AA Service Structure
There are roughly 4,000 meetings in the UK. They are all entitled to a Group Service Rep (GSR) to link the group to the wider AA community and, specifically, to attend the local intergroup and take part in the two-way report process, ie, letting the Fellowship know how the group's doing, and discussing and deciding on carrying the message to the community in ways that are difficult for a lone group to do, eg, prison and hospital visits, telephone service rotas, public information stints, etc.
There are about 130 intergroups attracting about one-third of groups on a regular basis and they elect Service Liaison Officers to organise these tasks and the intergroups also elect admin officers, Chair, VC, Treasurer, Secretary, maybe Social Convenor, Archivist, depends what size and how organised they are.
Each intergroup is entitled to a maximum of 3 Region Reps.
There are 16 Regions in UK AA, including 2 in London, 5 in Scotland and one for English-speaking Europe.
The Regions are supposed to do the same as the intergroups but across a wider area.... though in reality their main function is electing 6 Conference Delegates and some Alternates (Reserves) to take part in the annual Group Conscience of AA (Conference). The reason that many of them don't have much else to do is that each Region also nominates candidates for a General Service Board (GSB) member and the Board (or Trustees), in turn, stream themselves into these service areas. So you have a GSB Health member and several intergroup Health Reps and if they're doing their best to carry the message, there's not much call on the Region Health rep aside from chairing meetings of the intergroup reps and going up to York once a year to meet the other Region Health reps.
These annual get-togethers in all Service arms are held at the General Service Office (GSO) which most of AA confuses with the GSB. The office is simply the staff of AA carrying out the day-to-day admin work like any other business, though the General Secretary is a member of the Board, too.
There are two other AA offices -- one in Glasgow, the Northern Service Office and one in London, the Southern Service Office.
But back to Regions: idle hands.... means that many end up telling others what to do - or trying to. Regions have also become political forums in some areas for the same reason... they have been elected, they have no clear role, so they interfere elsewhere. Many long-term members of AA who have served at all levels of the structure believe that Regionalisation in the UK in the mid-70s to early 80s was a serious mistake (the Visionaries agree!) and that intergroups should have continued to send reps direct to Conference and kept the chain of AA short and accountable. But it is unlikely that Regions will ever be scrapped, because the body that would have to take honest inventory and do that is Conference, which is 90 percent made up of Region delegates! So we have to make the best of it - and try to ensure that intergroups send to regions members who are.... not Visionaries - and that they elect Delegates to Conference who are not Visionaries, because it doesn't take too many of them to influence the Conference, which is divided into six Committees for much of the weekend.
The point of the above is this is what the cult are trying to get control of - at every level.
What we need to do is to stop them. How we stop them - some suggestions:
a) keep them out of mainstream AA group consciences - so that they cannot manipulate group decisions - this can be achieved by having an established group conscience that prevents them access to the group as "group members" [note: "group membership" and "AA membership" are not necessarily the same thing - the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking - however groups can formulate their own criteria for deciding if someone can join their group as a "group member" - and with it the right to participate in voting at group consciences. "Visitors" to groups are AA members who are not "group members" and should not have voting rights - ah for the good old days when it never really mattered - but then "the times they are a'changing".
a) keep them out of mainstream AA group consciences - so that they cannot manipulate group decisions - this can be achieved by having an established group conscience that prevents them access to the group as "group members" [note: "group membership" and "AA membership" are not necessarily the same thing - the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking - however groups can formulate their own criteria for deciding if someone can join their group as a "group member" - and with it the right to participate in voting at group consciences. "Visitors" to groups are AA members who are not "group members" and should not have voting rights - ah for the good old days when it never really mattered - but then "the times they are a'changing".
b) where they have their own groups - either refuse them entry into Intergroups - as Poole and Bournemouth have already done. In this way they cannot gain GSR representation on Intergroups and influence the election of Regional Reps. Where they apply for positions as Service Liaison officers and admin officers (see above) intergroup may refuse their applications (good grounds are "too controversial).
Where their groups already have representation on intergroup take action to expel the group from intergroup -together with their service and admin officers. If they have a stranglehold on the Intergroup it is going to be a long haul but mobilise grass roots support (mainstream GSRs need to organise and work together) and keep going - never give up!
c) the same principles apply at all the other levels of the service structure - but always a good place to start is at the group level.
By the way if you're thinking why doesn't somebody at head office do something about this? - the answer is - they can't - they don't have the power. If you then ask yourself "Well who the hell is going to sort this out?" we suggest the following: go into the bathroom and look in the mirror - you're looking at him/her.
