The General Service Board – 2025 AA Service Workshop – Part 10 of 27 – Billy N.

good evening everyone i'm billy i'm an alcoholic welcome monday night service manual study we will open with the serenity prayer god grant me the sereny to accept the things i cannot change the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to know the difference quick announcement because i got a good question from somebody this week by email, so I'll answer it for everybody. The current service manual, if you go through it, has, I want to say, is it 12 chapters? Is the grapevine chapter 12? the grapevine is chapter 12 correct and then it goes into a glossary and then it goes into maps and a whole bunch of appendixes like to W which is three short than the 26 whatever so the answer is yes we are going to go through the appendixes we will stick to a chapter at a time until we get to the appendixes when we get to the Appendix is depending on which one it is we'll see how many we can get done in a week the ones that are like the bylaws of the general service board a grapevine and AWS maybe we can them down in a weak but it might be just we might have that could take two the conference charter both the original and the current will be its own week and then from there we'll take the smaller appendixes as they come um maybe do three or four a week something like that um but it was a good question tonight we are on chapter eight the general service board we are back to being in order um it says at the top of that page the general service board the trustees is the chief service arm of the conference and is essentially custodial in character accepting for digit for decisions upon matters of policy finance or a tradition liable to seriously affect aa as a whole the general service board has entire freedom of action and routine conduct of the policy and business affairs of aa service corporations so they have entire freedom except for matters of policy finance or a tradition liable to seriously effect as a hole so for those that don't know or if you're new to this whatever i am a past trustee i was a trustee from years 2013 to 2017. i was the general service trustee but we'll go through that tonight it does have the mission vision action statement of the general service board um all those things come right from the conference charter um the mission is to serve alcoholics anonymous the vision is to provide clear and effective leadership to the fellowship we are directly responsible and responsive to the scholarship through the general service conference we are concerned with all matters affecting the fellowship's primary purpose of carrying the a message to the still suffering alcoholic and then it says action in all our deliberations and decisions we will be guided by and uphold the 12 steps 12 traditions and 12 concepts and when we get to the conference charter and then to the bylaws of the general service board you'll see that bernard smith was a genius because he helped bill originally write all this stuff and And the steps, traditions, and concepts are spiritual principles. However, they are written into the bylaws of the General Service Board, which is a legal document. so the 21 trustees that document that says how they operate the you can't just ever say well the trustees can do whatever they want legally because the traditions concepts and steps are only spiritual until they put them into the document that's legal so when you're a trustee you have to uphold and that's why it says in all our deliberations and decisions were guided by and uphold the 12 traditions, 12 steps, and 12 concepts. It goes on to say they act as the principal planners and administrators, basically concept eight. It says they serve as the custodians of the two affiliate corporations, AA Grapevine and AAWS. It says They oversee and adjusting when needed a sound, wide-reaching public relations policy that is inclusive of all who may be of help in raising awareness of the fellowship's existence to all who May benefit from it. It says communicating and maintaining relationships with the general service structures throughout the world, providing support to help ensure the growth and welfare of the Fellowship worldwide. And it says they act as the guardians of the AA steps, traditions, and concepts. it goes on to talk about considerations for like if you're thinking about being a trustee and i want to get that point across to everybody when i got elected in alternate gsr i still smoke two packs of newports a day i barely had money for a slice of pizza and a pack of cigarettes every day i was always on time for sober softball but maybe not a lot of other things um anybody here has the possibility to be a trustee someday or a director on one of our corporations or a delegate it says the conference asks prospective candidates to carefully consider how much time they have available for aa service as a truste they must be available for quarterly board meetings held in new york the week-long general service conference in april regular communication throughout the year with colleagues on the board members of the fellowship and gso staff participation in other matters that require attention between regularly scheduled meetings when asked attending regional forums and local aa events and you might be asked to serve on one of the affiliate corporate boards so you won't only be on the general service board you might be on the aws board or the grapevine board and then it says there are additional responsibilities and you know a couple of things i want to say about that someone just you know one person's you know resentment is another person's amends right that's just as easy as i can say it in aa um i had said something somewhere somebody took it the wrong way they let me know recently it happened. But the time commitment, you know, it is a personal pet peeve of mine when people are standing for an AA position and they either include their personal wealth or that they're retired as part of why they should be elected because I don't think those two have anything to do with being elected. And I think it is very unfair to people who are not in the same economic condition or younger people who were