The Area Assembly – AA Service Workshop – 2025 – Part 6 of 27 – Billy N.

welcome everyone i am not going to pick on the one person who i think is in new york city on vacation and is in this meeting you should be out in new York City and listening to the recording i get it but i was going to send you some restaurant recommendations actually you and your husband uh but anyway um good evening everyone um we are on chapter four tonight And so what I would want to remind everyone of is we should have been on Chapter 5 tonight. So let me just get my book out. next week we are on the area delegate the delegate tonight we are on the Area Committee and then after the area delegate the next chapter after that is the General Service Conference so just hold on one second i'm sorry we're on area assembly tonight so i apologize we are on chapter three the area assembly and its activities we did the dcm last week so here's what i'm going to remind everybody of ordinarily next week we would be on the area committee we are going to skip that next week and go back to it because i asked a current area delegate who is also the chair of a conference committee to share some experience and that area delegate blocked out that date so i am going to be flexible and just move it um but what i want to stress tonight if you looked at the service manual is the picture and it's not really a picture it's more of a diagram that's color-coded but again i have to stress every area does business differently every area if you go through the sections in the service menu on this chapter it says the service mat the area assembly and its activities the purpose the composition the election assemblies regular non-election assembly eligibility to vote and it goes on but something that you all should know is that when this all first started most areas only had one assembly every two years the election assembly it was the area committee that got together in between that time over time we have created more meetings and i'm not saying complication but i don't know how many people are areas are represented tonight but quite a few and i can already see at least four regions five um some of you go to assemblies that are one day in a high school or a vfw hall some ofyou go to assemblysthat are all weekend twice a year there's other of you here that go toassemblies four times a year all weekend it is such a mixed bag but i'm going to start with the assembly is made up of gsrs and dcms and then area officers that's even a complicated term in some areas the delegate and alternate delegate are considered part of the area officers in other areas the delegate and alternate delegate are over here to the left but the officers are only the chair the alternate chair the registrar the fine treasurer the secretary and then we have how many different kinds of secretaries do we have we went through this with district we have some areas that have one secretary we have Some areas that a recording and a corresponding it's hard for people to believe this day and age that many areas did not have registrars 40 years ago that was part of the secretary's job so all of you have to be familiar with your areas whatever you call it handbook guideline current practice call it whatever you want um but your GSRs need to come to your assembly so if you are helping new GSRS and there's a lot of people in here where my main goal is that I know that you interact with a lot of new GSRs is how do you prepare your new GSRS for this thing called the assembly all of us we have a picture of what an assembly or at least our own assembly looks like and some of us maybe have been to one or two others some of Usmore but to the new GSRR who gets elected by the way in November or December you might as well be talking about going on a field trip to washington dc what the hell is the assembly what does it look like what happens there and so i don't think we take enough time helping gsrs to prepare to go to their first assembly and i'm talking about how do you book a room if it's a weekend thing if you're in my area and you're a new gsr who gets elected in november the rooms are already sold out that just happens in a lot of areas but then you should know where the backup hotels are you should also help your new g s r register with gso fill out the new group form but then you have this chapter the area assembly and its activities you might want to sit down with that new gsr and explain what does the assembly really do now that's another complicated question it depends on which one of the 93 areas you are there are some areas that have no inner groups or central offices inside them for some of us from very populated areas that's hard for us even comprehend you go up to certain parts of canada there are thousands of square miles where there's no central office or in a group same with certain places in the united states so what does your area do does your area just elect a delegate and that's how you communicate with New York and that is how you get the information from the general for the general service conference or if you are an area that is more of what I would call what has evolved the last 40 or 50 years does your área have an active corrections committee an active public information committee an active uh treatment committee an active cooperation professional community committee like a new gsr they won't be able to absorb all of this but they at least have to have a framework of why do they have to go to this meeting either one weekend a quarter or one day because i'm going to tell you the biggest complaint i hear from people in service is going to a meeting and leaving there feeling like there was no purpose for the meeting that's the biggest complaint i hear number one complaint and so explain to them what is the purpose of this meeting now these weekend assemblies it's kind of like going to a convention because there's different meetings all weekend at different times and there's what we call the actual assembly or the business meeting that is usually saturday or sunday that's where a lot of reports are given that's where motions for new business come up that's where the delegate and the alternate delegate usually give reports all of that stuff has to be explained now I know this is controversial when I say it because a couple of people apparently did some counting in their own areas since I talked about this two