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Service Material from the General Service Office
Concept 1. The final responsibility and ultimate authority for A. A.
world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole
fellowship.
Concept 2. When, in 1955, the A. A. groups confirmed the permanent
charter for their General Service Conference, they thereby delegated to the
Conference complete authority for the active maintenance of our world services
and thereby made the Conference - excepting for any change in the Twelve
Traditions or in Article 12 of the Conference Charter - the actual voice and the
effective conscience for our whole Society.
Concept 3. As a traditional means of creating and maintaining a
clearly defined working relation between the groups, the Conference, the A. A.
General Service Board and its several service corporations, staffs, committees
and executives, and of thus insuring their effective leadership, it is here
suggested that we endow each of these elements of world service with a
traditional "Right of Decision".
Concept 4. Throughout our Conference structure, we ought to maintain
at all responsible levels a traditional "Right of Participation", taking care
that each classification or group of our world servants shall be allowed a
voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each
must discharge.
Concept 5. Throughout our world service structure, a traditional
"Right of Appeal" ought to prevail, thus assuring us that minority opinion will
be heard and that petitions for the redress of personal grievances will be
carefully considered.
Concept 6. On behalf of A. A. as a whole, our General Service
Conference has the principal responsibility for the maintenance of our world
services, and it traditionally has the final decision respecting large matters
of general policy and finance. But the Conference also recognizes that the chief
initiative and the active responsibility in most of these matters should be
exercised primarily by the Trustee members of the Conference when they act among
themselves as the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Concept 7. The Conference recognizes that the Charter and the Bylaws
of the General Service Board are legal instruments: that the Trustees are
thereby fully empowered to manage and conduct all of the world service affairs
of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is further understood that the Conference Charter
itself is not a legal document: that it relies instead upon the force of
tradition and the power of the A. A. purse for its final effectiveness.
Concept 8. The Trustees of the General Service Board act in two
primary capacities: (a With respect to the larger matters of over-all policy and
finance, they are the principal planners and administrators. They and their
primary committees directly manage these affairs. (b But with respect to our
separately incorporated and constantly active services, the relation of the
Trustees is mainly that of full stock ownership and of custodial oversight which
they exercise through their ability to elect all directors of these entities.
Concept 9. Good service leaders, together with sound and appropriate
methods of choosing them, are at all levels indispensable for our future
functioning and safety. The primary world service leadership once exercised by
the founders of A. A. must necessarily be assumed by the Trustees of the General
Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Concept 10. Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal
service authority - the scope of such authority to be always well defined
whether by tradition, by resolution, by specific job description or by
appropriate charters and bylaws.
Concept 11. While the Trustees hold final responsibility for A.A.'s
world service administration, they should always have the assistance of the best
possible standing committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs,
and consultants. Therefore the composition of these underlying committees and
service boards, the personal qualifications of their members, the manner of
their induction into service, the systems of their rotation, the way in which
they are related to each other, the special rights and duties of our executives,
staffs, and consultants, together with a proper basis for the financial
compensation of these special workers, will always be matters for serious care
and concern.
Concept 12. General Warranties of the Conference: in all its
proceedings, the General Service Conference shall observe the spirit of A. A.
Tradition, taking great care that the conference never becomes the seat of
perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds, plus an ample
reserve, be its prudent financial principal; that none of the Conference Members
shall ever be placed in a position of unqualified authority over any others;
that all important decisions be reached by discussion, vote, and, whenever
possible, by substantial unanimity; that no Conference action ever be personally
punitive or an incitement to public controversy; that, though the Conference may
act for the service of Alcoholics Anonymous, it shall never perform any acts of
government; and that, like the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous which it serves,
the Conference itself will always remain democratic in thought and action.
Copyright © A.A. World Services, Inc. Reprinted by Permission
The text of the complete Concepts is printed in The A.A. Service Manual/Twelve
Concepts for World Service (BM-31). This publication is available from the
General Service Office, Grand Central Station, P.O. Box 459, New York, NY 10163. Also available from your
Central/Intergroup Office.
The Twelve Concepts for World Service - Illustrated
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