The Role of the Delegate – AA Service Workshop – 2025 – Part 4 of 27 – Billy N.

good evening everyone i'm billy i'm an alcoholic welcome um we will open up hold on one second i just want to make somebody another person to co-host welcome um good to see everyone we open up with the serenity prayer god grant me the serendipity to accept the things i cannot change the courage to change the things that i can and the wisdom to know the difference um first a big shout out to ikipa i was there for two days this weekend it was amazing and uh i'm still convinced that there's no better farm system for general servants than young peoples in aa conventions that is the farm system for general service um but i do want to give a big thank you to the committee because it was a awesome awesome uh conference and obviously a lot of work uh went in behind it um for anyone that's new to us just a few ground rules so we have a question and answer time at the end of the meeting and it is only accessible by chat you send me a question i read it but there is an intermediary step meaning if the question is out of bounds it does not get asked it is just ignored so what does out of bonds mean out of bound means that we do not discuss debate conference agenda items or anything that even remotely sounds or smells like a conference agenda item or could possibly be one in the future um we do fully support anyone going to their district or their assembly and going to their delegate and their dcm or district chair whatever you call it where you are and being fully engaged in the conference process it's just that this is not the place for that um so that's just a general warning tonight we are um tonight we're doing chapter five and then we're doing next week the conference conference committees i did ask the sitting delegate in the area that i live in to participate a bit tonight um but hopefully the first thing I want to say for everyone is, I sometimes get this question is, how do you find out who your delegate is? Okay. So let's talk about that for a second. You find out Who your delegate Is by going to your district meeting, or maybe reaching out your GSR might even know, you might be a new GSR and you don't know who the delegate is. but it is not a big secret and it is really if you make a couple of phone calls and send a couple emails that is easy to figure out um and i want to just talk about the word delegate because a lot of people here are familiar with it can be used improperly so So the bylaws of the General Service Board state clearly that I'm going to have to, for right now, let's see. Okay. So the Bylaws of The General Service Boards say that every voting member of the conference is a delegate so that really means we have like four kinds of delegates we have area delegates trustee delegates director delegates and staff delegates the chapter in the service manual and i know i've heard it from people maybe it should be retitled but send in an agenda item that's all can tell you the chapter in the service manual just says the delegate but the chapter and the service manual is a hundred percent about the area delegate not the other three types of delegates that can vote at the conference what's good about the term delegate applying to everybody is it implies that everybody is equal during the week of the conference that there are no better than less than there should be no us and them everybody is simply a voting delegate and we have 93 delegates around the country in the u.s and canada right now some states have one delegate that's why sometimes you hear this term state delegate but that's just because it's a state that only has one delegate area the whole state we have a bunch of states that have two delegates we have a few that have three we have some that have four and one that has five um that is generally based on the aa group population sometimes it's based on geography like area 92 was created because it was before fax machines and before email and in washington state you had to go over a mountain pass to go from the east to the west and sometimes people couldn't get to the assemblies so um there's a few like that but for the most part it's number of groups um i asked everyone to read the service manual because you know that i am not a big believer in reading to you but just i'm going to just go through it quickly before we introduce the delegate it talks about how the fellowship supports its delegates um it talks about the duties and responsibilities obviously one of the most important duties is to go to the conference obviously one of the biggest responsibilities is to come back and communicate what happened at the conference another big responsibility is to talk about what's going on at gso and what is being communicated and to be a link in the communication chair now as we've said often before we have 93 areas and the service manual is prescriptive not descriptive and is not a policy document some areas have different qualifications to be delegate just like they do for dcms or area chairs there's some general qualifications in the book um term office is two years two consecutive years we talked about panel last year panel means um the year that you start your first conference that you serve um but i'm going to introduce the current delegate and let her talk from a high level what it's like to be delegate maybe a little of her experience that led her up to being a delegate how her experience at the conference this year was and how her experience getting feedback. We know that every area does not do it the same, but I am very grateful that Lisa D from Area 15, who is the current C because she's going to her second conference, she is a Panel 75 delegate. She will also be the chair of the conference is the chair of the Conference Literature Committee she was elected at last year's conference it's always a second-year delegate so with that Lisa thank you very much for being here thank you Billy appreciate the invitation alcoholic member of the Mountain Group which is in District 9 of Area 15 my name is Lisa Dempsey and it's good to be here with all these fine folks um and i prepared some notes and i looked at the chapter of the delegate so that's i'm going to run through some notes, and also interject