weeks ago or three weeks ago a lot of areas voting ratio does not look like the general service conference in a lot of areas if you add up all the area officers voting and alternates voting and DCMs there's way is almost equal them to GSRs if you look at the picture in the book they think the assembly should look like the general service conference two-thirds should be gsrs i'm not saying that's going to happen in your area but that is the goal that was the lofty goal that bill w created when he created the original third legacy manual now who votes at your area assembly another quagmire for us to dig into we still have one area where only gsrs vote dcms and aerial officers do not have a vote at the assembly portion of their weekend dcm's and area officers can vote at the area committee and in a lot of areas that have an active area committee the area committee deals with usual and regular business so it doesn't take up time at the assembly and the assembly deals more with issues of large policy um but there are other areas there was one until i want to say two or three years ago where some groups got two votes and some groups got one. And that blows people away. But that was because when that state area was first created, there were hardly any groups in the rural part of the state. Most of the groups existed in the urban part of the state and the rural groups found thought that their conscience like that it was city dominated and so they decided to give rural groups two votes and city groups one vote so there's all different kinds of ways but you need to know who votes at your area assembly in service manual it says gsrs dcms area officers area committee chairs and area delegates there's also the look of the area assembly some area assemblies have a chairperson and a secretary sitting like at a table and a podium and people come up and give reports some areas have like a my big fat greek wedding dais where like the whole family sits up on the front table everybody does it differently is my message here just help the new person understand why some people are sitting up there and other people are setting up their sitting here now there's no doubt i'm not saying the general service conference agenda items are not important they are super super important but i probably would uh depending on the day you get me i might argue that the election of the delegate is more important than the feedback on the general service conference agenda items because at the end of the day regardless of the feedback your delegate has righted decision on how to vote now to quell an urban myth out there the conference charter does say in certain situations a group uh an assembly could direct the delegate how to vot but how are you going to know it's it's anonymous electronic voting so electing the delegate is super super important and if you are a new gsr we say that we would like everybody to start on january the first the delegate the alternate delegate all the area officers all the gsrs all the dcms i'm not sure i've been to an area in the last 20 or 30 years where there hasn't been some kind of staggered terms so if you're a new gsr what you get to go to two or three assemblies before you elect a delegate in the fall if it's an election year and so i bring that up because that's an important thing to explain to people who go to assemblies and probably be one of my biggest pet peeves. Acronyms. We use more acronyms and initials. We can't stop inventing them. We now have the PLB for plain language big book. We we have a love affair with acronyoms. but think about if you're a new person coming in and then if you want to confuse them more panel numbers when you're new gsr and you hear somebody go to the microphone and they say my name's billy i'm a panel 49 delegate to the general service conference what does that mean you have to take the time to explain and for anyone here that does not know the panel number is simply basically odd or even because there's only two kinds of numbers odd or even and half of the areas are odd and half are even your panel is created by the first year that your delegate is serving in their term so that's a little confusing not the year they're elected because they're elected in november and start serving on january 1st so i'll give an example from this year delegates that are elected this fall in about 45 areas half of the areas will start on January the 1st of 2026, believe it or not. They will be a panel 76 delegate. And in some areas, they consider the whole panel the panel. Some areas don't do that. Some areas people say I'm the panel 76 chair, but let's stick to delegates. Any delegates elected this fall will be panel 76 delegates, meaning they'll go to the 76th General Service Conference and the 77th General Service conference. Delegates who are in their first year are panel 75 delegates. So next year's conference in April, you'll have two kinds of delegates, panel 75 and panel 76 panel 75s are the two-year delegates panel 76 are the first year delegates you have to take the time to explain that to new people coming to assemblies election of the alternate delegate is super super important every year that i can remember some delegate has not made it to the general service conference you can see it in the conference report because the policy and admissions committee has to make a recommendation to approve that alternate delegate attending some years like myself as a perfect example I was an alternate delegate one day, and then that night I went to bed a delegate because the delegate when I was serving passed away. You have to have a great alternate delegate. It's not a fill-in position. It's Not a placeholder. We have to Have very good alternate delegates now. That does not mean the alternate delegate is entitled to become delegate automatically. some areas have different procedures for death or sickness but i'm talking about in standard elections if an alternate delegate's a bad alternate delegate they're going to be a bad delegate that's the best advice i can give i'm sure you've had a bad cookie person or a bad coffee person at your home group or alternate coffee person they don't just mysteriously become a good regular coffee person but we have to elect good alternate delegates but that election assembly is only one let's just use quarters in a two-year period there's four quarter there's eight quarters eight