Self Support Area 83 - I am responsible..........: December 2006

Sunday, December 3, 2006

How to use this website and it's purpose

The 12 Months of Self Support

As your Area Self Support Chair I plan on communicating ideas each month that will help District Self Support Chairs generate awareness of Self Support. One of the ways I plan on doing this is by having a monthly Self Support idea/tip. These ideas will focus on service and or money and I hope they will generate conversation and your own ideas. Remember that I am your Self Support Chair, I welcome your ideas and feedback. I also intend to read the District Self Support reports and post ideas, challenges from your reports, so please send me your reports.

One of the things I look forward to is your comments, on the ideas, on how the ideas worked or didn't work and for your own ideas. I would like to build a community where we exchange ideas and tips.

Please bookmark this website and come back to it each month. I have prepared 2 years of ideas and each month will update it with a new idea.

We will meet in person at Assemblies and this will give us the chance to share even more.

A.A.'s Legacy of Service - By Bill W., Page S1 of the A.A., Service Manual

Our Twelfth Step - carrying the message - is the basic service that the A.A. Fellowship gives;
this is our principal aim and the main reason for our existence. Therefore, A.A., is more than a set of principles; it is a society of alcoholics in action. WE must carry the message, else we ourselves can wither and those who haven't been given the truth may die.

Hence, an A.A. service is anything whatever that helps us to reach a fellow sufferer - ranging all the way from the Twelveth Step itself to a ten-cent phone call and a cup of coffee, and to A.A.'s General Service Office for nation and international action. The sum total of all these services is our Third Legacy of Service. Service include meeting places, hospital cooperation, and intergroup offices; they mean pamplets books, and good publicity of almost every description. They call for committees, delegates, trustees, and conferences. And, not to be forgotten they need voluntary money contributions from within the Fellowship.

These services, whether performed by individuals, groups, areas, or A.A., as a whole, are utterly vital to our existence and growth. Nor can we make A.A. more simple by abolishing such services. We would only be asking for complication and confusion.

Concerning any given service, we therefore pose but one question: "Is this service really needed ?" If it is, then maintain it we most, or fail in our mission to those who need and seek A.A,............Continued on page S2, S3 of the A.A. Service Manual

I am Responsible......

When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help I want the hand of A.A. always to be there. And for that: I am repsonsible.

12 Concepts of World Service (Short Form)

I. Final Responsibility and ultimate authority for A.A. world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole fellowship.
II. The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole society in its world affairs.
III. To insure effective leadership, we should endow each element of A.A. – the conference, the General Service Board and its service corporations, staffs, committees, and executives – with a traditional “Right of Decision”.
IV. At all reasonable levels, we ought to maintain traditional “Right of Participation”, allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.
V. Throughout our structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.
VI. The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference acting as the General Service Board.
VII. The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness.
VIII. 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.
IX. Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the trustees.
X. Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined.
XI. The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, and rights and duties will always be matters of serious concern.
XII. The Conference shall observe the spirit of A.A. tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and, whenever possible , by substantial unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of government, and that, like the society it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.

Thanks to the contributions of groups such as yours in 2006 General Service Office was able to ..

G.S.O.'s Records Department continues to be able to keep track of all those group trusted servants you tell us about, and to send them literature and materials that may be useful in their Twelfth Step service. This includes G.S.R. kits, D.C.M. Kits, Box 4-5-9 and other materials that show up in group mailboxes.
A. A. members who may be: working on a seagoing vessel for long periods; living in remote areas with no A.A. meetings; or confined to their homes by serious illness or physical incapacity are able to stay sober through correspondence and a bimonthly bulletin sent from the General Service Office.
A television public service announcement (P.S.A.) featuring actors in brief scenes in which the still-suffering alcoholic may recognize himself or herself followed by information on how to contact A.A. if the person wishes, was made available for Public Information Committee service around the United States and Canada. Sometimes a bleary eyed drinker gets a message of hope through these PSA,s
A.A. Literature was translated into Arabic, Bengali, Bosnian, Croatian, Hindi, Kazakh, and Turkish, among other lanugages, enabling the hand of A.A. to reach across language barriers and carry the message of recovery.
Approx. 2175 inmates of jails, prisons and other correctional facilities will be able to be linked to outside A.A. members this year for corresondence that will help them stay in touch with a sober A.A. member. This service is percieved as such a life-saving one to inmates that the requests from male inmates continue to exceed the number of outside male volunteers. The corrections assignment at G.S.O. would be happy to hear from more volunteers.

Final General Service Conference Agenda Items (Dealing with Finance)

E. Discuss a request to incorporate shipping costs into literature pricing.
D. Discuss a request “to eliminate volume discounts on literature orders.”
C. Discuss a request to “Develop a communication plan for the purpose of increasing the level of group participation and self-support within the Conference structure.”
B. Consider two suggestions to add text regarding reimbursement for G.S.R. (general service representative) travel expenses from group funds to the pamphlet “Self-Support: Where Money and Spirituality Mix.”
A. Discuss a request to increase the maximum annual contribution (or a one time bequest) that the General Service Board can receive from an A.A. member from $2,000 to $3,000.

Self Support Area 83 - I am responsible..........

Sunday, December 3, 2006

How to use this website and it's purpose

I am Responsible......

Self Support Cans

Blog Archive

Other Area 83 Blogs & Web Pages

Useful Links

12 Concepts of World Service (Short Form)

Thanks to the contributions of groups such as yours in 2006 General Service Office was able to ..

Final General Service Conference Agenda Items (Dealing with Finance)

About Me

Man on the Bed