Mallorca AA International Convention 2025
Convention News
Happy Joyous and Free...
Our 2024 Convention Raffle Prize Winner Mary L. describes her experiences visiting Akron. Thank you for sharing with us Mary!
My journey began the moment I landed in Cleveland, where Karen C. kindly picked me up from the airport and drove me to Akron. We made our way to O’Neill’s Bed and Breakfast , a charming 1920s Tudor-style guest house tucked into a beautiful, leafy neighbourhood with landscaped gardens. It was the perfect place to settle in, and when I arrived in my room, I was deeply touched to find a welcome basket thoughtfully arranged by the Akron AA Intergroup. Inside was a first edition copy of the Alcoholics Anonymous book, some fascinating copies of historic leaflets, and a beautiful box of chocolates — a small but powerful gesture that set the tone for the days to come.
At the Akron AA Intergroup headquarters, I met the kind office workers and their manager, Greg, whose kindness and dedication was inspiring. The heart of the archives is Gail, who has been their archivist for over 30 years. Gail brought the history alive with stories, photos, and details that you simply can’t get from a book.
One of the great gifts of the trip was being guided by Charles, another passionate volunteer, through the Stan Hywet Hall, the grand Seiberling mansion. And the Gate Lodge on the estate, where Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson met for the first time in 1935. What Dr. Bob had planned as just a few polite minutes to please his wife Anne turned into a five-hour conversation that changed history. Standing in that quiet back room, surrounded by the estate’s formal English gardens and the peaceful Japanese garden, was profoundly moving.
Gail also came along with Karen C. and Karen K. when we visited Dr. Bob’s modest house on Ardmore Avenue. We were lucky enough to get a private tour, walking through the simple rooms where early AA members gathered and found hope. One of the most moving moments was standing quietly before the small room where Dr. Bob spent his final hours. There, he listened to a recording sent from New York by Bill Wilson, who played the violin for him and spoke words of farewell, a final, loving goodbye from one co-founder to another. It was deeply humbling and an immense privilege to stand in that space, feeling the presence of those early days and the unbreakable bond that helped shape the fellowship.
One evening, Karen C. and her husband Scott kindly invited me to their home in a beautiful small village outside of Akron. We had dinner together and met another AA friend, sharing fellowship, conversation, and laughter. It’s these personal moments that truly showed the living spirit of AA.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Gerry, another guide, volunteer, and long-time member, and his lovely wife, Melissa. They generously took me around to some of the more meaningful sites in AA history. Together we visited the Mayflower Hotel, where Bill W., fresh from a failed business trip and battling loneliness, chose to reach out for help rather than head to the hotel bar, a decision that ultimately led him to Dr. Bob. Gerry and Melissa also brought me to Dr. Bob’s grave, where we paused to reflect, and we walked through the Seiberlings’ Japanese Gardens, sharing stories and rich history that made it all come alive.
Another unforgettable part of my trip was meeting two of the legendary Hicken brothers, part of a family of five brothers, each with decades of sobriety. We went out for lunch, and hearing their stories of recovery, service, and long-term sobriety was both humbling and deeply inspiring.
My journey also took me to Cleveland to visit Sister Ignatia’s grave and the archives that honour her enormous contribution to AA, working alongside Dr. Bob at St. Thomas Hospital to care for alcoholics when few others would.
But it wasn’t all solemn reflection. We also shared lighter moments: a day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, a walk along the banks of lake Eire, dinners together at local restaurants, and even an evening at a speakeasy. After dinner upstairs, we slipped into a hidden room below, once used to hide patrons when police raided during Prohibition, a glimpse into the city’s colourful past.
What stands out most when I look back isn’t only the historic places, but the warmth, generosity, and deep fellowship of everyone I met: Greg and the Intergroup team, Gail with her dedication and passion, Charles and Gerry with their knowledge and kindness, Melissa’s warmth, Karen C. and Karen K. who took me everywhere and made me feel so welcome, Scott’s hospitality, and the stories shared by the Hicken brothers.
Akron itself, modest and steeped in history, reminded me of the quiet power of service, honesty, and fellowship. This trip deepened my gratitude for the founders and all those who came after, and for the living fellowship that keeps carrying the message to this day.