some comments along the way and billy already touched on a few of these subjects uh in the chapter so some of them i'll kind of go through quickly how the fellowship supports the delegate in area 15 we are very fortunate to have a large participation from our past delegates those that have served in area 15 and of course since uh south florida is a retiree capital of the world we have many who have served other areas and now reside in our area and have brought their experience strength and hope to us. And that is a tremendous support. We also have support from other delegates in our region. We have a very strong region, and very supportive, and any time I reach out to a delegate in my area, in my region with a question, boom, I have an answer like instantly, which is terrific. Our regional trustee in the southeast region, we just elected new regional trustee and that trustee certainly plays a large part in bringing us together in sharing our voices. And our area does a phenomenal job in preparing the delegates with all of the voices from the groups on the agenda items for the conference. And, of course, the staff members that are associated with that conference committee assignment and as billy mentioned i was assigned to the literature committee so the person the staff person that's that works on the literature desk is an excellent source of information and for me personally i also relied on my sponsor for grounding me power greater than myself or some strength and friends who are past delegates who have first-hand experience about being a conference and can really share what it was like. And then the next little section is on duties and responsibilities, and it would probably be suffice to say there are lots of them. Certainly in our area as Billy mentioned, conference comes at the top of the list in terms of being prepared and representing our area and AA as a whole. And communication, communication is so key in relaying information from conference to the members and hearing from the members and taking that voice to the conference. In our assemblies we have four assemblies a year, so there are many activities at the assemblies and a chance to engage with the GSRs and the DCMs. Anytime there's communication from the board or the office, that gets sent out and I share that with the members and anytime they have a question for me, that comes to me and we have some pretty good back and forth stuff. In our area, there's lots of other things. I'm not going to read through all of them because there's about 50 of them. Background material. That is a key thing because the background material, well, I'll get to that in a little bit, but getting the background material out to the members because they need to be informed of what the background is so they can go back to their groups. So then they can come back to me, the delegate, and share that information so I can take that to the conference. And then, of course, post-conference, after the conference, I go and share with them what happened at the conference and answer any of those questions. Let's see, what else? third legacy at the end of our rotation it is customary that the outgoing delegates conducts the election for the next slate of officers and delegate and an alternate delegate that come in following the next panel and also obviously that would apply to a trustee as well or trustee at large which we just did so that's not going to happen for another four years because that's the term of their position is four years unlike the delegate which is two which billy mentioned and also in our area we have a state convention there's a southeast delegates get together weekend regional forum so those things happen in our region as well and qualifications As Billy mentioned, they do have some basic qualifications listed in the book, and it varies from each area what your qualifications are. In Area 15, qualifications are a present or a past district committee member, five years of continuous sobriety, sufficient time to attend and prepare for the week-long General Service Conference, as well as the efforts needed before and after the conference, sufficient time to attend all other events noted active participation in local and area affairs and demonstrate a sense of responsibility beyond the group level experience in sharing business or service meetings knowledge of aa affairs and the ability to research information for members an understanding of the experiences viewpoints and group conscience of our area through a familiarity of the 12 traditions and 12 concepts and how they can be applied to local problems ability to be open-minded and listen to different views points willingness to communicate with a members and other delegates to discuss and act on matters vital to the fellowship into that list i would certainly add how important it is to talk to your family and your employer is I have found this position to be very time-consuming. I also spoke with people in my area who held this position just prior to me to get the real idea of what it entails, and of course having an open mind to be willing to listen is vital in communication as well. The term of service, as Billy mentioned, it is two years, two consecutive years. No area delegate may attend the conference more than three years. In our area, we did have a situation where the delegate went to her first conference. She passed away before going to her second conference, so our alternate delegate automatically became the delegate and went to that conference and then was elected to her own two-year term. More recently in our area, we had a delegate who attended both conferences but resigned right after the second one. The alternate delegate, which happened to be me at the time, became the delegate in May. So I got a bonus seven months and then I was elected to the 75th panel. So I will have two years to serve on my own. and so there isn't a big rotation at conference half of the delegates are elected one year and the other half are elected the other year so we have odd year panel delegates and we have even year paneled delegates and our area is odd in many ways alternate delegates. For me, gosh, this is so important. It's just as important as the delegate in my book. I was fortunate as an