In December of 2022, my mind turns to thoughts of Rotation of Service as I participated in elections for other areas. Mid-Southern California Area 09 holds elections at the end of odd-numbered years as the Delegates and Board members serve on even-number Panels. The current panel is Panel 72 and in reading to prepare for a meeting with General Service Board Trustees in October is read an essay by A.A. co-founder Bill Wilson, Leadership is Vital at Every Level in A.A., April 1959.
So how is service related to leadership? Isn’t leadership about being told what to do? A.A. co-founder Bill W. wrote in an April 1959 Grapevine, “Somewhere in our literature there is a statement to this effect: “Our leaders do not drive by mandate: they lead by example.” In effect, we are saying to them, “Act for us, but don’t boss us….”
Therefore, a leader in A.A. service is a man (or woman) who can personally put principles, plans, and policies into such dedicated and effective action that the rest of us want to back him up and help him with his job. When a leader power-drives us badly, we rebel; but when he too meekly becomes an order-taker and he exercises no judgment of his own — well, he really isn’t a leader at all….
Bill Wilson, Grapevine April 1959
Republished in Service Manual, in Concept IX as an appendix pages C29-30.
In November, in Area 09 we had to experience service in our annual Servathon, with the sharing of Committee Chairs. The event had table displays, flyers, and documents about the work of committees. In Area 05 and 93, the election of service members in other areas was held online for Area 05 and in-person for Area 93 for positions of Delegate, Alternate Delegate, Secretary, Treasurer, and Registrar as part of the Third Legacy of Service. What are these Legacies? Recovery, Unity, Service. Three legs of a triangle.
First Legacy – Recovery – The Twelve Steps
Second Legacy – Unity – The Twelve Traditions
Third Legacy – Service – General Service
Service can include General Service, but also Intergroup, Hospitals and Institutions (H&I), Young People in A.A. (YPAA) and also at the district and group level. All the positions in the group are being of service – secretary, treasurer, phone list, coffee, literature, chair setup and takedown, greeters. I love meetings with greeters. Early in my sobriety it was the greeters at meetings that made it okay to go up to a building that was new to me, and ask people I don’t know if I’m in the right place? I returned to meetings that had greeters to hold that greeter position with respect. Welcoming newcomers to meetings – that is the essence of “attraction rather than promotion.” Sometimes, the circle and triangle are out front is a friendly “Welcome, you are in the right place” goes a long way for me, and I hope for the newcomer, still shaking and felling awkward. Service has always been part of recovery in the fellowship, even before there was a Big Book. The foundation of the Oxford Group meetings in Akron and New York was to introduce the newcomer to a program acceptance and surrender, followed by helping others. Dr. Bob Smith would welcome men who completed the treatment at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, under the direction of Sister Ignatia and frequent visits from Akron members to talk with the recovering drunk. Dr. Bob work welcomed the discharged man, ask him if he was ready to change, take them upstairs in Dr. Bob’s house in Akron to do steps one, two and three. Then Dr. Bob would hand the newcomer a St. James Bible, tell him to read it and to help reach out to other drunks in St. Thomas Hospital. In my experience, service helps my recovery by keeping me engaged long enough that I realize my problems either solve themselves, or I get a chance to address them and learn to not worry about them. Plus, I learn in service the value to support the members of our fellowship, to give them a chance to heal and grow by giving of themselves in service. I don’t want to block some else’s change at recovery.
Here is the original essay from Bill Wilson, Grapevine April 1959
Republished in Service Manual, in Concept IX as an appendix pages C29-30.
LEADERSHIP IN A.A.: EVER A VITAL NEED
No society can function well without able leadership in all its levels, and A.A. can be no exception. It must be said, though, that we A.A.’s sometimes cherish the thought that we can do without much personal leadership at all. We are apt to warp the traditional idea of “principles before personalities” around to such a point that there would be no “personality” in leadership whatever. This would imply rather faceless automatons trying to please everybody, regardless.