meetings and one election assembly so that means there's seven assemblies that are not elections some more some do every other month but i'm just going to use the quarters as an example but there's 7 other quarters of business so in a lot of areas at the election assembly they don't handle a lot other business in some areas um they handle no business except for the election assembly but then you have the other seven now one of the things we've seen in the last probably 30 or 40 years so our structure was not meant to be a roadblock if a group wants to bring emotion to the assembly in some areas though we have created officer committees that somehow have approval authority for what should be on the agenda of an assembly or not i can't find anything in the service manual to go along with that i think the groups are in charge but you need to know the way to make a motion at your assembly In my area that I live in right now, there's a date that you have to submit by. Otherwise, you have to make a time-sensitive motion and the body has to approve it. The other thing you have to make sure is who's allowed to submit motions. In my area, a GSR is not allowed to submit a motion, although a GSР can vote at the assembly. a GSR cannot submit a motion only a DCM or an area committee can area officer you need to know who can submit motions and let's talk about voting you need to know how your area does business is it by substantial union unanimity two-thirds and then let's talk about that election assembly because it's really important that you help out the new people going to their first election assembly the third legacy procedure is not something that you just automatically like fall into it can be complicated people drop out that don't get certain percentages and we'll go through that um at a further point when we're going through the manual but um you have to understand how delegates are elected and we use ballot and we have secret ballots and in some areas you need to know the requirements to stand for a position in many areas you have to be a dcm to stand für delegate in many areas you need to be a dc m to stand for office for air for an area officer but you need to find that out and again i'm going to go back and say the only way to know that is to read your areas handbook guidelines or in my area they call it uh the current practice um a couple other things um i wanted to talk about it before i get to the general service conference one of the things that i love um i don't know why they only talk about it in the area committee and not in the area assembly but it comes up all the time so i'm going to mention it and that's past delegates voting or past delegates participating at area assemblies they actually have a section on it in the next chapter for area committee but not in area assemblies but in some areas a past delegate has a vote for life it's very few now thank god i know that's a little personal opinion but thank god i can't find anywhere in the service manual where somebody should have a vote for life but in almost every area past delegates have a voice for life and i'm not saying they shouldn't but it should be measured and tempered and it should only be used for important items um you should know how people sit at your assembly in some areas again it looks like a wedding you get you you're told where to sit maybe by district in some áreas there's a past delegates table either unofficially or officially i don't understand why we take all that experience and put it next to a bunch of other people with all that experienced and don't disperse them amongst the crowd so that other people can meet past delegates but that's just me um some of the other things that get done at assemblies are workshops on the traditions workshops on the concepts sometimes there's like a GSR boot camp or a DCM boot camp or a GSRR DCM orientation those are all very helpful things at an area assembly let's talk about the general service conference and the area assembly january the first you get elected gsr and six weeks later the background and the final agenda come out which if a gsR is reading the gs R section of the service manual doesn't even talk about final conference agenda and background and that's one of their most important jobs but if you're working with a new GSR or you are a new GSR, you have to find out you have to let them know or you need to find out for yourself when is the January assembly maybe you're a February assembly crowd but most are January you know why? because February we have Narasa and prasa and past delegates gatherings and a lot of assemblies are in January. So what does that mean? That means when it comes to the conference agenda and background, the first assembly is useless. There's no background and there's no final agenda in January or if your assembly is in the first two weeks of February. so that means in your april assembly or march your delegate is going to talk about agenda items or some way maybe they have zoom meetings maybe they have a travel district to district but if you're a voting member of that assembly you need to know how your delegate receives feedback and you need to know how do i get a hold of background information some areas send it out a copy to every district chair some areas give it to the standing committees pi background to pi corrections background a correction everybody does it differently but what are you going to do in the middle of february when you already had your February business meeting and now there's only one business meeting left at your group before the April assembly or whatever meeting you go to to give your delegate feedback we have to work with new GSRs to get them on some kind of schedule And, you know, I can tell you, I know that sometimes I say that, listen, AA has shrunk. That's a fact since COVID. The regional forums are much smaller. Many groups are only online now. And I'm not complaining about that. I have my own feelings about that but I am very impressed with the delegates out there who are using some kind of digital platform to have separate meetings from the assembly or district about reviewing the conference background and the proposed agenda items i think it's one of the most effective things that's come out of covid is these virtual meetings where anyone can join from the area or the district and some areas the delegate goes through the background in the