Delegate's Report Archive

Delegates Report - August 2008

Fellow WSEA 92 Members,

Well it’s here, the Pacific Regional Forum (PRF) is less than two weeks away! I’ve made phone calls throughout our Pacific Region which you may already know contains: Alaska (Area 2, Delegate Torvald H Panel 58), Washington (72 West, Gail H P57 and 92 East), Oregon (58, Dave A P58), Idaho (18, David F P58), California ((5 Southern, Gustavo T P57), (6 Northern Coastal, Sharon B P57), (7 Northern Interior, Lee D P58), (8 San Diego/Imperial, Gail N P58), (9 Mid-Southern, Joe B P58) and (93 Central, Debbie J P57)), Nevada (42, Mike D P57), Utah (69, Julie S P57), Arizona (3, Dennis W P58) and Hawaii (17, Vernon G P57) speaking to or leaving messages with each Area Delegate letting them know how excited we are to have them come to our Area for the PRF. I’ve also made similar calls to the General Service Office (GSO) attendees and everyone is looking forward to attending the Forum. Remember that the Panel 57 (P57) Delegates will be rotating so don’t miss your chance to meet them and learn of their conference and other AA experiences.

I would also like to take this time to re-familiarize you with the GSO, AAWS and GV Trustees, Directors and Staff that are scheduled to attend this years PRF. Please do not fail to make an opportunity to speak to each of them as many have traveled to the far corners of the globe carrying AA’s message of recovery and fellowship. What must have it been like to be involved in meetings in Gorkhi-Terelj, Mongolia, Windhoek, Namibia or Khabarovsk, Russia? Others will be able to share the insight they bring to their service positions and committees having been selected for their qualified backgrounds. Again, please help yourself to their wisdom and experience, it very well may be your last chance to do so as some of them will be rotating and it could be a while before the PRF is in our part of the region again. The following are in no particular order.

Leonard Blumenthal
Chairman of the General Service Board (GSB) Class A Trustee

General Service Board (the trustees)
The General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, Inc., now has but one purpose, that of serving the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is in effect an agency created and now designated by the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous to maintain services for those who should be seeking, through Alcoholics Anonymous, the means for arresting the disease of alcoholism through the application to their own lives, in whole or in part, of the Twelve Steps which constitute the recovery program upon which the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is founded.
(2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S106)

The Board of Trustees today consists of 21 men and women, 14 alcoholics (Class B) and seven non-alcoholics (Class A), who bring varying talents and backgrounds to their service responsibilities. There is always a careful balance on the board between trustees who are elected primarily to bring regional and A.A. service experience to the board and those selected primarily for business or other professional backgrounds. (2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S61)

AA's debt to those who do not share our disease but willingly share our problems is immense, going back to the beginning. Bill W. wrote: “In the days when A.A. was unknown, it was the nonalcoholic trustees who held up our hands before the general public. They supplied us with ideas…. They voluntarily spent hours on end, working side by side with us and among the grubbiest of details. They gave freely of their professional and financial wisdom. Now and then they helpfully mediated our difficulties. ”Written in 1966, those words hold true today. Nonalcoholic trustees remain a rich source of wisdom and perspective, and since they need not maintain anonymity, they are available to appear in public on behalf of AA.
(2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S62)

Greg M.
GSO and Alcoholics Anonymous World Services (AAWS) General Manager

The general manager, an A.A. member, is responsible for the day-to-day direction of the office and the efficient operation of group services, the publishing department, the GSO Archives, and GSO’s financial affairs. (2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S74)

Currently, AA World Services, Inc. has nine directors: two general service trustees, two regional or at-large trustees, three non-trustee directors, one paid staff member, and the general manager of GSO, who is president of the corporation. The board meets eight times a year and considers agenda items such as budget preparation for the service and publishing operations, pricing of new and revised publications, GSO service activities, implementation of Conference and General Service Board recommendations, copyright concerns, and reprint permissions.
(2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S71)

Rick W.
GSO Staff/Regional Forums

AA staff members help with group problems by sharing GSO’s store of accumulated A.A. experience through extensive correspondence and telephone calls, and by traveling on request to A.A. events. All staff members have subject assignments (such as literature, public information, international, and correctional and treatment facilities), which rotate every two years. Most staff members also handle correspondence for a geographic area.
(2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S74)

Regional Forums: Works on the agenda and arrangements with the regional trustee and current delegates in each region where a Forum is scheduled. (2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S76)

Doug R.
GSO Staff/General Service Conference (GSC)

General Service Conference: Coordinates the program and arrangements for the annual meeting in April, gathers ideas and solutions from Conference committees, and helps delegates keep their areas informed. (2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S76)

