Self Support Quiz
1. What year was A.A. founded.
1935
2. In what year was the General Service Conference Started?
The New York office had greatly expanded its activities, and these now consisted of public relations, advice to new groups, services to hospitals, prisons, Loners, and Internationalists, and cooperation with other agencies in the alcoholism field. The headquarters was also publishing "standard" A.A. books and pamphlets, and it supervised their translation into other tongues. Our international magazine, the A.A. Grapevine, had achieved a large circulation. These and many other activities had become indispensable for A.A. as a whole.
Nevertheless, these vital services were still in the hands of an isolated board of trustees, whose only link to the Fellowship had been Bill and Dr. Bob. As the co-founders had foreseen years earlier, it became absolutely necessary to link A.A.'s world trusteeship (now the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous) with the Fellowship that it served. Delegates from all states and provinces of the U.S. and Canada were forthwith called in. Thus composed, this body for world service first met in 1951. Despite earlier misgivings, the gathering was a great success. For the first time, the remote trusteeship became directly accountable to A.A. as a whole. The A.A. General Service Conference had been created, and A.A.'s over-all functioning was thereby assured for the future.
3. When were the traditions introduced?
In 1946, in the Fellowship’s international journal, the A.A. Grapevine, these principles were reduced to writing by the founders and early members as the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. They were accepted and endorsed by the membership as a whole at the International Convention of A.A., at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1950.
4. When were the concepts introduced?
The Twelve Concepts for World Service were written by A.A.’s co-founder Bill W., and were adopted by the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1962. The Concepts are an interpretation of A.A.’s world service structure as it emerged through A.A.’s early history and experience. The short form of the Concepts reads
5. What rich potential A.A. patron stated “I am afraid that money will spoil this thing,”.
John D. Rockeffer Jr.
6. Area 83 has prudent reserve, how many months operating expenses is this based on?
12 months
7. “Now, where do A.A.’s services – worldwide, area, local – fit into our scheme of things?” asks Bill W. in an October ___1967__article in the A.A. Grapevine. “Why should we provide these functions with money?” According to Bill, “The answer is simple enough. Every single A.A. service is designed to make more and better Twelfth Step work possible, whether it be a group meeting place, a central or intergroup office … or the world service Headquarters. (what year was this printed in the A.A. Grapevine, please fill in the blank.)
8. What is the limit on how much an individual can donate to G.S.O.?
2,000
9. The A.A. Birthday Plan suggest we contribute _$1.00_ for each year we have been sober. (fill in the blank)
10. What tradition speaks to groups being Self Supporting through their own contributions.
The 7th Tradition
11. Which legacy of A.A. do the concepts represent ?
Service
12. What month is the General Service Conference held ?
April
13. Who attends the General Service Conference representing Area 83?
The Delegate
14. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help __I___ want the hand of A.A. always to be there. And for that: ___I___am responsible. (Fill in the blanks)
15. Who determines your group’s prudent reserve?
Each group is autonomous there for it is determined by group conscious usually at a business meeting.
16. What pamphlet gives suggestions on how to split contributions between district, group, area and GSO?
Self Support: Where Money and Spirituality Mix.
17. Self-Support: Where Money and __Spirituality_ Mix.
"....When we are generous with the hat we give a token that we are grateful for our blessings and evidence that we are eager to share what we have found with all those who still suffer." Bill W. (The Language of the Heart, p. 221)
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.
About Me
- Area Eighty Three
- In the spirit of rotation I no longer hold this position. For current information please visit http://www.area83aa.org/. Please do not email me as I will no longer be checking emails.
Man on the Bed
Service in action - a 12th step call
1 comment:
FALSE PROPHET
It is important to note that Bill Wilson's faith system was not based on Jesus Christ and Him crucified; nor is there any mention of Jesus Christ being the Savior from his sin. Both he and Bob Smith (co-founder of AA) embraced and promoted a variety of spiritual experiences, which included practicing spiritualism and conversing with the dead (which the Bible forbids) and being heavily involved in séances. Wilson also acted as a medium or channeler. It was while involved in these types of religious experiences, not Biblical Christianity, that Wilson developed his Twelve Steps (Pass It On, pp 156, 198, 275, 278). Nowhere in the 12 steps does it say that you should quit drinking, or help anyone else to quit drinking, either. Nowhere do the words SOBRIETY, RECOVERY, ABSTINENCE, HEALTH, HAPPINESS, JOY, & LOVE appear in the 12 Steps. The word ‘alcohol’ is only used once, when it was PATCHED into the 1st Step for the word “sin.” But Wilson wrote “ We are powerless over ‘alcohol’… Oxford Group Slogan; “We are powerless over sin & have been defeated by it.Oxford group soul surgery techniques called for augmentation of guilt leading to the conversion experience. The alcoholics had learned, through their own conversion, a different method, augmentation of fear with an initial diminution of guilt. “It’s not your fault it’s a disease. There is nothing you can do about it. You’ll die unless you believe.” When a person was properly convinced & reached a point of proper desperation, guilt was then applied to bring about conversion of God control. These new groupers [Steppers] were motivated not primarily by guilt, but by fear. The other groupers [Steppers] being god controlled through guilt would use guilt to manipulate others.
PEACE BE WITH YOU
MICKY http://michael-micky.blogspot.com/
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