be listed or to run a story. They basically said buying an ad is the only way they would put us in. Email requests to TV stations online health or weight related links -- I have never received a response. However, the same TV online has links to weight loss surgery doctors.

I cannot believe you cannot even get in the calendar for the Dallas Morning News.  That is crazy.  Do they have an online calendar you could post in?  Regarding dead responses to requests for PSI’s, I had the same response except from our ‘Dandy Dime’ that has put free notices in for us.

World Service has some great literature and CD's, however, funding at the DMI level is tight, so I have been reluctant to make a big purchase to blitz the media if it is going to go nowhere. If you could maybe suggest one CD and one piece of literature that has had a lot of success, I might take that back to the next Intergroup meeting and get the purchase approved. Also if there is WSO funding for Intergroups to do outreach, please put our hat in the ring.

Regarding funding for PI endeavors: I recently applied to receive funding to present an exhibit at a national PEAO (Physician’s Assistant something, something) organization that will meet in Tucson in October.  These types of large professional conferences have available funding from WSO.  I don’t have any opinion on what is best to put in the packets, but we have used neon half envelopes (#10 envelope sealed and cut in half) with an OA label and the OA logo (requires permission from WSO- permission form on the web) with out answering service phone and web address underneath.  Inside the half envelope we place 15 questions, More about OA and Compulsive Eating, an Insider’s View, along with our current meeting list.  The questions and More about OA are quite inexpensive.  We have posted these at the university recreation center, in the campus health office, and do mailings to medical and psychological professionals, as well as treatment centers and public health offices.

Thanks so much for your feedback. You are one of only two responses I have received to my request for what works/what doesn’t.  I think I had kind of almost lost interest in the project. I will post your questions and my responses on the web (you will remain anonymous unless you don’t mind releasing your info for the posting.