What is Alano ?
In Accordance with A.A. , KC Group #1 created the Alano Society as a not-for-profit corporation which is totally separate from Alcoholics Anonymous. The society's purpose is to provide, manage and maintain physical facilities for the meeting and other activities of the Alcoholics Anonymous group KC Group #1, thus separating the spiritual from the material. We simply provide the place for KC Group #1 to meet and for the hall to be open between meetings.
And yet the Alano Society provides more to recovering alcoholics. Many alcoholics who come to us have lost all - home, family, job, finances, even self-respect. Some have no place to go but the streets. Our facility, by being open between the KC Group #1 meetings, provides these members of A.A. a place to come and relax, to recover, and to maintain their sobriety. The "hall" provides a place for the unemployed alcoholic to take a sober break on the way to gainful employment. It provides a place for the retired alcoholic to render service and enjoy the company of other recovering alcoholics.
It provides a place for those in distress to see a solution when the nearest meeting may be hours away. It provides a place for those who have lost the ability to enjoy a social life to form relationships within the fellowship which will sustain them as they set about rebuilding their lives in sobriety. Many "longtimers" have been blessed with a total reconstruction of their lives, but they remember when they were less fortunate and are comforted by the knowledge that the "Hall" is there for them should disaster strike.
The "Hall" is many things to many alcoholics. And the Alano Society makes this possible. The voluntary dues of Society members helps to pay for the building, the utilities, the desk and phones, and the many other costs associated with keeping an A.A. club open for those members who need it.
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Problems of money, property, and authority may easily divert us from our primary spiritual aim. We think, therefore, that any considerable property of genuine use to A.A., should be separately incorporated and managed, thus dividing the material from the spiritual. An A.A. group, as such should never go into business.
Secondary aids to A.A., such as clubs or hospitals which require much property or administration, ought to be incorporated and so set apart that, if necessary, they can be freely discarded by the groups. Hence such facilities ought not to use the A.A. name. Their management should be the sole responsibility of those people who financially support them. For clubs, A.A. managers are usually preferred.
But hospitals, as well as other places of recuperation, ought to be well outside A.A. - and medically supervised. While an A.A. group may cooperate with anyone, such cooperation ought never to go so far as affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied. An A.A. group can bind itself to no one.
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