Subject: VolunteerCONNECTION - June 2021

Updates and announcements for the volunteer community.

This month's issue includes:

  • Submitting Holiday Meeting Changes

  • Reviewing Your Face-to-Face/Local Online Meeting Listing

  • Helpful Hints

  • Your Pass-the-Hat Script

  • Virtual National Conference

  • May Recap

  • Meetings of Interest for Volunteers

  • Take 5 Spotlight

  • Share Your SMART Stories

Announcements & Reminders

Submit Holiday Meeting Changes

If your meeting will be canceled because of an upcoming holiday, please submit your holiday meeting cancellations through VolunteerHQ by Wednesday, June 30th, at 4:00 p.m. ET.

Make Changes Here

Review Your Face-to-Face/Local Online Meeting Listings

Click here and search by city/state/zip code to check your meeting listing's accuracy. If any changes are needed, please login to VolunteerHQ and complete the meeting change request form.

Helpful Hints

Facilitators Forum:

  • This forum is provided as a resource for our Face-to-Face and SROL meeting facilitators, and recent Online Training graduates who will be starting a meeting. No matter the venue, the meeting issues are similar and form a common bond between our meeting facilitators. Here, you are able to share successes, meeting updates, marketing ideas, etc., as well as any problems or issues encountered in the course of your meetings. This also provides an area in which new meeting facilitators can pose questions and receive input from seasoned SMART Recovery facilitators. This is a great place for potential SROL volunteers to become involved while gaining their three month involvement with the Online Community. One must have completed training and use the Contact Us form or email adminKT@smartrecovery.org to request access. 


Google Groups:

  • These groups are used for facilitators to easily contact their group of peers for brainstorming, problem solving, sharing of resources, etc. Based on your training and type of meeting, you can be added to these groups: SMARTCAL, SMARTREC, Family & Friends, Teen & Youth, Indigenous Communities, and Treatment Professionals. SMARTCAL is for Face-to-Face/Local Online facilitators. In SMARTCAL you will often see the SMART Meeting Management (SMM) and SMART Meeting for Volunteers (S4V) information being shared. SMARTREC is for SROL volunteers. You can click to join Google Groups during your registration to VolunteerHQ or by emailing VolunteerHQ@smartrecovery.org if you have already registered. Access to SMARTREC is granted prior to organization of a SROL meeting. 

We Need Your Pass-the-Hat Script

As we return to in-person meetings, it is important to re-energize our Pass-the-Hat collections. We will be implementing some new procedures for the submission of funds to the National Office later this summer. But for now, we would ask you to send in the Pass-the-Hat script or spiel that you have found most comfortable and productive at your in-person meetings. We will publish a few of these along with the new procedures. 

Please send your pitch to:

VolunteerHQ@smartrecovery.org

Virtual National Conference

Mark your calendars for the 2021 SMART Recovery National Conference:

Saturday, October 23, 2021


This year we’re going virtual featuring livestreaming and breakout rooms. More details coming soon!

May Recap

Training:

  • 340 registered for training 

  • 170 completed training 

    • 9 completed Meeting Host Training 

    • 100 completed Facilitator Training 

    • 3 completed Family & Friends Training 

    • 37 completed the Facilitator and Family & Friends Training Package 

    • 24 completed SMART Recovery for Professionals 

SMART Recovery Online (SROL):

Excluding SMM, S4V, and UK 

  • Meetings: 221

  • New Registrations: 3,856 

  • Posts: 8,292

  • Logins: 43,998

24/7 Chat:

  • 166 New Chat Participants

  • 340 Participants Posted

Local Online/ Face-to-Face Meetings:

Public and private meetings 

  • Canada Total: 274 

  • USA Total: 2,098

Meetings of Interest for Volunteers

SMART 4 Volunteers (S4V)

SMART FOR VOLUNTEERS (S4V) is a private SMART Recovery meeting for our volunteers.  While volunteering, people need to take time to focus on themselves. We want to offer a place where you have the opportunity to focus on your own wellbeing and recovery, with the security of being supported by your peers. This meeting has a different purpose than the SMART Meeting Management (SMM) meetings. 


This group meets on Wednesdays from 5:00 p.m. till -- 6:00 p.m. ET. and is facilitated by Jasper2016. 

SMART Meeting Management (SMM) Meetings

If you are interested in furthering your meeting management skills or more smoothly handling challenges you might encounter while facilitating your meeting, this is the meeting is for you!


The SMART Meeting Management (SMM) meetings are every:

  • Monday: 10:00 p.m. ET

  • Wednesday: 8:00 p.m. ET

  • Friday: 6:00 p.m. ET


The Teen and Young Adult Facilitators SMM meeting is every 3rd Thursday of the month at 3:00 p.m. ET. 


(NOTE: Zoom links for these meetings are behind the VHQ login or on SMARTCAL.)

Take 5 Spotlight

Get to Know the People Behind SMART Recovery

We’re always looking for ways to build and improve our relationship with you, our treasured volunteers. We’ve done a few things along those lines over the years that have helped, but this time we’ve decided to make it simple and quick by having team members answer a few questions (5, to be exact) about what they do. Maybe more importantly, why they do it. Read more about the Take 5 initiative.

Meet Anna Marie Murphy

Meet Luke Frazier

How is working with accountants like working with SMART Recovery employees? No, this is not setting up a punchline. SMART’s Director of Marketing, Anna Marie Murphy, provides a convincing answer. “My last job was with a CPA firm whose structure was really similar to SMART’s. Both have lots of representatives out in the community who need support promoting services and succeed best when there is a strong brand presence behind them, training resources available, and good materials they can share.” In other words, a great marketing team working on their behalf.  

Talk about the right place at the right time. When Luke Frazier, SMART’s Communications Consultant, was sitting in a crowded coffee shop he was overheard talking about the kind of communications work he was doing. The person who overheard him happened to work for SMART Recovery, and they happened to be looking for someone to help with communications. Luke says, “I wasn’t even planning to go to that coffee shop. My schedule changed and I ended up there.”  

Share Your SMART Recovery Knowledge

We are seeking volunteers who can contribute content about specific topics in the coming months. Please consider filling out the content surveys or reaching out through VolunteerHQ if you are interested in writing blogs, being interviewed for a podcast, or submitting a video testimonial (Facilitator Spotlight) in one of the following areas:



Contact us and/or find these and future content links under Share Your Story in VolunteerHQ.

Share Your Story

Submit Your Group Donations
to SMART Recovery

Your group donations to SMART Recovery help empower millions worldwide with tools to recover from any substance or activity addiction.


SMART Recovery is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Submit Your Group Donation


Powered by:
GetResponse