alternate delegate that my delegate did keep me fully informed. And that became pretty crucial when she stepped down right after her second conference. So knowing how important that is to be fully informed, I've done the same with my current alternate. My alternate has been an invaluable asset in helping with all aspects of the delegate position. It is common each year to have an alternate attending the conference in place of a delegate who for whatever reason is unable to attend that year. They are approved in attendance to attend in advance. They don't just show up, and this year there was an alternate from Area 82, and she happened to serve on the Literature Committee. She did a terrific job. She was very prepared, and the delegate had a work conflict and couldn't come. He's still the delegate, and looking forward to seeing him at the next conference because he is a Panel 75 delegate. So that does happen pretty often for one reason or another, illness or work or family that someone cannot serve as delegate and they notify the conference and the alternate comes in their place. Now preparing for the annual conference. Oh boy, that's quite an undertaking. The background material and final agenda for the conference are usually ready about mid to late February, which doesn't leave a lot of time. That's actually only about nine weeks before the conference happens. So that's a rather short window to disperse the information, read the information, present the information gather the voices from the area and the background is posted in on board which is what the delegates and the conference members have access to to get their information. And the background can vary anywhere from 700 to 1200 to 1400 pages, so there's a lot of reading to do and digest. Our area has been doing online sessions prior to our assembly, so members can be informed and ask questions. This has been helpful, So they can then talk to their home group members before our assembly weekend. This year we did not present on all the items, just the ones the members requested. This allowed for more focus on the items of interest. Of course as delegate I was informed with the background on all of the items on the agenda, not just the one's the area went over. Our online sessions were audio recorded and posted on our website in case members couldn't attend but wanted to hear the information. At assembly weekend, the committees reviewed these items in great depth and reported on them to our members. A sense of the body was taken and group conscience voices were heard. Having several note takers were most helpful in gathering all of that data. New this year was a Google sheet members could complete with their thoughts as well. This was easy to sort at conference when an item was discussed. Being organized, however that looks for you, is key because there is so much information to cover and you need to be able to access it quickly. Of course, reading and re-reading and rewriting the material was helpful too. Packing. Oh boy, yeah. How do you pack for a week-long business meeting? Well, for me that meant very carefully and it involved lists because I didn't want to forget anything. Now, you know, certainly there's everything available to you in New York but I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed. So for me, that meant lists and taking my time and packing. Some people choose to ship some of their stuff to and from the hotel to make their travel easier. I didn't want to take chances on shipping. I dragged everything with me that I wanted. Conference week is very long, very long days. Often it can be from eight in the morning to 10 p.m. There are a few breaks in there here and there. I know I calculated this year we had 65 hours of butts in chairs doing business. So that's a long week. So with that in mind, it is so important to take care of yourself and pace yourself for the long haul, or at least it was for me. And I did manage to do that. And certainly I was a little tired by the end of the week, but I was not burned out. Conference will assign you a delegate buddy, someone who has been to conference one year the last year and that's a delegate buddy so it's not a conference delegate but a area delegate and then in our region we also have a buddy as well and of course that's someone that we probably already know pretty well so that makes it very comfortable to ask them anything and everything that pops into my head about the conference. Expenses. Expenses for the delegate mostly fall under attending the conference, reporting back to members, area activities, and of course regional activities, whatever that is for you. Each area is asked to contribute, if possible, a minimum of $2,200 toward the expenses for the General Service Conference. The cost per member varies from year to year, but it is right around $10,000. Some areas choose to contribute more or the whole amount, and some may not be able to contribute. No area delegate is denied serving. logistics while delegates will receive hotel info pertaining to the conference they will make their own travel arrangements and be reimbursed after submitting their receipts area 15 does cover one additional night for conference and any other additional nights would be out of pocket the conference will cover the nights during the conference this year my spouse was my guest and she paid her own way for airfare and food costs the room was paid for but all other expenses including activities that they have arranged for the guests were out of pocket and not included in the conference expenses. Reporting back. This looks different depending on what area you live in. Some areas, and by reporting back that means what happens at the General Service Conference. Some areas simply report back at their next area assembly when everybody is together. In some areas, visit the local districts and report back. Area 15 does most of the report backs by visiting in person all of the local district. A few districts choose to do an online meeting and bring a few smaller districts together. Again I'm grateful for a hands-on alternate delegate who fully supports the delegate and has also traveled to report backs to assist. also the way things are reported back vary from area to area some choose to