Just as a meeting does not always fulfil the purpose of elucidating the problem and presenting the solution to alcoholism, so the meeting after the meeting ('fellowship') does not always fulfil its purpose, either.
Ideally, the purpose of fellowship is to discuss problems and AA solutions in an informal setting. A certain amount of getting to know each other and chit-chat facilitates this, but it is the crockery, not the meal.
When the content consists solely in banter, prurience, acidity, gossip, whining, and bragging, interrupted only by serious discussions between certain participants on extraneous matters of exclusive interest to them, usually business, current affairs, or politics, it misses the point and fails to fulfil its function. It's fun, lively, and entertaining, but it's not fellowship.
Sometimes, recovery spaces are seen as a place to lick one’s wound and commiserate with fellow sufferers. And that’s it. That’s fine as far as it goes. But it falls short of what is really on offer: the sharing of principles and practices that solve all our problems by enabling us to transcend material reality.
When at a meeting or at fellowship, my question is always this: Why am I here?
When the purpose of fellowship is social and gastronomical, there are complaints about the food, the draught, the noise, and other disagreeable elements of the venue. This usually reveals the purpose of the complainant.
When the purpose of fellowship is to bring everyone together to help, in particular, people who are struggling or newcomers, the deciding factors on the venue are different: proximity to the meeting, enough space to seat everyone together without fuss, very cheap, the venue not minding if certain people just have a cup of tea or even just a glass of water, etc. Ideal venues for fellowship are cheap and largely empty, which means the food and other characteristics of the venue are often weak.
I remember some terrible places over the years which were perfect because people who were new and felt and looked terrible were not intimated and were able to scrape together eighty pence for a cup of tea to be with everyone else. Posh places put new people off.
To sum up, when I catch myself complaining about some aspect of the fellowship venue, I remind myself why I am there and look after the meeting for someone who is struggling and encourage them to come along.
Very often, it's only at the meeting after the meeting that the fuse on the individuals' ticking time bomb of alcoholism is snuffed out.