Tradition Two: For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving GOD as HE may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

*****

• Do I criticize or do I trust and support my group officers, AA committees, and office workers? Newcomers? Old-timers?
• Am I absolutely trustworthy, even in secret, with AA Twelfth Step jobs or other AA responsibility?
• Do I look for credit in my AA jobs? Praise for my AA ideas?
• Do I have to save face in group discussion, or can I yield in good spirit to the group conscience and work cheerfully along with it?
• Although I have been sober a few years, am I willing to serve my turn at AA chores?
• In group discussions, do I sound off about matters on which I have no experience and little knowledge?

Wow – this is one topic I feel like I could write a book about How about you? Recognize any of this? I sure do…

Post from: Blisstree

Traditions Checklist – Tradition Two

He said;

“I once read somewhere that a group conscience meeting can be called at any time, especially during a regular AA meeting as to keep the “Others” at the monthly home group business meetings “In check” with the group as a whole. I’ve studied the pamphlet on The A.A. Group…Where It All Begins and may have missed or overlooked something there.”

Then he asked a few good questions. I have some thoughts on the first and invite your comments – please.

“How and when can a group conscience meeting can be conducted and how to bring about a well-informed Group Conscience?”

Simply my own opinion (?) but calling for a “group conscience” meeting during a regular meeting for the “purpose” (”as to keep” = purpose in my mind’s eye) of keeping “others” (which I read as outsiders, i.e. non group members) “in check” with your group? That doesn’t really feel in line with the spirit of the Fifth Tradition.

Which, once again, gives pause to consider what the “message” is…

“Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.”

Hopefully, that message is more “You can recover from a hopeless state of mind and body” than it is “While you’re here in our group you’ll do it our way” which is what “keep in check” equates to – for me.

That being said, I have seen a “group conscience” (a very quick vote) taken during a meeting for the specific purpose of keeping the meeting topic in line with our primary purpose.

Anyone?

Post from: Blisstree

Timing A Group Conscience Meeting

I received other, much less positive feedback, this morning on the landline I’m attached to. One of our area group’s members brought the old information to the fore at a “group conscience” meeting and became adamant about it’s authenticity. (Ego… yet, I might have done the same thing two weeks ago)

So, to quote the oldtimer that caught me on my “stuff,” “the telephone is a magnificent invention – they’re all over the place” I am waiting for a response to my message to our State Delegate because he knows the group member. Live in the solution.

dAAve, John and Gwen, I very much appreciate your comments. Now, can you folks clone yourselves so we can divide you up all over AA as a whole?

From dAAve;

“Down here, most people have no idea of the difference between a closed and an open meeting, the difference between a clubhouse and a group, what a GSR does, or most of the Traditions as a whole.”

From John B.;

Relating to his attitude for the first ten years of his sobriety – “Lack of education and a general indifference or apathy to anything that doesn’t affect me directly.”

From Gwen;

Relating to her personal experience with an oldtimer who, for 22 years had become good at “ducking the issue” of making coffee for a meeting.

Do you know what this stirs up in my mind? How could you lol?

Road Trip!!! It’s time for a road trip!!!

And now, from an old salesman, if we boil it down to the ridiculous all it amounts to is this;

If every group in AA were to contribute $136.85 in 2006 it would allow the Fellowship to be fully self-supporting from contributions. (I’ve obtained that info from our State delegate who provided it to me from a copy of the General Service Board’s Treasurers’ report from April 2006.)

Take that one more step. Using the numbers in that report its possible to determine that there are about 54,000 groups in AA. Since only 43% of the groups contributed in 2005, that means about 23,220 groups wound up contributing $232/group.

Summarily, if only 16% more groups had contributed in 2005, we would have met paying our GSO supporting service functions completely 100% with personal/group contributions.

Oddly Enough

There’s another way to look at this – if each AA member contributed $6.14 we would have had the same result. What is odd about that is that means the GSO has our individual membership at about 1.2 million members. For the time I’ve been a happy member I’ve heard our membership is about 2 to 2.5 million members. Using 1.2 million means that each member contributed $4.45/member in 2005. At $4.45/member we needed contributions from a bit shy of 1.7 million members to achieve fully self-supporting.

If you’d like to be really very silly about these figures – at $4.45/member for the year that means that each member is making just over a third of a meeting/month if each of us is contributing $1/meeting.

Post from: Blisstree

Let’s Keep Talking

Today, I can tell you that, through some human error (and I told him he deserved a smack lol) by our State delegate the previous talks were not exactly on target.

The issue at hand however, is extremely important, and I would very much like to hand it to you to run with. We are not in imminent danger but the danger is real. Many principles of recovery apply, from a personal basis, leading to group principles, and all ending at the ability to continue to carry the message to the suffering alcoholic worldwide.