For anyone touched by AA’s story, I can’t recommend visiting Akron enough. It truly is, in every sense, where hope was born.
This year we have again secured some fantatsic prizes for our Convention Raffle and look forward to sharing news of them with you on this site during the coming weeks.
27th July 2025
My Dear Fellow AA Friends,
Firstly, I hope that I find you all well and very much enjoying the joys of Sobriety and of Serenity. With the time of our next convention fast approaching I thought you might like an update on how our plans for the event are progressing.
As of this moment we have around 150 secured bookings at the Pollensa Park Hotel and these are made up between rooms within the hotel main building and the outer hotel apartments which are but a short walk away. We are also very much aware that a great number of our fellows have made their own accommodation arrangements and this added to those who either live or have holiday homes here on the island suggests that we can look forward once again to a very well attended Mallorca AA International Convention.
We keep in close contact with the Pollensa Park Hotel and they are very much looking forward to welcoming us back for what will be our third island convention. The hotel management and staff have been extremely helpful and accommodating to fully ensure that all our requests have been met with the requirements for another successful event. The hotel has made available special offers on hot and cold beverages as well as dining for those non residents attending our convention. We will publish full details on this site soon.
We have completed our convention itinerary and the criteria again was to ensure as many AA activities as possible and this to include meetings, workshops and book studies as well as offering the opportunity to partake in varied and numerous fun activities throughout your stay. We have endeavoured to make sure that we cover all the most important principles with the topics of each AA meeting and to have sharing to cover various stages of our fellows time in the rooms of AA.
The grand opening and closing convention ceremonies will be held in the hotel main dining hall which is on the ground floor.
This year again will also include the very popular morning beach sunrise meditations and yoga sessions as well as early morning AA meetings, together with the very popular breath work session.
There will be a Sunday morning "Came to Believe" meeting and this will include musical and spiritual songs.
There will be a specific meeting where we will have a couple of ‘‘old timers’ shares and that I'm sure will be something to look forward to.
Also, worth noting is that when we have the upper first floor main hall speakers meeting we will also have running concurrently a speakers meeting on the ground floor small dining room. The topics of each meeting will be the same and the same criteria will be followed by both meetings. This will hopefully ensure that everyone can attend a main hall speakers meeting and in total comfort.
Also, we will have lots of entertainment and this will include our Friday night AA disco and karaoke as well as having one of Puerto Pollensa's top bands performing for us on the Saturday evening. Added to this will be again the jam sessions taking place each night of our convention on the upper first floor hall and, we will again have many of our own fellowship musicians and singers offering everyone the opportunity to take part in great nights of music and song.
There will again be our convention Friday fun quiz to be held in the hotel gardens and also the fun games and activities held in the hotel tennis and basketball courts. Offering a lot of fun, laughter and more than a little competitiveness.
As previously you will be welcomed by our convention registration team on the upper first floor who will be most pleased to register you for our event and present you with our lovely welcome bag which will contain convention and local area information as well as a few little gifts on behalf of the Mallorca AA community.
The registration fee is fifteen (15) euros for the weekend and only six (6) euros for a day's attendance.
When registering you can fill in the slip of your details and this for the purpose of emergency contact and for your entering our special gift draw but, may we assure that these will be handled in the most respected way and at all times secured to protect your anonymity.
Both Al-Anon and ACA will be participating again this year and will have a full schedule of meetings and activities.
You can find the meeting details on our main Convention AA Itinerary Leaflet which will be published shorty, but for full details of meetings and activities there will be an information desk for both fellowships on the group floor of the hotel. Whilst visiting our registration desk please, do take the time to view our convention notice board where you will find lots of information both for our convention activities and for local area highlights. Also, for any necessary changes to our event planned scheduling.
