Committee No. 4
Background:
The most up to date estimate of AA membership is thought to be 40,000 [includes Continental Europe – a lot less for Great Britain itself] (source GSO York, August 2014), and yet in 2013 the CSC received only 54 questions for consideration to go forward as a Conference question.
At Conference 2010, part of the outcome of committee 2 question 1 was to ‘produce a simple leaflet in plain English giving guidance on submitting questions to Conference’, however the average of 1 question per 740 members may suggest this was not an effective solution.
Conference is the one chance each year when the conscience of the Fellowship can meet to discuss how we can better improve how we operate and how we can more effectively carry the message of sobriety to still suffering alcoholics.
Page 100 of the AA Structure Handbook for Great Britain 2013 says that the second part of Conference ‘is spent in the consideration of a major subject (or subjects) of importance affecting the Fellowship’ [it's pity they can't exert themselves and 'consider' the Minority report submitted by AA members on a number of occasions now!] and also that the subjects be looked at as ‘a matter of vital importance affecting our primary purpose to stay sober ourselves and carry the message of sobriety to the still suffering alcoholic’.
Article 3 of the Conference charter says that conference ‘will also be the vehicle by which AA in Great Britain can express its views on all matters of vital AA policy’.
(our comments in red)
Comment: Perhaps AA members would (and should) rather focus their attention on matters closer to home like their local meetings, for example, where the AA message is actually communicated. The fact is that conference is extremely good at issuing any number of guidelines etc but has absolutely no power to enforce them – hence the term 'guidelines' – and quite right too. Advice, for instance, has been issued by the conference on the questions of bullying and harassment but with no discernible impact on the cult groups where these practices have become the norm. Members who familiarise themselves with the literature (conference approved) will already be aware that nowhere is such behaviour condoned. Cult members, on the other hand, who pay lip service to the principles of AA (as outlined in the steps, traditions and concepts etc) have absolutely no interest in conference admonishments. They will carry on abusing AA members (usually newcomers, the most vulnerable in the fellowship) for just so long as we allow them. It's far too easy to pass the buck to some distant pseudo-authority figure (as in why doesn't GSO do something about this?) when the responsibility, as we so frequently remind ourselves (remember the Responsibility Pledge!), remains with us. The authority structure of AA is characterised in the inverted triangle with the groups (and members) at the top:
And with authority comes responsibility! So perhaps questions should not so much be directed towards the conference but rather to our own consciences. For precisely how long are we prepared to condone and collude with the widespread abuses perpetrated by cult groups and members that will, if permitted to continue, finally destroy AA's reputation and then AA itself? Surely even mere enlightened self-interest should be a sufficient impetus to act! Or maybe we'll just have to face up to the fact that, after all, we're just a bunch of unprincipled, spineless hypocrites!
Cheers
The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
PS For AA Minority Report 2013 click here
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