and each agenda item in some areas the delegate might ask people to take apart like hey you have item a you have Item B you have item c from the pi committee every area does it differently but i know i could get arrested in aa for saying this and i'm not telling you i'm Not telling you to try to do the change right now okay what i am telling you is any belief that the delegate is in charge of how you review proposed agenda items and background is wrong and not in line with the concepts of the conference charter. Your area decides, and your delegate facilitates. if you're still reviewing background information and agenda items like you did 30 or 40 years ago the most reasonable thing i can say is maybe you could suggest a committee get put together made up of the delegate and the alternate delegate and maybe a past delegate and a couple dcms and a couple of gsrs and maybe talk about how do we review background how do we review the agenda i know this will shock some people but there was still one area left in the us and canada that until last year did not send the proposed the final agenda to districts or groups they didn't send it out now we all know what happens somebody met somebody at a regional forum i knows somebody in a private group on facebook or whatever else and gets it but we live in a world of mass communication today and so if you think your way of viewing agenda items is old-fashioned and outdated it might be and a lot of times we get married to the process i became a delegate so i do it the way the person before me did it and this is a big change i'm telling you there are a couple of people i can see here for what i call free powerpoint aa service people okay believe it or not there was a time when there was no powerpoint in alcoholics anonymous service i know it's hard for us all to believe now even though sometimes i think they can be death by powerpoint how when you look at the quality of report backs after like 2000 2002 2005 the use of screens the use putting the agenda up on a screen the use visual to communicate it's been outstanding now what's not outstanding is a lot of pictures of delegates having ice cream or the kind of room they had or the view they have on the time square from their room like that's nice and maybe should take a minute or two but we're there at the assembly to do the business of alcoholics anonymous, and especially to get feedback. Now, one of the other things that I can already tell from some of the people that I see in this meeting, there are some areas that are refusing to change. And that's there, I guess, right as of right now. But because it was so hard, remember, okay, let's use me as an example. When I got the background information, okay which for me came on like 15 square disks okay the old computer disks okay and a pile of paper this big i asked for a paper copy and the discs okay and then you know what i had to do i had to go to kinko's which doesn't even exist anymore and i had to have copies made for everybody in the area that got a set of background which took forever like a week and then i had to distribute them or mail them or drive them to people now because communication was so slow back then we still have some areas where either the delegate or like a committee of past delegates picks like five or six agenda items and that's the only thing they ask their groups for feedback on i don't understand that in 2025 in 2025 between sharepoint and dropbox and a whole bunch of other things it is easy to you know get background out there and to get information out there but we still have some areas where they only ask the groups for feedback on like 10 or less items um if you're one of the areas that's still doing that don't say that it was my idea but maybe form a committee to re-look at that as to how the groups can better participate in all the decisions being made at the General Service Conference. I also want to talk about proposed agenda items. A lot of them go through assemblies, although we've kind of made that impossible lately. In most areas, the April assembly or March is focused on the General service conference that's going to happen in a couple of weeks which means that the next assembly is july which means at the next assemblee after that is usually like october well now we have a deadline for proposed agenda items of september 15th i think september 30th again this year but when you look at the timing of that like we're sitting here right now it's almost september we used to say the best way of a proposed agenda item is from a group to a district to an area so that way when it got sent into gso it looked like it went through a group conscience procedure like that there was really a need for this agenda item but we've made it kind of hard unless you start in january now you're not going to meet that september 15th or september 30th date and that's the thing i want to stress about assemblies and the conference the conference is a year-long process we have to look at the whole year in totality and we should be encouraging people if we don't want groups and individuals to send in agenda items on their own well then we should make the dates friendly so that groups can get something on the agenda at your assembly otherwise there's no time to do that um i am gonna go to questions um please send it in via chat and i do wanna i don't usually do this but i am going to give a huge welcome and glad to see you to suzanne suzann could not be happier than to see you tonight and we have all been sending huge prayers your way and uh we are really i couldn't be happier then to see you tonight so please send in any questions d do we need to tell them what to do with chat again this week yeah we might just want to mention for those that are not familiar with zoom's features that have changed for chat it might show up that it's disabled but if you click on um main chat or new chat you'll have those two options and just type start to type in billy's name and it'll come up where they can go directly to you and i'm sorry for that i don't i do not like the new chat feature in zoom i do Not know why they changed it but we have to live with this and it's very confusing for people okay first question is there a rule anywhere that delegates have to vote past delegates have to vote no there's nothing mentioned in the literature at all um that is up to each individual area to decide um