We will again be holding our grand convention raffle and the prizes this year will I'm sure generate as much excitement as the previous two years have done, details of this year's prizes and raffle tickets cost can be found on this website. It is worth mentioning that all funds raised from both the registration fees and raffle tickets sales will be solely used to cover this year's convention expenses, a retention for our next year's event and most importantly where they may best carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
We have received a written narrative from the lovely lady who won our prize of a trip to Akron Ohio last year and her report of being looked after by the Akron Intergroup and local home group members is absolutely wonderful. Of how they collected her from the airport and escorted her to her hotel where there was a wonderful welcome gift awaiting her. Also taking her to all the local historical AA sites and inviting her into their homes for dinners and friendship. You'll find her full written report on this website as well as some of her photos and videos.
We have had many offers of service to cover all our meetings and activities during the period of our convention and these have been greatly appreciated and although we have much of the service areas covered we would very much welcome any of our visitors who would wish to put themselves forward for duties during our event. If you would wish to do so please, inform one of our registration team and they can put you in contact with one of our services coordinators.
May I suggest that you take the time to peruse our convention website where you will find much information which we hope will assist you in your travelling to our convention hotel as well as in your planning during your stay.
Finally, the Mallorca AA fellowship very much look forward to welcoming you to our beautiful island and to participating in what we feel sure will be another wonderful convention full of the joys of sobriety and AA unity.
Wishing you safe travels and as always,
Yours in Fellowship and Friendship,
Dennis
Convention Convenor on behalf of the Mallorca AA International Convention Committee
23rd March 2025
Dear Fellow AA Members,
Firstly, hoping that I find you all well and have had a great start to 2025. All in the joys of fellowship, Sobriety and of Serenity. We felt it a good idea at this time to bring you up to date with how our Mallorca AA International Convention 2025 plans are progressing.
The first thing to note is that the bookings for our convention venue, the Pollensa Park Hotel, have gone extremely well and in 106 rooms sold out within only a few weeks of being offered on this site.
The hotel has now made available to us 10 of their luxury apartments which are situated just a short walk from the main hotel building. The apartments sleep two adults at a cost and are available at a reduced cost of 115€ per apartment per night.
The hotel has also offered the several options to dine at the hotel whilst staying in the apartments:
Breakfast @ 10 euros Half board @ 20 euros All inclusive @ 42 euros
These apartments are on a first come first served basis and if you would wish to book please fill in a booking form on our Accomodation page.
As our plans progress over the coming months we hope to take up the many offers of service from those planning to attend our event this October. There are many areas of the convention where we would greatly appreciate your service and participation. These areas for service range from meetings secretaries/chairs, meeting areas arrangers, hall stewards, yoga and meditation instructors, fun activities & quiz stewards and meetings time keepers.
We have a number of our home group members who will act as service coordinators and the idea is that those wishing to offer service could work alongside our coordinators to ensure the smooth running of our event.
Our two main convention service secretaries are Alex M whom you might remember from last year and he will have Jennifer working alongside him. They will be the first point of contact to discuss with you which area of service you would wish to assist with. When this has been established they can then introduce you to the service area coordinator who can talk through the duties required and then add you to their specific area service WhatsApp communication group. If you would like to offer your service at this year's convention please, in the first instance could you contact either Alex or Jennifer anytime from the first of June ‘25 at the following email address:- aa.mallorca.service@gmail.com. They will reply to you directly and discuss the service program and positions needing to be filled, your service would be most greatly appreciated.
The convention itinerary is being worked on at the moment but will follow much the same lines as our two previous conventions of which proved most successful. We will as before make small tweaks to the programme of activities based on the great suggestions made by our visitors from last year. The main focus of our itinerary is to offer as many AA topical meetings and workshops as is possible throughout the convention, as well as engage in fun activities which include such things as quizzes , dances, games and musical get togethers all aimed at promoting our AA unity, wonderful fellowship and adding to your overall convention experience.
Also, we are pleased to confirm that both Al-Anon and the ACA fellowships will again be participating at our convention this year and they will both have a separate desk based on the hotel ground floor where you can obtain information on their meetings and activities.
As previously, we will over the coming months be adding further information to this site which hopefully you will find useful and can assist you in your planning both with travelling to Puerto Pollensa and throughout your stay at the Mallorca AA International Convention 2025.
However, should you have any specific queries regarding the convention please contact us at aaconventionmallorca@gmail.com.
