The question may be asked, “Just what is this Conference”? The Woman-to-Woman Conference is a workshop weekend, a special event by and for sober alcoholic and alanon women. Participation sessions are held on topics of particular concern to AA women. There are subjects and experiences that are rarely shared although closely related to growth in sobriety. A heightened sense of kinship, unity and cooperative endeavor among women members have been happily perceived as “fallouts”.

 

The workshop weekend had its beginnings in California. Members there generously shared information and ideas. The first Midwest Woman to Woman Seminar was held in Chicago, Illinois in 1984. This was held on the 1st weekend of October. The enthusiastic reception led to making it an annual event rotating location in the Midwest section of the country. (The above is the history passed to New York from the Midwest.)

 

In October 1988, a group of women from Harlem, New York spearheaded by Eugertha Mcleon chartered a bus to attend the 4th Midwest Woman to Woman Seminar in Columbus, Ohio. Th ere the desire to bring the seminar to the East Coast was expressed. The first Northeastern Woman to Woman Seminar was successfully held on October 20th – 22nd, 1989 at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, NY. Eugertha Mcleon relocated to Richmond, VA. She was encouraged to bring a conference to the Southeastern region.

 

A committee was formed and the first Southeastern Woman to Woman Seminar was held on September 27th – 29th , 1993 at the Radisson Hotel in Richmond, VA. At the 18th SEWTW Seminar in Hampton VA, August 2013 Business meeting it was majority voted to henceforth change our name from SEWTW Seminar to SEWTW Conference. In 2005, “Eugertha Mcleon went on to the great meeting in the sky”, with 47 years of sobriety.

 

After getting sober in September 1957 at a NY Towns Hospital, she entered nursing and worked at Gracie Square Hospital as a coordinator and administrator in the medical and detox unit. In the early 1970’s, she was a pioneer in the arena that passed the Hughes Congressional Bill, which designated alcoholism a disease. An alumnus of Rutgers University Alcoholism Studies, she served on the New York Mayor’s Board of Health, Education and Welfare, and the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Boards. There she helped set standards that certified counselors. For more than 40 years, she weekly volunteered her services in institutions, prisons, jails, and hospitals.

 

She was one of the first to serve on New York’s Intergroups Institution Committee. Eugertha was an alumnus of the International Woman’s Conference and founded the Northeast and Southeast Woman’s Seminars. She was instrumental in the format of our candlelight meeting “Secrets Woman Don’t Share”, where she believed all superficial sharing stopped once you walked through the meeting doors. She believed in woman empowering themselves, her favorite saying to us was “you got the power” the 10th seminar in Covington, Louisiana, was the last seminar she was able to attend.