whether a past delegate should have a vote um in a lot of areas the immediate past delegate serves for two years as kind of like an ex officio officer and has a vote um but there's nothing in a literature that says past delegates should have a vote for lice i'll wait for another question Okay, good question. Do all areas use Robert's Rules of Order? I love this question for a lot reasons. AA uses a modified version of Robert's rules of order. You could basically say that most areas guidelines are based on something close to robert's rules of order but you have to check your area to make sure um because most areas and and i've said this before areas should have a simple form of how voting is done and the area assembly process like the general service conference has. Is the digital copy of the 2025 conference report available? Now, somebody could correct me. I don't think the hard copy is available yet. please if someone has a hard copy send me a message but i do not believe the final conference report is finished yet do you have an opinion that's a bad question for me you don't even need to ask me that question right that the answer is yes you know uh do you have an opinion on the request from the delegate i'm not going to say from what area to all other area delegates on a pai for the safety videos created by one of their districts i do not believe that areas should be lobbying to other areas before the conference now i know that could get me some hate mail but i don't think it's our process if your area thinks it has a good idea they send it in building like a coalition or building some kind of caucus i just am not in favor of that it doesn't say to send a proposed agenda item to other areas you send it in to the conference secretary is there a policy that sets a limit on the number of proposed agenda items that can be brought to the Conference we're going to talk a lot about this when we get to the annual conference but no there is not an uh a limit currently so somebody sent me something saying that this was from their area the following shall be lifetime voting members of the assembly all past delegates and past delegates from other areas who now reside in the geographic boundaries that's just total insanity we do not have lifetime appointments and alcoholics anonymous um but that area they have them okay another good question have you heard of the consensus method yes i have i'm not going to go into a lot of detail now it's different than robert's rules of order if you want to google tonight consensus method please do it's a different way of kind of getting a group conscience or a group to move in a particular direction i do not believe there's any areas using this yet there might be one our area GSRs only choose three or four items to review every meeting does it this way and it's totally random so I guess that person is telling me that the GSR for the group chooses the three or four items to review with their group which that makes sense to me because you can't bring every item to the group what i was talking about in some areas the delegate only asked for feedback on like a few items not all the items what alternatives do you suggest for areas and districts that subsidize gsr attendance at assemblies uh that's an easy question for me none the group should be self-supporting. And funding a GSR is part of being a self- supporting group. If my group sends money to my area, that's to carry out 12 step work. It's not to pay for another groups GSR to go to the assembly. Self support is paying for a GSR. So I would not suggest any alternatives, except this one. We should have less groups in AA. We have too many groups. Our district is quite a distance from the area where the majority of the population of AA groups are. Is it appropriate for three of the districts to meet as a sort of inner district meeting. So I think unofficially, no one can stop you from getting together and discussing how to work together. I think officially the districts could like form, become part of a committee of cooperating with each other. Some areas have what's called sections or zones which is a bunch of districts together so you could do that um you would just have to be very careful to do something officially that went against your area guidelines so i would want to know what those area guidelines said about that what is the general idea behind groups and individuals not being able to bring motions to assemblies in my area motions are kept under wrap and you're not even informed about them until a couple of days before the assembly well i think this is a bad trend in alcoholics anonymous a group should be able to bring a motion to its assembly the assembly reports to the group and as far as hiding things or keeping them under wraps it makes no sense to me i don't know why what is the big secret i always say i've served as a trustee i've serve as chair of aws there are no cia like secrets at gso there are some personnel issues and legal issues that need to be confidential but why are we trying to control information and and by the way there are probably a lot of people here that someday may be a delegate or an area chair i want to give you a big word of advice the more you try to control something the more you lose control okay if you want people to not trust you then control everything and don't let them see it and then you'll lose control there's no reason for that in Alcoholics Anonymous whatsoever and i'm just letting people know i will not read area numbers i'm not getting in that game our area delegate chooses about 10 questions to bring to the group but gladly accepts feedback from any of the current conference questions i'm glad to hear that um uh but i will bet you that that's been going on for like 30 or 40 years and when's the last time that was looked at so i'm not saying it's bad i'm just saying any company that's like in business or organization that hasn't changed in 30 or40 years is not around anymore do you think there will ever be a time when the general service conference has hybrid participation no i do not i do not i think it'll be in person um i would probably rather go to one in person and every other year one virtual than hybrid anyone who is in the business world who does hybrid meetings knows what a disaster they can be um i'm not against hybrid but i just don't think the general service conference is going to go that