review whether they passed failed or were not considered every single agenda item every single advisory action every single committee consideration and every single floor action or some combination of that This report is very thorough and also time consuming based on the amount of material. Also what varies are handouts. Some areas have handouts, some don't, and what they have in those handouts varies just as much as how they report back. And for me, last year I got to give all of the delegate reports for a conference I didn't attend because our delegate resigned due to health reasons right after her second conference. So this year when thinking about how to do report backs, I chose to find out what the members wanted and by doing so I changed things up a little. I chose to do a half-hour verbal report with a PowerPoint and have a handout of the advisory actions. Also available to our members to read and ask questions on were the PowerPoint that I presented, the full conference committee reports, committee considerations, floor actions, the picnic table, which is the finances, etc., etc. Now in our area we also provide all that stuff in English and Spanish because we do have some great Spanish participation with our districts. Three Spanish districts. Many members appreciated the shorter reports and were still able to ask things on a particular item that was still of interest to them. I did not vote opposite of any strong opinion of my area this year, but if I had, I would have come back and reported to them how I had changed my vote and why I had changed my boat. So experience this year at conference. I, you know, had talked to many people about going to conference so I had a little bit of an idea of what I'm walking into, but of course you never know until you're actually there. And certainly having buddies and friends in our region and others was a great comfort to answer questions and just be a little bit of a security blanket. Like, hey, let's stick together through this. We'll get through this together you know we can ask questions together and and do this together it was a tremendous experience as everybody you know who has been to conference would share you know um serving on the literature committee was just tremendous committee assignments are done at random you know no one gets to pick what committee you're on you're not you're placed on a committee based on your expertise you know we're randomly selected i knew i would not be serving on the trustees committee because the previous delegate had served on the trustee's committee so So you can pretty much guarantee whatever the previous delegate served on, you will not be serving on that committee. Otherwise, it's pretty much wide open how you will randomly be placed on a committee. And so I had no idea what it would entail. But certainly with literature, there was lots of extra bonus reading because we had several pamphlets that were going to be reviewed and possibly presented to the rest of the conference. So there was some extra confidential reading to do, which was very exciting to see things before they would get presented and see if there were any changes to be made. And so that was, that was a terrific experience. The whole process of trustee elections was certainly very interesting I had heard how that was done before but to see that in action was very interesting. You know it was just like the other past delegates had described it, but it was certainly very interesting to partake in that process um and i don't know really what else to add to that so um i'd be more than happy to answer lots and lots of questions thank you billy thank you lisa i really appreciate knowing how busy you are and how much time it takes to be a delegate to take time out tonight and uh and give people a first-hand view um so uh d you want to make the announcement about the chat again just so everyone is clear about sending messages with questions yes um if you're looking for sending a text to bill you have to go in to the new chat or main chat so you got to go the main chat you got to send the message to me i know d is a little broken up right now okay so already one question in there lisa you're on a big delay sorry okay Okay. Awesome. Lisa, first question about how many hours a week would you say is required to be a delegate for you? Like for me, um, there's also many emails that I receive as delegates from members in the area. I usually report on that every quarter, you know, it's several hundred emails in a quarter that get answered. So it's a matter of reading emails, sometimes investigating answers for the members and getting back to them. So, it's really kind of hard to pinpoint actual time. Some days and weeks, it is more than others. I do try and answer emails within a 24-hour period and get back to people um even when i'm traveling i still managed to do that i did that this year when i was in africa i was still able to whatsapp with people so communication is key thank you next question how hard is it to understand or learn the finances at gso well everybody has a different you know some people struggle with trying to learn the finances and some people it comes very easy to them so it can be rather complicated the picnic table does try and break that down and simplify it i think that's why they started calling it the picnic table a number of years ago to try and simplify that and make it a little more user-friendly and more readable. In the board reports, there's much more detail for those that have a better grasp on finances, but the picnic table gives you the basic nitty-gritty stuff, And for all the really down and dirty, you know, it's in the board reports. Next question. I don't know if I have not seen the conference report yet, but maybe you know the answer to this question. But somebody asked, what was the average amount of time that people are involved in service before they became a delegate or when they became the delegate? Well, they did give statistics on youngest and oldest in age, youngest and longest in sobriety, and also in service. I would have to look... I can look really quick This year at conference out of the area delegates, the average age was 58 years old. The oldest area delegate was 79. The youngest was 29 years