not retired. Um, I was a full-time executive when I, uh, became a trustee, when I became a director as well. Um... Is it a lot of time? Yes. I served eight years, four years as a non-trustee director and four years as a trustee on the General Service Board and also a director on the AWS board. Over those eight years I want to say 152 vacation days over that time um but you need time to travel you need time to be there board weekends if you have not heard this before the board uses the real active alcoholic definition of a weekend it starts on like wednesday night or thursday and goes till monday it is not the regular normal saturday and sunday weekend of the regular world it is a complete alcoholic drunk weekend schedule of like Thursday to Monday but I've learned through service you can learn time management I just don't want to talk people out of standing for these positions the next thing it talks about is the composition and we'll get to it when we get to the bylaws but one of the things that says is the Board of Trustees today consists of 21 people it's actually going to be 22 very soon um it's 21 people when the chair of the board is a class a trustee when the Chair of the Board is a Class A trustee we only see six other Class A trustees and the reason for that is to keep the ratio of two-thirds one-third two- thirds alcoholic one-third non-alcoholic so 14 to 7 in the instance where we elect an alcoholic chair we can have a regular person serve as a non class a trustee as a seventh class a trustee but then it means we have 22 trustees and the bylaws give that provision last year we elected a class b chair of the general service board he was actually on here a few weeks ago scott h the last class a chair that spot was vacant so the board is going to fill it with a seventh trustee a class a so we will have 22 um it says there's a careful balance on the board between trustees who are elected primarily to bring regional and aa service experience to the board and those primarily for business or other professional backgrounds. So there's really only one kind of Class A trustee, a Class A trustee. Chair of the board is a separate position. But there are three kinds of alcoholic trustees. Those are Class B. Again, for those that are new, we have little phrase we use. A is for amateur, B is for boozer. It's an easy way to remember it, right? Class A, non-alcoholic amateur. Class B, member of AA alcoholic boozer, but there's three types of class Bs that we're going to go through tonight. There are regional trustees. There's eight of them six in the united states and two in canada there's a northeast southeast east central west central southwest pacific regions in the United States and eastern and western Canada so those are the eight regions and then we have trustees at large we have two of them one for the united states and one for canada then we have what i was i'm a general service trustee now in this paragraph that i read you where it says there is a balance of the board between trustees who are elected primarily to bring regional and aa service experience to the board and those selected primarily for business or professional background it doesn't mean you only bring one of those things to the the board if you're a Class B trustee. I'll give an example. Regional trustees may primarily get elected for their AA service experience and to bring regional experience to the board, but plenty of regional trustees also have business or professional experience. Some don't, but plenty do. The trustees at large, they're primarily there to bring not a region, but a national flavor for the United States or Canada to the board and AA service experience. But some of them also have professional and business experience. Scott was a trustee at large Canada, but he was a lawyer. So he brought a professional skill set to the board. And then when you look at the four general service trustees, they're primarily selected for their business and professional experience. You also have to have some AA experience. Not all of them have been past delegates. I was a past delegate, so I had significant AA service experience, but I was brought on the board for my professional and business experience along with the secondary factor of my AA service experience. Class A trustees, the seven who we call friends of AA, are selected primarily for their professional experience and familiarity with AA and its program of recovery. They are a rich source of wisdom and perspective and since they need not maintain anonymity, they're available to speak in public on behalf of AA. If you saw any of the local news shows in Canada, in Vancouver, during the International Convention, some of our Class A trustees were on the morning talk shows. And they can show their face. They can show Their Last Name because they're non-alcoholic. Now there is a little urban myth or bad information out there. It is impossible for a non-alcoholic to be a member of AA, and that applies to Class A trustees. I've heard somewhere somebody said, oh, Class A trustees for the time they're on the board are members of AA. That is not correct. Where that comes from is the bylaws of the General Service Board that says in the New York State legal term, they're a member of the general service board of Alcoholics Anonymous Inc. Let me just see if this question is. Given the verbiage in the conference charter concerning the responsibilities of the board, why was it anyone's business outside the General Service Board about how the board conducts its own affairs including for example the removal of the chair of the Board? Surely that is the business of the Boards alone and its own capacity given its defined responsibilities? That's a very good question. I'll answer it the best I can. For those that don't know, a couple of years ago, the chair resigned, was asked to resign, who cares? It's three or four years ago now. But why was the fellowship concerned, or more specifically, delegates the conference? Well, number one, being the chair of the board is not the board's decision. The board only recommends somebody to the conference, and the conference has to elect the chair of the board. That's number one. At the