way how and when do they teach gsrs to participate and talk in district meetings such as voting minority opinion and making motions for new business i'm not sure they do and i talked about this a lot at gsr and district like we need to do a better job of orientating new people no wonder they don't come back to their second meeting um we have to find a way to educate people in that january february march kind of when people are newly elected who is the best person to contact your area for a copy of their guidelines handbook etc i would say ask your dcm or the area chair they either of those people should be able to help you you might call them a district chair where you are or a dcmc but definitely your area chair should be able to help you and today a lot of them are on websites you know i want to tell you something else someone asked me a question last week i have to get them back a response but i'm just going to let everyone else here know in case you get the question because a lot that gave feedback are people that either come on monday night or listen to recordings like it is safe to say in today's world that districts and areas in almost every area are accepting electronic contributions they might not all use the same method some use paypal some use zelle some use venmo there's a whole bunch of different ways but you know um we are getting into the 21st century believe it or not you know i said this a long time ago before we had electronic contributions at gso and i was on the board of aws one night before an aws meeting we went to an italian restaurant for dinner in the city And I noticed when we walked in, it was a glass door, but you couldn't see through the glass because it had a sticker for every credit card it took. You ever see a door like that? Diners Club, Discover, America. I'm going back so far. They still had Traveler's Check sticker, right? Traveler'S Checks, Diners' Club, Visa, MasterCard. everybody else knows that the easier you make it for someone to pay you the easier it is for them to give you money we live in a world today where if i had to find a check right now i don't know what i would do i'd have to go to the bank tomorrow and get three temporary checks because i don' do it online like we have to get into the 21st century with contributions and i heard from the east central regional forum this past weekend contributions are way down like way way down we have make it as easy as possible for an individual group or district to send the contribution to the general service board and i don't know how a district or anyone else i went to the lake worth young people's meeting in like 2004 or five no maybe it was like 2008 but they were already accepting electronic contributions and i think somebody wanted to send them the aa jail like you can't do this you know like very few people carry around cash today and the other thing is the home groups that accept electronic contributions the reports that i hear are they've never had better contributions that it's easy for people to send it once or twice a month um so i just wanted to report that i'm putting together a report of all the areas and districts um i'm still getting information but i'll be glad to uh share that with everyone how many areas dedicate two assemblies out of four or five assemblies per year to pre post-conference business i do not know the answer to that question um quite a few um a lot do but some go above and beyond with other meetings let's see i gotta change this so people can't know what area um assembly attendance averages around 600 members it is my understanding that they do not want to have any hybrid portion for their assemblies and been stated by more than one member with disabilities any reasoning for that since we're supposed to be inclusive but not exclusive um yeah i i can't tell you why um Um, I'm only using this as an example because I happen to be there in person. I went to the Southern Wisconsin Area Assembly about a year ago. I forget which one it was. Oh, it might have been an election assembly. um but anyway i went to that assembly they were fully hybrid they did not use an outside company they had a committee that had everything under control i was blown away by how effective it was i'm not here to tell any area they have to be hybrid or have to be all in person um but obviously there's an accessibility accessibility is such an undefined word you have people who are unaccessible because of physical disability you have accessibility because where i live for my gsr it's 1500 a month for my group i'm not a month a year that's what it costs us to send the gsr for hotel four times a year and travel and food um so economics is an accessibility issue but it's really up to the group conscience of that area we have time for one more question if anybody has one more question i'm going to repeat to everyone to just uh be ready that um we will be coming back to the area committee next week we will do the role of the delegate the week after that we will do the annual general service conference um and the week after that um we'll go back to the area committee but there will be a delegate um a current delegate who's also a committee chair um sharing her experience strength and hope for about 10 or 15 minutes um just so everybody can hear firsthand how her first year went what she does as a committee chair her experience at the conference it will not be open season on questions for this delegate by the way if you have a question that pertains to her uh talk about being a delegate it'll be accepted asking her to give opinions on conference agenda items or anything like that will obviously not happen all right with that we will close with the responsibility statement and uh let's see i think she may have left so i can't even ask for permission so i'm just going to have to beg for forgiveness later on uh suzanne comes here every week she's a recent past delegate from uh massachusetts she served as the chair of the conference finance committee um she has been in a battle with some real health issues in the last five or six months so uh any prayers you can send her and her family that way as well as our co-host d who has had her own health issues and let's uh you know keep those two in mind um in a moment of silence and then we'll close with the responsibility statement i am responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help