old length of sobriety. average was 22 years longest 47 years shortest seven years length of service the average was 17 years of service longest 47 and shortest six thank you next question and i'm gonna kind of re we don't call out areas or districts or states or anything to do that could let people not even know but even worse is assume uh uh that it's about a particular area but um you're i know you speak english i'm not sure if you're fluent in spanish i'm guessing you're not or i would know that right correct okay that's what i figured um so um what do you do about communicating to members who don't speak english since that's your language that would be the easiest way to ask this question um well all of our materials that are posted are in english and spanish and then when i send out emails i do run it through not affiliating, associating or anything, but I use a program called Deep L and I run everything through there. And when I send out emails to our area, I always send them in English and Spanish to be inclusive of our Spanish members. When I am at a report back that's in a Spanish district, I have an interpreter who can speak Spanish, and I give the report in English, and he translates it and interprets into Spanish. And the handouts are in English and Spanish. Thank you very much. We really appreciate that answer. Did you say you were the literature committee chair? You did, and I did. How is that position voted on? So I know next week we'll talk about more about conference committees, but if you want to answer that question, please do. Sure. So at the very end of all of our business for the Conference Literature Committee, anyone who will then be a second year delegate, so all of the panel 75 delegates were eligible to be elected for the chair and then whoever got the most votes was the chair, and the person with the second votes was the alternate chair. Thank you very much. This person says thank you Lisa. Can you tell us at the conference how many hours did you meet in committee and was that enough time to get your work done? Our committee did stick with the schedule this year. Some committees chose to meet longer. They met, I think a little earlier and stayed later. The second day we did stay. I think we did say about a half hour or so later into our lunch, but it wasn't a big time. the conference did back up the start time from what it used to be so all of the committees started a little earlier than they used to probably because so many gave feedback in their surveys that said they needed more time so we we did have sufficient time in our committee to cover everything that we needed thank you how is voting done at conference is it secret balloting is it raise your hand or electronic um and when it went to uh and what does this say and when did it start being secret and electronic Well, I don't know the history of when it changed, although I think let me look at my list because I think I remember the delegate that came back and talked about that. So initially in, let's see, he was a panel 65 delegate. So it could have been back around 2015. Initially at the very beginning when we opened conference, we did vote on a few things and that was by raise of hand and that was like I mentioned to accept the alternate delegate serving. We had to do that pretty much first in order to make her, because when you go to conference, you can't just like, hey, I'm in town and I want to check it out and see what it's like. It's a closed meeting. So it's only for the conference members. So we had to vote right away to accept her as a conference member. And that was done by a raise of hand. When we started all of our committee reports back on Wednesday, day, we switched over to the electronic voting and we got a little tiny thing, the size of a credit card I would say. And it was on a lanyard. And so those were our clickers. And we were assigned a clicker. And when you picked up your material, your conference binder, you got your clicker and at the end of the conference week, you had to turn your click in they were all numbered and everything so if you didn't turn in your clicker you know there would be some kind of fee um i turned mine in so i can't tell you what the fee is luckily but um so it does make the voting process go quickly because it'll it is done electronically thank you they put the results up on a big screen so it's very easy to see visually oh i think as a this person wrote this very quickly but so the results on the screen are total it does not show who or what each delegate voted for correct correct it just shows the numbers yes or no uh it does individually say a clicker number or an area or a position just the numbers uh lisa i know this is just your opinion but are there too many proposed agenda items to go through at the conference and to become fully informed than to fully inform the members of your area about it does certainly seem like there are more and more agenda items every year on the agenda and i can't answer how someone if you know they feel that's too many and they can't be fully informed i'm not going to comment on that thank you very much which of your service positions prior to being alternate delegate was most helpful for your positions as an alternate delegate and delegate Well, in our area I know some areas that the area chair happens after your delegate. In our area it's a position that you're eligible for prior to alternate delegate and delegate and for me that was certainly my most challenging service position I ever served. It was during covid and it was quite a handful and i think that certainly prepared me to be alternate delegate and then delegate because i faced many challenges during those two years thank you lisa thank you for your presentation when you stated you use google docs to get information to your members how do your members back to you and do you have people to sort out replies also are all the districts in your area on the same level with technology um the google doc it was a form for people to send in their info to me on agenda items that they could fill out the form and tell me what section and what agenda item it was and what their voice was on that item. And then those replies came directly to me, and then I was able to