Concept Six

Concept Six

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. (Short form)

Conference meets once a year to make decisions on our behalf. For the rest of the year, conference members are spread all over the UK. It would be impractical for them to take care of the day to day running of our services.

We delegate authority to a dedicated group of Conference members called the General Service Board. They are accountable to Conference but we have endowed them with the Right of Decision. In fact they have a huge amount of freedom. For this reason, it is vital that we choose the right trustees.

It is important to give the board this freedom because of the amount of responsibility that we trust them with, They are responsible for a lot.

We have left them in charge of relations with the public at a national level. They ensure that AA literature is available to everyone who wants it. They manage the General Service Office and produce Share and AA Service News. They have legal control of our 1 million pound annual turnover.  They are also the guardians of our 12 Traditions.

With this huge work load, it would be ridiculous not to give them the corresponding authority to decide how our general services should be run. Conference hold the GSB to account every year and in large matters, Conference have the final say.

Concept 7 shows how the relationship between the GSB and Conference is balanced. Concept 8 describes how the GSO is managed and Concept 11 gives further information about the general services provided by the GSB.