Rogelio Flores
GSB Trustee Class A

No description of our world services would be complete without full acknowledgment of all that has been contributed by our nonalcoholic trustees. Over the years they have given an incredible amount of time and effort; theirs has been a true labor of love.
(2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S10)

Madeleine P.
Regional Trustee (Pacific) Class B

Regional Trustees: There are eight regional trustees, six from the United States and two from Canada (see regional map), who serve a four-year term. While no trustee can be said to “represent” a geographical section—all trustees represent only the Fellowship as a whole regional trustees bring to the board’s discussions a regional A.A. point of view and experience that is invaluable. (2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S63)

Dorothy W.
Trustee at Large (US) Class B

In addition to the eight regional trustees, two trustees-at-large, one from the U.S. and one from Canada, ensure that the entire Fellowship is well represented on the board. They, too, serve a four-year term. The trustees-at-large are members of the trustees’ International Committee and other trustees’ committees, and can be appointed as directors of one of the corporate boards. They may fill in for regional trustees, as needed or requested.

Trustees-at-large also serve as the World Service Meeting delegates representing the U.S. and Canada. As such, they participate in two World Service Meetings, which are held every two years. WSM delegates should have the same qualifications as any trustees, and also have time both to attend the World Service Meetings and to present and carry out any decisions reached at these meetings.

Each trustee-at-large is requested to attend Regional Forums in both the U.S. and Canada. If schedules permit, each trustee-at-large could attend one Regional Forum in each of the eight North American regions over the course of their four-year term. They are also available for other A.A. service activities as requested by areas or regions, and additional activities as requested by the board of trustees. In the year between the World Service Meetings, the trustees-at-large may attend a Western Hemisphere zonal meeting, the Meeting of the Americas, as delegates representing the U.S. and Canada. (2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S65)

Robin B.
Executive Editor Grapevine (GV)

The AA Grapevine, Inc. currently has nine directors: two general service trustees, two regional trustees, one Class A trustee, three non-trustee directors, and the executive editor, who serves as president of the corporation. The board meets quarterly to consider such matters as circulation enhancement, finance, and development of new related items. It also holds four meetings a year as a planning committee of the whole.
(2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S72)

All of the Grapevine and La Viña staff are salaried employees. The work of the Grapevine office is primarily distributed into four different departments: editorial, circulation, bookkeeping, shipping and finance. The executive editor has oversight responsibility for the entire organization and reports directly to the Grapevine’s board of directors. The financial operation of the office is supervised by the Grapevine’s controller, as is fulfillment. All members of the editorial department, with the exception of the associate editor, are members of the Fellowship. (2007-2008 AA Service Manual page S84)

Ginger R. B.
GV Director non-Trustee

Director (non-trustee)—An AA member who serves on the corporate board of either AAWS or the Grapevine; directors are selected for business or professional experience that relates to the activities of the corporation. (The directorate of both corporate boards also includes trustees and A.A. staff.) (2007-2008 AA Service Manual pages S18-S19)

Jim B.
GV Director non-Trustee

The longtime success of our General Service Board will rest not only on the capabilities of the Trustees themselves; it will depend quite as much upon the competent leadership and harmonious association of those non-Trustee committee members, corporate service directors, executives and staff members who must actively carry on AA’s world services. Their quality and dedication, or their lack of these characteristics, will make or break our structure of service. Our final dependency on them will always be great indeed. (2007-2008 AA Service Manual page 48)

George M.
AAWS Director non-Trustee

The General Service Board, furthermore, rigorously abides by the principle of “Participation” whenever its chairman makes appointments to the Board’s principal standing committees. Numbers of non-Trustees and paid staff workers are customarily chosen for these important posts. As with the active service corporations, the same elements are nearly always present in these committees, viz., representatives of the General Service Board, non-Trustee experts, and one or more staff members who must do most of the leg work. All can vote, and therefore all can truly “participate.” When the time comes to ballot, there are no “superiors,” no “inferiors,” and no “advisers.” (2007-2008 AA Service Manual page 18)

Our Fellowship’s Service structure will be well represented at this years PRF by the attendance of GSC Delegates, GSO, AAWS and GV Trustees, Directors and Staff all of whom have sacrificed a great deal for our Fellowship’s unity and future. Equally important is the opportunity for the new member to come to the forum and see for themselves how the Legacies of our program of recovery has transformed alcoholics without hope into loving and caring individuals whose primary purpose has become to help them find their way to a new freedom and a new life.

I hope this little PRF primer is helpful as you attend and participate. As always if you would like any additional information about the upcoming PRF or anything else please feel free to contact me at "any" time and I will do my best to be helpful.

Yours in the Fellowship,
Rad