At other times we are quite as apt to demand that A.A.’s leaders must necessarily be people of the most sterling judgment, morals, and inspirations; big doers, prime examples of all, and practically infallible. Real leadership, of course, has to function in between these entirely imaginary poles of hoped-for excellence. In A.A. certainly no leader is faceless, and neither is any leader perfect. Fortunately, our Society is blessed with any amount of real leadership — the active people of today and the potential leaders of tomorrow as each new generation of able members swarms in. We have an abundance of men and women whose dedication, stability, vision, and special skills make them capable of dealing with every possible service assignment. We have only to seek these folks out and trust them to serve us. Somewhere in our literature there is a statement to this effect: “Our leaders do not drive by mandate, they lead by example.” In effect, we are saying to them, “Act for us, but don’t boss us.”
A leader in A.A. service is therefore a man (or woman) who can personally put principles, plans and policies into such dedicated and effective action that the rest of us want to back him up and help him with his job. When a leader power-drives us badly, we rebel; but when he too meekly becomes an order-taker and he exercises no judgment of his own— well, he really isn’t a leader at all.
Good leadership originates plans, policies, and ideas for the improvement of our Fellowship and its services. But in new and important matters, it will nevertheless consult widely before taking decisions and actions. Good leadership will also remember that a fine plan or idea can come from anybody, anywhere.
Consequently, good leadership will often discard its own cherished plans for others that are better, and it will give credit to the source.
Good leadership never passes the buck. Once assured that it has, or can, obtain sufficient general backing, it freely takes decisions and puts them into action forthwith, provided of course that such actions be within the framework of its defined authority and responsibility.
October Trustees Meeting. Trustees will meet October 29 – 31, 2022 in the General Service Board Weekend, NYC, to discuss preliminary Agenda Items and the progress of A.A.W.S. and Grapevine/La Vina projects. The final Conference Agenda will be discussed to proceed with preparing background material for the 73 GSC Conference. As Agenda Committee Chair, I will be attending the January 27-30 General Service Board Weekend where Trustees and Conference Committee Chairs meet to the conference agenda. An updated Preliminary Agenda Items (09.28.2022) in English and Spanish are posted to the MSA 09 website under “General Service Conference (GSO) – Conference Materials.”
Conference
The Conference assignment received and processed 184 Proposed Agenda Items (PAIs) within the September 15 deadline and supported trustee meetings related to the Equitable Distribution of Workload (EDW) and Conference Improvements (SCI). The Conference Coordinator has implemented thoughtful innovations and clarity to the assignment including holding “office hours” with Conference committee secretaries, and reviewing software for assigning the Panel 73 delegates to their respective Conference committees.
Cooperation with the Professional Community (CPC)
CPC Working Group met with Area CPC Chairs and other trusted servants to share their experiences, including opportunities to carry the message to potential members and connecting with professionals. Consideration continues to develop service material to help A.A. members speak with their healthcare providers about A.A. and proposed literature for mental health professionals. There is continued work on potential posts for the LinkedIn project. The Fall 2022 issue of About A.A. was distributed on October 11.
Corrections
Corrections Service of Canada (CSC) is eager to work with A.A. to raise awareness as to what A.A. has to offer for the alcoholic reaching out for help, such as the Corrections
Correspondence Service (CCS). Discussion continues on how to make A.A.W.S and A.A. Grapevine literature available on tablets for those members in custody. Corrections desk has put out a Call to Action for all trusted servants in Canada to increase the awareness and participation of the Corrections Correspondence Service in Canada among those members who are in custody. We have a waitlist for members on the outside waiting to be of service.
Group Services
The IGCOs reached out to several areas affected by natural disasters in the last month: Puerto Rico, Florida, and Nova Scotia. The October Quarterly IGCO meeting addressed a number of topics: status of backorders, positive feedback around the mixed title discount and possible price increases, quick order testing and the ability to participate more fully in project development, and a request from the Communications Committee to have an identified Meeting Guide app contact. Communication will be sent out in small batches to assess the status of virtual/online groups or meetings and simultaneously provide information on the newest developments regarding the participation of online groups.