download that and easily sort it by section so it was very accessible at conference to read that. And no not all of our members are on the same level with technology. We have many members who are older, as I said, we're a little bit of a retiree capital of the world. So we do have many older members who are not as comfortable with technology as perhaps the younger members. And we do have many Spanish members as well and some of them are not as comfortable with the technology either. So that's why it was just to offer another form of communication if they were not there in person. Obviously, I'd much rather hear from somebody face-to-face, but just trying to lay out extra options and give everybody every opportunity they possibly had to get their voice to me. Thank you. Of all your general service positions, which have you enjoyed the most? That's part one of the question. I'll stop there because I could get confused. Okay. Well, I mean, it's hard to say. you know, I'd like to say where I am right now. I kind of like to stay in the now. As challenging as the area chair position was, I like a challenge. So I certainly enjoyed that while it was challenging. It was very good. But serving right now with literature and without discussing agenda items there's some really cool exciting stuff happening so it's tremendous to be a part of that right now thanks the second part of the question how do you take the additional responsibility and pressure that come from being a delegate and make it work for you in your life outside aaa and personal recovery oh great support system um yeah uh a terrific sponsor you know who can certainly keep me grounded and a support system yeah that's basically it yeah thank you do you meet up more than just at the conference for committee work with other delegates and board members we don't do committee work in between the conference committee work happens at the conference committees do meet up and have what they call joint meetings so i'm on literature so there is a trustees literature committee and we have a joint meeting with the trustees literature committee. Usually that'll happen in October prior to the board meeting and discussing proposed agenda items. In this case, we also had one post-conference because of an ongoing project that's happening right now. So we had to have a joint meeting with them as the literature conference literature committee chair prior to and after every board meeting i have met with the trustees literature chair to talk about what was going to happen at board weekend and then what happened at board weekend. And then after those meetings I emailed all of my notes to the committee members so they could be fully informed but actual conference committee work happens at conference thank you what feedback or suggestions would you share with gsrs before the final agenda items are sent out what would you tell them to embolden them with their tasks and duties as a gsr with that group Well, as I always say to them, yes, the list can be long. The agenda can be six, eight pages, which could be overwhelming. And as I say to them, you know your home group better than anybody because it's your home group. You know what issues your homegroup is most concerned about. So take those items, read about those items the background material, ask questions on those items because not every group has the same focus on what they're concerned about. So the gsr best knows their group and what is most important to them thank you oh here's a good question how do you stay neutral with so many people in aa today having extreme positions on agenda items I have no opinion. That's what I practice saying. I have no opinion on that. And, you know, just like that other question, I, you know, I really said I didn't want to give my opinion because I certainly wouldn't want to sway somebody and believe me, I have opinions. But I certainly wouldn' t want to voice them and sway anybody in my area or anywhere else. So I keep those opinions private, and I certainly listen to the voices of the members and carry that with me and listen at conference to the discussion that's happening. But yeah, it takes a lot of practice. I have no opinion on that. I am no opinion of that. And inside, i'm like i have an opinion but i have no opinion thank you let's see okay everyone we have about six minutes so if someone has another question please send it in i'm looking at all the questions now i think i have gotten through all of them i'm trying to see if i missed anybody but if If you have one, please send one in. Okay, 30 seconds. Okay. Outside the conference, what's the biggest workload for a delegate? Well, for me, to me, it's an ongoing process. Certainly from February in preparing for conference all the way through conference and post-conference, which for me ended the end of July. But for me there's an on-going process. You know, there's always more material for me to read, And more to stay engaged with for my anything happening in the area that pertains to communicating with the delegate. So it's not, that's certainly the bulk, the heaviest time, but there are certainly other activities happening during the other time of the year and other events. Okay, let's see so that's it. Lisa, thank you very much an announcement for next week. Please read the section on conference committees. Lisa's gonna dive into how they meet, what goes on, not talking about agenda items, but more about the process, the year-long process of being on a conference committee. What it's like to be a committee chair, you know, what it's going into the week of the General Service Conference, what it looks like the days that the committee meets, how is the discussion handled? All those things you always wanted to know um lisa will cover so thank you lisa thank you very much for being here tonight thank you and for anyone who listens to the recording of course our disclaimer anything i say anything lisa said it's our opinion it's our experience um in our view um so with that we will close with the responsibility statement i am responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help i want the hand of aa always to be there and for that i am responsable have a good night everyone thanks again lisa really appreciate it