From pg. 32 in the AA pamphlet “The AA Group”

How Are A.A. World Services Supported?

“Like the expenses of other A.A. activities, those of the general Service Office are met generally by group and individual contributions. Since these contributions do not completely cover the cost of A.A.’s world services, publishing income is used to offset the deficit.”

In this entry I said “A.A. isn’t able to pay its own way. In 2005 GSO found itself almost $3 Million short of being able to pay our bills.”

It needs to be re-worded. I’ll give it a try and if you have any suggestions they will be appreciated! Here’s the real deal -

A.A. continues to have difficulty adhering to the principle of being self-supporting through its own contributions. In 2005 the total cost of functions for General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous was $7.4 Million. In 2005 the General Service Office of AA received personal contributions from AA members/groups, of $5.4 Million. Publishing profit was used to make up the $2 Million difference.

For a long time AA has been relying on literature profits and literature price increases to cover service structure costs. What has been happening as a result?

• Higher prices result in fewer pieces of literature being purchased and fewer alcoholics being reached.

• Higher prices create more opportunities for outside enterprises to print AA literature.

• Services need to be cut.

• Our trusted servants continually struggle with the challenge of raising prices or cutting services.

Use your imagination… what would happen if, for ex., one large purchaser (outside of AA) of literature decided not to purchase literature?

The Beginning Of A Solution?

First consider these facts – for our State of Georgia (I have no figures for other states) 56% of groups contribute to AA’s GSO, 44% do not. For A.A. as a whole, 43% of groups contribute to GSO, 57% do not.

Secondly, please don’t take this personally

What we’re really talking about is a sum of money that is completely manageable if only the groups that aren’t contributing would begin to contribute.

Why don’t some groups contribute?

I think the feeling is that many groups have formed in recent years which are made up of a “new” generation of AA members who, unfortunately, aren’t educated in the Traditions of AA. Within the past week here in Savannah, one of our groups brought this up as a topic at a regular meeting and a person with 8 years sober took offense, complaining this was not a valid topic for a meeting. That is a very small example.

The beginning of a solution is to talk about this! Please. Let’s try to get the message to those who may not know. If you know someone from a group that was recently formed – ask them if they have a group service number assigned to them by the GSO. Perhaps that will open a conversation which will lead to talk of the responsibilities of a group.

Post from: Blisstree

How Are A.A. World Services Supported?

I love the information I find in Bill W’s writings in “The Language Of The Heart.” In June of 1947 (pg. 57), Bill wrote “Lack Of Money Proved AA Boon.”

He explains the history of how the “Alcoholic Foundation” came about. In the fall of 1937 he and Dr. Bob had put together a plan which would enable the thousands of alcoholics without the answer to know of the “good news” of recovery!

The basics were, they would be sending missionaries across the land to establish new “AA Centers,” there would be hospitals in both Akron and New York where they could “spray” excellent medical care and high-powered spirituality on drunks, and they’d have a book.

“But it surely looked, in 1937, as though we must have considerable money. Did we not already have (in prideful imagination) the beginning of one of the greatest social, medical, and spiritual developments of all time? How easy to raise money for such a cause as ours!”

They were in for a shock as Bill quickly points out – “The awakening from that money dream was rude. It soon appeared that people with money had little interest in drunks.”

Having become discouraged, there came a day when Bill had joined “Whiners Anonymous” and was “bemoaning, in typical alcoholic fashion, how little we poor drunks were appreciated” to his physician brother-in-law. Non-coincidentally, Leonard knew someone who knew someone and in the winter of 1937, at Rockefeller Center, there was a meeting attended by Bill, Dick Richardson (the liason with John D. Rockefeller Jr.), A. LeRoy Chipman, Albert Scott, Frank Amos, the B-I-L Leonard Strong, Dr. Bob and Paul S. (from Akron). Also attending were “a half-dozen New York ex-topers” and Dr. Silkworth.

They told their AA stories and then pleaded for money. Then, as Bill puts it, “Came one more turn in AA destiny.” Albert Scott, the chairman of the meeting, spoke up with understanding (he had been moved by their talks) and said “Shouldn’t we be most careful not to do anything which might lead to a professional or propertied class within your ranks?”

The next words from Bill are: “These were great words for Alcoholics Anonymous.”

From this meeting came the foundation of folks who eventually put the original Foundation Trust agreement together but, I believe more importantly, came what Bill said next;

“Disappointed that our hope of substantial money help seemed to be fading, we confessed, nevertheless, that we had often had such misgivings. But, we persisted, what are we going to do?”