conference each year, the officers of the General Service Board are approved by the conference. So for that reason, it's not only the business of the board. The other reason probably is that if you go on a search, a massive search for a chair of the Board of all past trustees and you have interviews and more interviews and then you get down to a finalist of two or three people and then you have more interviews for those finalists with the full board and then you have a third legacy vote by the board and then the board takes the winner of that third legacy vote and recommends that person to the conference one would say something listen it doesn't matter whether you love that chair of the board didn't like that chair the board it doesn't anything but from an organizational point of view if you spend that much time looking for a person. And a year later, they're gone. That might not talk about the person at all. It could talk about us. So that's why so many conference members felt that they had to give their opinion or write letters or bring it up at the board. The other thing I would say, and in full respect to the board i did not sign the past trustee letter that's become famous a lot of past trustees signed it i did that um and in full disclosure i served with that class a trustee when i was a delegate that chair so i just didn't want any part of it but now when i look back at it there's probably two things that occurred that caused a lot of the disruption and i say that with total respect to the members of board that were there at the time that i some of them are good friends of mine and i respect all of them for serving as trustees but there's two things that probably happened that caused a lot of this and sometimes i don't think we go back and look at things and maybe say wow we could do that better the next time the first is imagine you're at your local assembly and somebody in that meeting brings up getting rid of the delegate or getting rid of the area chair i know what i would say if i was at that assembly i would tell you know maybe you should let cool heads prevail maybe put it off till the next assembly so that everyone can think about it and everyone's not so emotional so the first thing i would be concerned about is something coming up in a meeting and taking such a decisive action so quickly that's my view of it the second thing i would bring up and this is like a 101 which we never learn and we are so bad at on all levels of aa is about seven or eight weeks after the chair resigned or was asked to resign there was finally a meeting on zoom between the board and all the delegates now i don't know about your little corner of the world but i'm just going to tell you my experience eight minutes of something festering in aa will blow up into gossip and bad information eight days is an eternity in alcoholics anonymous of no information and eight weeks we might as well solve if there was a second you know shooter at john f kennedy right like eight weeks do you know how much stuff can be imagined in eight weeks i think looking back at that now and i've said this to some of my friends who are on the board i said i hope if this happens again that every night that week it happens the board opens up a zoom channel for delegates and has that conversation right away because i wonder if that meeting and conversation had happened like the wednesday of that week putting a lot of this have been avoided and i'm just basing it on mistakes i've made in a service and in my own professional career like sometimes in aa like the outside world we become consumed with crafting the perfect narrative and so i want to let everyone know that in aa there's no such thing as a perfect narrative it's always sloppy and dirty and there's always three sides to every story there'sno perfect narrative but the damage done by delaying communication in order to craft the perfect message is not worth it, ever. Not at a group level, not at a district level, not in an area level. It's just not worth it. So I hope the person who asked that question, I hope that helps you. I hope that we're long past that. I know there's still some resentments out there um hopefully hopefully you know they have a pen and a piece of paper and maybe a ruler to draw some rows and some columns and they can open up the book that we have and they can work their way through that resentment whether they were for the chair going or against the chairgoing if it's still taking up time in your head um so i hope that that answers that question um the non-alcoholic trustees you know um it says in seeking class a trustees the board looks for people who have one a proven track record two a demonstrated interest in alcoholics anonymous three experience in working with aa and its members four leadership skills and five time to fulfill like the term period for a class a trustee the spiritual term period is six years. The legal term period is two, three-year terms. That's what it says in the bylaws. And of course, legally, they need to be reelected to the board every year when the board votes on the slate. When you look at Class A trustees, their experience with AA, it's always one or the other, or both. Either in their professional life they have had interaction with Alcoholics Anonymous or its members, or two, they have a family member who's in AA or was helped by AA, or maybe in Al-Anon. I know two past treasurers of the board who were both uh finance professionals they had no professional interaction with aa but both of them had sons who got sober who were young boys who came to aa and got sober uh one of them i know another treasurer of the board whose wife was sober so they have an immense gratitude for Alcoholics Anonymous. If you look at the type of Class A trustees we get, they always fall in a couple of buckets. We're big on judges. We'RE big on wardens. We'RE Big On Probation and Parole Officers. We'Re Big On Social Workers. WeRE Big On Psychiatrists and psychologists we're big on social workers and we're big on clergy and when you think about it i mean people like you and i those four people deal with people like us all the time people say why do we have clergy on the board come on do you know