If your enquiry is of more immediate urgency please, call any of the following numbers :
Dennis : 0034 626 173 744
Stewart : 0034 665 955 067
Finally, may I add that all of the Mallorca AA fellows are very much looking forward to having you back with us for another wonderful event and welcoming you to our beautiful island.
In the meantime, we send you our best wishes and as always,
Yours in Fellowship and Friendship,
Dennis
Convention Convenor on behalf of the Mallorca AA International Convention Committee
29th December 2024
Our initial allocation of special priced rooms for the 2025 Mallorca AA International Convention have all been reserved. Thank you to all of you!
We are hopeful of being able to offer additional rooms to meet the demand, keep checking back for details in due course.
30th November 2024
After only two weeks we are pleased to report that over half of the special priced rooms for the 2025 Mallorca AA International Convention have been reserved. Thank you to all of you who have reserved so far!
Cabot Hotels will start to make contact with everyone who reserved via this website in the coming days.
We would like to remind those of you who have yet to reserve that room availability at the special rates is limited and is offered on a first come basis.
14th November 2024
Dear fellow AA members,
Firstly, thank you for taking the time to visit our 2025 convention site and we hope to find you all well.
Having now concluded the final business of our most recent convention we are now turning our thoughts to next years event. However, before we do that may we take this opportunity to thank all those who attended our 2024 convention at the Pollensa Park hotel and who contributed so much to making it such a great success.
Also, to those of our island groups who participated in the organisation of our event and whom served on our committee as well as those, both from the island and our visitors who gave so much service at our meetings and other activities. That great service included everything from acting as meeting secretaries, sharing at various topic AA meetings , rooms & garden areas set up, adjudicating the fun quizzes, stewarding the outdoor fun activities, taking the yoga, meditation, exercise and the breath work sessions, arranging our disco, organising the sing song nights and, with many of the other duties required to ensure that the convention was conducted as smoothly as it was. We thank you all most sincerely and it was so greatly appreciated.
May we also take this opportunity to thank our friends from both Al-Anon and the ACA for their presence and participation at our convention. It was very much appreciated and we hope that both fellowships will join us again at our Mallorca AA 2025 event.
As you are aware we generated an amount of funds through our registration fees as well as with our great convention raffle. We felt it important to inform you that our committee is currently discussing the best ways in which to use the monies raised, with the priority being of fulfilling our fifth tradition, that of carrying the message to where it may help the still suffering Alcoholic. With specific focus for its use here on the island of Mallorca. The monies used will be the remaining balance after covering our convention expenses and, holding a prudent reserve for next years event.
Now we turn our thoughts to our 2025 convention and confirm the dates as from Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th October and again the venue will be the Pollensa Park Hotel, Puerto Pollensa.
The hotel are most pleased that we shall be returning for a third time and very much look forward to welcoming you all back to sunny Mallorca.
This initial notice is both to confirm next years event and to make you aware of the hotel bookings process which this year is being handled by our Mallorca AA convention committee administration.
There will as before, be much more information placed onto this site in the coming months all of which will hopefully help the planning of your visit to the 2025 convention.
With regards to the reserving of rooms for our convention next year can we again make you aware that our convention committee will be administrating the bookings on behalf of the hotel and you will find on this sites menu page the facility to view thedetails of the various rooms made available as well as, the special convention rates afforded us by the hotel management.
These rooms are offered on a first come first served basis and once we have taken your booking the Pollensa Park hotel will contact you directly to arrange your initial deposit and any outstanding balance.
On completing the required reservation details on this site you will receive a reply confirming your booking.When you open the accommodation page on this site the full details of the booking procedure will be explained more fully and the facility to reserve your room will be available for your use.
It is also our intention to offer a page facility on this site where you can make any comments regarding your experiences at our most recent convention and, if you would wish to send any appropriate photos they would both be gratefully received.
Finally, we very much hope that you will join us at our convention in 2025 and again be part of our many meetings, great AA activities and of course , the wonderful demonstration of global AA fellowship.
In the meantime, we send you our kindest regards and our best wishes for a wonderful end to 2024 and, for a fantastic new year in 2025.
As always, Yours in fellowship and friendship,
Dennis
Convention Convenor on behalf of the Mallorca AA International Convention Committee