A Weekly 12 Concepts Study will be held at the Winston Salem Intergroup Office, 1020 Brookstown Ave, Room 11, Winston Salem, each Tuesday, 6-7 PM.
This week we will be studying Concept VIII, led by Robin B., DCM D18. We are working on an Application Example!
Concept VIII:
reprinted with permission AAWS
Short Form: The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and
finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active Services, exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities.
Long Form: 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.
Read:
Concept VIII… pages 33-35 in the AA Service Manual.
The General Service Office, Pages S77-84 in the AA Service Manual.
A. A. Grapevine, Pages S85-91 in the AA Service Manual
The A.A. Grapevine—Our Meeting in Print <<
P-8, Twelve Concepts Illustrated
Reprinted with AAWS permission
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. This Concept deals with the ways the General Service Board “discharges its heavy obligations,” and its relationship with its two subsidiary corporations: A.A. World Services, Inc. and the A.A. Grapevine, Inc.
Long experience has proven that the board “must devote itself almost exclusively to the larger questions of policy, finance, group relations and leadership . . . . In these matters, it must act with great care and skill to plan, manage and execute.” The board, therefore, must not be distracted or burdened with the details or the endless questions which arise daily in the routine operation of the General Service Office or the publishing operations, including the Grapevine. “It must delegate its executive function” to its subsidiary, operating boards.
So the trustees don’t sweat the small stuff. “Here, the board’s attitude has to be that of custodial oversight . . . . The trustees are the guarantors of good management of A.A. World Services, Inc. and the A.A. Grapevine, Inc . . . . by electing the directors of these service arms, a part of whom must always be trustees . . . . The executive direction of these functions is . . . lodged in the . . . service corporations themselves, rather than the General Service Board. Each corporate service entity should possess its own bylaws, its own working capital, its own executives, its own employees, its own offices and equipment.” Bill draws from earlier mistakes by the General Service Board in trying to run the service functions directly and warns repeatedly against “too much concentration of money and authority.”