how many people go go to their rabbi or their priest or minister or a family member goes because they don't trust anybody else and that's who they're gonna talk to? Now, we don't even have to go down the line of judges, parole officers, wardens, and probation officers. I mean, we basically keep them in business. We're a good part of their economy. Every once in a while, we get an outlier. I hear a lot of talk, which is probably good, about how we probably need someone from somewhere like Silicon Valley who's like a leader in the IT world. Probably true. And then always the finance world, especially because of the treasurer position. i will tell you this class a's are no different than us sometimes people they want to hold class a trustees up to be like these exalted um like super spiritual people most class a trustees would tell you that is absolutely not true um they're as human as the alcoholic they just don't have the obsession and the physical allergy. But it is good sometimes to have an outside perspective because people in AA service are so convinced usually of their way of looking at something, and so sometimes it's good to have an outside view of looking as something regarding literature or from the board. So that's Class A trustees. Regional trustees. It says these trustees are selected for their service experience and familiarity with aa principles and then an important line while no trustee can be said to represent a geographical section all trustees only represent the fellowship as a whole regional trustees bring to the board's discussions a regional aa point of view and experience that is invaluable qualifications the conference feels that 10 years of continued sobriety is right for regional trustees a minimum not mandatory having leadership experience enables a member to deal with aa growth and affairs with grace and a minimum of friction good leaders can bring to the board the quality of resoluteness and the courage of their own conditions along with good judgment objectivity and the willingness to stand up and express themselves such candidates are typically well suited to represent the board and inter and interpret its actions back home while a background with business or other professional experience is helpful the board is also interested in other strengths that regional trustees can bring so i want to make that clear we've had regional trustees of all perspectives including a bank robber. Okay? So you do not need to be a business professional. We should ask everybody who's qualified. I don't care if you're a stay-at-home husband or wife. I I don't care if you are a banker. I don'T CARE IF YOU'RE A MAINTENANCE PERSON. IT SHOULD NOT MATTER. LIKE, WHAT SHOULD MATTER IS DO YOU MEET THESE QUALIFICATIONS? AND IF YOU DO, THEN SUBMIT. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. IN ADDITION TO THE DUTIEs LISTED FOR ALL TRUSTEES NEAR THE BEGINNING OF THIS CHAPTER, REGIONAL TRUSTeES SERVE ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF EITHER AAWS OR AA Grapevine for two years, normally in their second and third year of service as a trustee. So let me explain that because it gets lost in translation a lot. A regional trustee serves for four years. It is important to tell you right now that per the bylaws, it doesn't matter what the conference does and it doesn'T matter what the board does. You cannot extend a class B trustee's term of service. It is prohibited by the bylaws. That's because we believe in really effective rotation at the board level. In the time of an emergency or an urgent need, a Class A trustee can be asked to serve one additional year by the board. That is possible. But Class B regional trustees serve for four years so their first year and their fourth year they are a member of the general service board of alcoholics anonymous the board of trustees that meets four times a year but year two and year three each regional trustee serves on either the aws board or the aa grapevine board so that means they now have eight extra meetings a year to go to four of them they're already in new york for the general service board meetings because they're the same weekend but there are other standalone meetings that they now need to go to new yorke for um that's years two and three for a regional um it says each regional trustee serves four successive one-year terms that means the conference elects you for four but you do need to be legally elected it is four one-year terms um openings for new regional trustees we could say what years they're going to be but then we could have somebody get sick and die and then that could change but usually about two or three a year how do we get people well an announcement goes out to all delegates in that region that at the next general service conference like if you are an area i want to say the pacific region this year i know the pacfic region for sure is in its last year of its regional trustee so in the pacífic region this fall at election assemblies or non-election assemblies that area will have to have an election to find a candidate to be a regional trustee each area is only allowed to put forward one candidate so if more than one person stands there will be a third legacy election you do not have to be past delegate to be regional trusty however There hasn't been a non-passed delegate regional trustee since like the 60s. That election, once it happens, the current delegate will give that candidate a trustee resume form. That candidate will fill it out, will send it back to the delegate. The delegate will then send it in to the general service office. has to be before january 1st and then they will be on the ballot to be a regional trustee at the conference um how are they elected that's a good question um at the general service conference usually on wednesday afternoon but not in stone but usually there will be trustee elections for a regional trustee they will rope off a section in the front but just delegates from that region so all the delegates from that region will get a vote and then who also gets a vote is an equal number of members from the trustees nominating committee and the conference committee on trustees so if there's 14 areas in your region