“Finally, our friends agreed that something needed to be done. But they did continue to insist our movement ought never be professionalized. This struck the keynote of our relation to these men of goodwill for all the years since. Rightly enough, they have never secured us large sums of money. But each has given of himself to our cause, generously and continuously; how much, few AAs can ever know.”

Post from: Blisstree

They Gave Of Themselves

“My personal thoughts about being approached for additional money in support of AA, accompanied by a statement that AA itself is not being self-supporting, are – please tell me where AA is falling down in regards to money. Please provide me with specific, concrete examples of bills not being paid, facilities suffering, programs lacking due to not enough dollars. Tell me exactly how the message of recovery is not being carried because of not enough money. Without such “evidence” I will most likely remember that we are all here because we’re not all there and possibly question your motives for promoting additional contributions as being necessary.”

Well, I now have an answer and I am very much appreciative to the person who provided it. No, I can’t/won’t tell you who… but I’ll say this – the answer came from someone who has the real info. And here is part of it;

“We were $2,993,017 short of paying for our bills in at GSO in 2005. When we are short, we rely on the reserve fund; which the Trustees did to pay the bills.”

So, here’s the deal folks. When we’re short and have to rely on our reserves to pay our bills, we have to “re-stock” the reserves because, as a group, AA decided long ago to maintain a 12 month prudent reserve and this situation left us almost three months short. I won’t get into the “business” aspects of this practice, if you don’t understand, please seek guidance.

The solution to “re-stocking” our reserves to the desired level are twofold. One is increased contributions from the AA membership, the other is to increase profits on literature sales to agencies outside of AA. Simple. Unfortunately, if we come to rely on profits from outside agencies purchasing our literature, we are not self-supporting. Also simple.

And now I have a question for you – Are you familiar with this pie chart?

Post from: Blisstree

In Response – Safe Use Of Money

The same can be said of your group! And of my current group – The SouthSide Group here in Savannah.

I have also had the dubious pleasure (?) of seeing some pretty sick outfits. I feel that those “sick” groups (and this is MHO) are “controlled” by sick people, the “dominant opinion.”

And the ego of the dominant opinion wouldn’t be able to squeeze into the same room as my ego…

So I try to offer the tried and true solutions brought about by years of experience which General Services provides for us through the literature. This is from the same brochure as yesterday’s post – “The AA Group… Where It All Begins”

About Those A.A. Group Problems…

“Group problems are often evidence of a healthy, desirable diversity of opinion among the group members. They give us a chance, in the words of Step Twelve, to ‘Practice these principles in all our affairs.’

Group problems may include such common A.A. questions as: What should the group do about members who return to drinking? How can we boost lagging attendance at meetings? How can we get more people to help with group chores? What can we do about one member’s anonymity break, or another’s attempts to attract the romantic interest of newcomers? How can we get out from under those old-timers who insist they know what’s best for the group? And how can we get more of the old-timers to share their experience in resolving group dilemmas?

Almost every group problem can be solved through the process of an informed group conscience, A.A. principles, and our Twelve Traditions. Some groups find that their G.S.R. or D.C.M. can be helpful. For all involved, a good sense of humor, cooling-off periods, patience, courtesy, willingness to listen and to wait – plus a sense of fairness and trust in a ‘Power greater than ourselves’ – have been found far more effective than legalistic arguments or personal accusations.”

A Sober, Clean Day To All,

Mark

Post from: Blisstree

About Those A.A. Group Problems

Another General Services brochure “The AA Group… Where it all begins” tells us;

“The group conscience is the collective conscience of the group membership and thus represents substantial unanimity on an issue before definitive action is taken. This is achieved by the group members through the sharing of full information, individual points of view, and the practice of A.A. principles. To be fully informed requires a willingness to listen to minority opinions with an open mind.

On sensitive issues, the group works slowly – discouraging formal motions until a clear sense of its collective view emerges. Placing principles before personalities, the membership is wary of dominant opinions. Its voice is heard when a well-informed group arrives at a decision. The result rests on more than a “yes” or “no” count – precisely because it is the spiritual expression of the group conscience. The term “informed group conscience” implies that pertinent information has been studied and all views have been heard before the group votes.”

In my experience, I have been a member of a group where another, “well-respected” member, had the audacity to attempt to phone in a vote on a sensitive issue through another member for a business meeting they weren’t able to attend in a timely manner. The vote was NOT recognized. Other than that small personal issue, newcomers might want to be aware that they have a voice in a group conscience. Please notice where it says “all views have been heard.” You might also want to notice that “the membership is wary of dominant opinions.“

Post from: Blisstree

An Informed Group Conscience