Administration
On October 5th the General Service Office reopened with 46 visitors, several of whom were international guests. As of September 12th, each department is now back at the office three days a week or more. The Communications department has assumed responsibility for all the “Newsletters” to bring more consistency with style guidelines and messaging. These include Box 4-5-9, About A.A. and Sharing From Behind The Walls and LIM.
Archives
The Archives Disaster Prevention, Preparedness and Response Plan, revised in Sept. 2022, is currently under review with the Internal Audit Committee (IAC), once finalized, a copy will be distributed to Archives Staff as well as primary and secondary contacts.
Draft of the new digital exhibit (A.A.’s earliest pamphlets from the 1940s) is now complete with translations to follow in 2023. Started in August 2022, 147 identified manuscripts are either partially or fully organized using our database system Re:Discovery. As of October 2022, digitizing Bill’s correspondence with members on subject matters is now complete with a digital count of 14.22GB. New exhibits were History of International Conference of Young People in A.A. (ICYPAA) in September and in October Evolution of Media Formats in A.A. showing various changes in technology A.A. has used.
Communications
The Communications department has been busy with several initiatives including the release of the Meeting Guide app version 4.0 this September, the conversion of Universal Analytics to GA4 and with guidance from the Grapevine podcast team, PI and Publishing continued development of G.S.O podcast.
Operations
The Fellowship Connection training video for Area Registrars is now complete as of October 3rd. Video link here: Fellowship Connection Training Video. French and Spanish video dubbing is expected to be complete in 2023.
A.A.W.S. Finance
Contributions: Year-to-date contributions are $7,386,529. This represents 67% of the re-forecast budget of $11,000,000 (with 75% of the year elapsed) and is $30,118 less than last year.
Literature: Gross margin for September is $720,059, which is $167,035 more than August even though September gross sales were $45,887 less than August. This indicates that gross margin improved during the month of September.
Surplus: An operating surplus of $177,178 was realized in September. The operating deficit year to date is $545,496 compared to a re-forecast budget operating deficit of $855,032 and an operating surplus of $1,166,815 at this time last year.
Publishing
The implementation of the new jacket-less Big Book Alcoholic Anonymous and 12 x 12 are being printed with expected ship dates in November and December. This design remodel will help circumvent supply chain back orders and reduce printing costs.
A.A. Grapevine/La Viña
Work has started on Grapevine and La Viña apps, researching distribution channel logistics and costs. We continue to receive feedback from the Fellowship regarding features they would like to see on the app. Once we have integrated the store, magazines and archives for both websites under Drupel 9, we plan to begin development of comprehensive smartphone apps for both magazines.
The apps will include all things Grapevine and all things La Viña, including the current magazine, all archived stories, access to the podcast, daily quote, sobriety calculator, meeting guide, and store. Subscribers will be able to personalize the app so it provides a daily sobriety checklist, and a morning pop-up that tells the user their daily count and their favorite meeting of the day. The apps will allow for extra audio, video and written content, and we are researching ways to allow the fellowship opportunities for greater engagement with the Grapevine, La Vina and with one-another. We have developed a 5-year business plan, and we are currently seeking a freelance app project manager. This plan will require additional staff phased in during implementation to manage the app content.
While we have seen a decline in print subscriptions, we have enjoyed an increase in Other Publishing Items. We recently marked the one-year anniversary of the podcast in October and reached a milestone, surpassing ¼ million downloads!! (currently over 263K downloads) Additionally, Instagram accounts continue to increase (GV has 8,491 followers and LV has 1029).
Circulation, Development and Customer Service:
Price increase to start on January 1, 2023. Price increase notice went out on August 29, 2022.
