Saturday, December 12, 2009

Service Center Gets New Look

Starting Thanksgiving weekend, a handful of volunteers transformed the LifeRing Service Center from a seedy looking chaotic mess into a pleasant, tidy and better organized place to serve the meetings.


(If you don't see the movie, view this in Firefox, Chrome, or any browser other than Internet Explorer.)
The Service Center is a compact (euphemism for tiny) office space with an interior view (on an airshaft).  It houses the computers that (try to) keep track of LifeRing meetings and the printers and other office machinery that put out much of our publicity.  It's located in downtown Oakland CA. The rent is $600 a month.

LifeRing Press books are stored there and your LifeRing book orders are picked, packed, and shipped from there.  It also serves as the meeting place for the monthly LifeRing convenor workshops (second Saturday of each month except August and December) and for a workbook study group (Tuesday evenings).  

The office rehab operation involved moving dozens of boxes of books, reorganizing a big steel shelf, moving two big metal file cabinets, disassembling and removing a custom desk, assembling a brand new L-shaped desk out of the box (in hundreds of pieces), and taking down and reassembling all of the electronics, among other tasks.

Credit for the major makeover goes to David F. from Marin County, Robert S. (LifeRing Treasurer), Jim R. (LifeRing Secretary), and Karen I. (IT guru).  I helped out and took some pictures, see video above.

The job isn't completely done yet -- there will be more decorations on the walls and the main computer will be upgraded -- but it was sufficiently completed by Monday morning to provide a more hospitable welcome and working environment for Rachaell C., our new Office Administrator. I'll post "After" photos when the finishing touches are added.

If you're local to the San Francisco Bay Area, come see the new digs for yourself at our Open House Saturday Dec. 19 from 1-4 pm.

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