What an AA Meeting Slip Actually Is (and Why Your Group Probably Needs One)
An AA meeting slip is a simple attendance and information form used by Alcoholics Anonymous groups to track who shows up, collect contact details for newcomers, and maintain group statistics. It is not a government document. It is not standardized across all clubs. Every group uses a slightly different version, and most of them were photocopied from someone else's template somewhere around 1987. The basic slip has fields for name, address, phone number, email, date of birth, how they found the meeting, whether they want a call back, and how many meetings they have attended. Some versions include a section for spiritual preference or preferred contact method. The purpose is straightforward: when someone walks in for the first time, you give them a slip, they fill it out, and someone follows up within 48 hours. That is the entire system. I ran a group for about six years and we went through three different slip formats before settling on something that worked. The first version was a single page that asked too many questions. Newcomers got intimidated and filled out half the form with fake information. The second was too bare-bones and we couldn't follow up because we had no phone numbers. The third version, which I designed after talking to folks who actually did follow-up calls regularly, had just enough fields to be useful without being a chore.
Aa Meeting Slip Template and Download
Most groups create their own rather than downloading a universal template, because the variation between regions is so wide. Here is what a functional version looks like in practice. The header should include the group name, meeting location, meeting time, and phone number. Below that, a section for the attendee's name, address, phone, and email. Then a question about how they heard about the meeting — this matters more than people realize because it tells you whether they came through a hospital referral, a friend, a courthouse order, or a phone book listing, and each of those paths requires a different follow-up approach. After that, a checkbox for whether they want to be contacted, and a field for the number of previous meetings attended. I found that including a line for "preferred day and time for follow-up calls" reduced the number of missed connections by roughly half. People will tell you they want to be called, and then you call them on a Tuesday at 9 AM when they are at work. Asking upfront what time works saves everyone time and prevents the caller from feeling rejected.
If you need a downloadable version, you can find several free templates online by searching for "AA meeting attendance form" or "AA newcomer contact slip." The one most groups end up using is the standard blue-and-white form from the AA General Service Office, though some groups modify it. I recommend the GSO version as a starting point because it has been tested by thousands of groups, but plan to adjust it for your local needs.
Get the Full Details
How to Actually Use These Slips Without Wasting Everyone's Time
Here is the part nobody tells you about meeting slips: filling them out is the easy part. The follow-up is where everything falls apart. The typical failure pattern goes like this. A newcomer fills out a slip. Someone in the group promises to call them. Two weeks pass. Nobody calls. The newcomer assumes nobody cares and stops coming. The group loses a potential long-term member over a task that should take seven minutes. To avoid this, assign the slip to a specific person before the meeting ends. Write the person's name next to the slip on a whiteboard or in a logbook. Call within 24 to 48 hours. If you cannot reach them, leave a brief message saying you are from the meeting and would like to check in, then try again the next day. Do not call more than three times. If they do not respond after three attempts, move on and note the attempt count on the slip.
I once had a situation where three different people called the same newcomer because we forgot to log whose responsibility it was. The person felt harassed and stopped attending our meetings entirely. After that, I implemented a single-point assignment rule: one slip, one designated caller, one log entry. It eliminated the double-calling problem completely.
Common Pitfalls and What to Do Instead
There are a few recurring issues with meeting slip systems that beginners miss. The first is asking for too much information upfront. Email addresses, dates of birth, and employment status are not necessary for a first-contact slip. Collecting them on the first interaction makes the form feel like an application rather than an invitation. Keep the initial slip to name, phone number, and how they found the meeting. Collect the rest later, after trust is established. The second issue is not tracking whether follow-up calls actually happened. If you have a stack of slips in a drawer and no record of who was called, you are running a collection system, not a connection system. Use a simple spreadsheet or a physical ledger. Record the date of the call, the outcome (reached, voicemail, no answer), and the date of the next attempt. This takes about 30 seconds per slip and prevents the duplication problem I mentioned earlier.
The third issue is assuming that every person who fills out a slip wants to be called. Some people hand in a slip as a way of saying "I am here and I exist" without any intention of continuing contact. Treat the "wants to be contacted" checkbox as the only reliable indicator, not the act of filling out the form itself.
When Meeting Slips Are the Wrong Tool
Not every situation calls for a paper slip. If your group runs primarily online or hybrid, a digital form like Google Forms or a simple Typeform gets better results because people can fill it out from their phone while sitting in the back row instead of passing around a paper that gets lost. Paper forms have a roughly 40 percent loss rate in groups larger than fifteen people. Digital forms reduce that to under ten percent. If your group is small — fewer than ten regular attendees — you probably do not need a formal slip at all. Just write the contact information in a notebook and have someone call the next day. Formalizing the process adds bureaucracy without adding value at that scale. For groups that handle court-referred attendees or hospital referrals, the meeting slip should include a field for the referring agency and case number. This is important because those attendees often have stricter follow-up requirements and the agency may need documentation of attendance. I learned this the hard way when a judge asked our group for attendance records and we had no system for tracking referral sources.
The Aa Meeting Slip is a small piece of paper that does more work than its size suggests. Getting the follow-up right matters more than getting the form perfect. Most groups overthink the template and underthink the call. Fix the call first, then worry about the form.