Trustees Committees
Subcommittee on Participation of Online Groups (POG)
The committee has focused its work on developing and sending a survey to all of the US/Canada Delegates. That task was accomplished, and the data from it is still coming in. The preliminary results have been provided to the Trustees’’ Committee on the General Service Conference as background to their Possible Agenda Item discussions.
The next step for the ad hoc will be a follow up survey. The information gleaned from the first survey was very valuable, and in continuing to analyze responses, there is an opportunity to delve a little deeper and get further clarity on some of the insights provided.
2025 International Convention Member Engagement Survey:
The committee reviewed the survey results and noted that 24% of the survey respondents indicated interest in a hybrid component to the 2025 International Convention.
The consensus of the committee was that the options for consideration would be either: no hybrid component, or a hybrid component limited to the three big meetings, including the flag ceremony.
2035 International Convention Site Selection: The committee agreed to extend the 2035 International Convention Site Selection deadline from November 30, 2022, to December 15, 2022, to allow for greater participation. The staff secretary will send out a communication to the Area delegates advising of the extended deadline and inviting proposals. It was also discussed that members interested in bidding should be encouraged to speak with their city’s convention and visitor bureau for key information.
Hybrid Regional Forums: The committee reviewed a bid proposal to provide technology services for interactive, online, real-time access to in-person Regional Forums. It was noted the bid did not include travel and lodging expenses, or charges by the hotel for high-speed internet access. The committee had a robust discussion about the pros and cons of holding hybrid regional forums. The committee voted to continue in-person-only regional forums. However, the committee agreed that it may be useful to revisit the subject in a year.
Literature
The trustee’s’ Literature Committee reviewed proposed agenda items related to the changes approved by the 2021 General Service Conference to the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and noted the importance and interest of the Advisory Action to the Fellowship.
The trustees’ Literature committee agreed to forward to the 2023 Conference Literature Committee all proposed agenda items related to the changes in the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions as one grouped item with the suggestion that the Conference Literature Committee consider forwarding the item to the general service areas for wider discussion looking toward setting a policy on how and whether to edit A.A. founder’s words in our current literature. The agenda item would be discussed by the Fellowship during the 2023-2024 Conference year and considered by the Conference Committee on Literature at the 2024 General Service Conference.
The trustee’s’ Literature Committee agreed to forward to the 2023 Conference Literature committee all new proposed agenda items related to the Plain Language Big Book as one grouped item. The committee also discussed requests from some members regarding access to the draft of the Plain Language Big Book. After legal consultation, the committee agreed to provide a monitored closed reading room for Conference members only during the 2023 General Service Conference, where Conference Literature Committee members will be given first viewing of draft chapters in a controlled environment.
Public Information
You tube channel: Analytics indicate that people are not watching our entire videos because our content is older and lengthy. The PI Coordinator reported on two projects in progress to produce new content: converting audio PSAs to video files and the young people video submissions.
AAGV/La Viña Website, Marketing and Podcast report. The AA Grapevine Publisher shared that there are over 250K downloads of the weekly podcast. Initial feedback surveys have been distributed to help with the initial creative planning of a new AA Grapevine app.
The committee reviewed the progress report on the 2022 Young People’s Video Project. The project asked for submissions through November 7, 2022. The committee asked the staff secretary to communicate with the chair regarding the concept of extending the deadline.
Updates for MSCA09!
- The 72nd GSC Final Report 2022 (English and Spanish) is available on the MSCA 09 website. Print copies are available and will be distributed to the DCMCs/DCMs at the ASC or to the district meetings.
- A.W.S. is looking for your stories for the 4th Spanish Big Book editions and you can submit them online through aagrapevine.org and emails. AA Grapevine is collecting up to 7-minute-long stories from the Fellowship in the form of audio recordings. Share as you would in a meeting—or pick a topic of your own choosing, from making amends to working on a particular Step. Details are on flyers linked from the area website under GSO Announcements (11/13/2022). Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2022.
Honored to be of Service!
Mitchell B., MSCA 09 Panel 72 delegate
Cell: (949) 278-8263
Email: [email protected]