they will select seven members of the trustees nominating committee and seven members of the conference committee on trustees out of a hat to go into that roped area and participate in the election each delegate is given two minutes to present their candidate to the voters and then they are each uh the voters are given time to ask questions of any of the presenters after that is over it goes immediately to a third legacy vote just like at your reach just like get your home assembly the winner of that third legacy vote becomes the next regional trustee. That's how that works. Let's see, because this chapter is long. I'm going to go to general service trustees. there are four general service trustees. The general service trustees are AA members who serve on the respective boards of AWS and the grapevine. They're available at any time for the solution of problems on which GSO or grapevine staff members need help. Traditionally, they have been selected for their business or professional backgrounds in order to provide the boards with particular expertise that may be needed or requested by each of the corporate boards. So a general service trustee for all four years of being a trustee, unlike a regional where it's just years two and three. A general service trusty is on both the general service board and one of the other boards, AAWS or Grapevine, for all Four Years of Being a Trustee. and in order to be um a general service trustee you have to have been a non-trustee director on aws or a grapevine for at least one year i served four that's the maximum you can serve it says leadership skills are good qualifications seven years of continuous sobriety general service trustees deal with the business affairs of these two corporate boards so a background in business or other professional experience has been found to be essential many general service trustees have experience in publishing technology public relations finance administration or other similar fields duties and responsibilities in addition to the responsibilities of every trustee outlined above general service trustees must be available for all meetings of their respective corporate board and for consultation with GSO or Grapevine staff members at any time. Little history fact, prior to 1990 or 89, we called general service trustees in-town trustees. At that time, you had to live like within a short driving distance of a couple of hours of new york city to be an in-town trustee that was changed at the end of the 80s the term of service like a regional trustee is four one-year terms how do they find general service trustees because the process is different there is an announcement in box 459 There is an announcement now on the meeting guide app. Every delegate, trustee, director, appointed committee member, and past trustee are sent the announcement to get it out as wide as possible. One of the biggest mistakes with non-trustee directors is that sometimes in certain areas, they only share it with past delegates. But we've had great, outstanding non-trustee directors who later became general service trustees who were not past delegates is there a little bit of a learning curve sometimes with yes but we've had some great ones um so you fill out that resume and you do not send it to your delegate you send it the trustees nominating committee and um most times it's coming from the corporate board who are recommending one of their non-trustee directors or direct or uh past non-trustee directors to be a general service trustee the nominating committee of each board aws or the grapevine will interview people and then they will come up with one candidate's name to be the general service trustee candidate from that corporate board and then that goes to trustees nominating. It's not finished. Then trustees nomulating has to approve who the corporate board selected because besides being on that corporate board, the person is going to be a trustee on the general service board. Once it leaves the trustees nominating committee, the whole board has to approve that person being selected, and then that person goes on the slate at the conference. So a lot of times you hear about this slate thing. What is the slate? So for regional trustees and at-large trustees, we actually have elections at the Conference that the delegates participate in. For general service trustees and Class A trustees, we don't. The board selects somebody and then puts their name on the slate of trustees for the conference to approve, and Class A trustees are found the same way. Class A trustees, they'll send their resume in or maybe a friend will send it in or a delegate. The trustees nominating committee will review all the resumes sent in and give them a score and the trustees nominating committee will get together and decide who are their finalists it's usually around five people they'll select and they will interview maybe even seven and they come up with two or three finalists And for Class A's, we do something different. We bring those finalists to the January board weekend and then trustees nominating committee will interview them in person to follow up the Zoom initial interview. And then we let those finalist attend the board weekend. Go to all the meetings, all the trustee committee meetings, all the board meetings, anything except that's confidential. So that they can be exposed to what is the board we can look like. The trustees nominating committee will then make. Have a 3rd legacy vote and decide who is their final candidate. And they will send that name to the general service board for them to approve. And then they send it to the conference on the slate. So, that's general service trustees in class a trustees. trustees at large again you don't have to be a past delegate there's two of them one for the united states and one for canada an announcement goes out to every area each area is allowed to provide one candidate if you happen to be an area or a region where the trustee at large is up at the same time as regional, you are not permitted to stand for both. You have to pick. You could stand for both inside your area. In other words, you could say Susie P could stand for regional and if she didn't get regional, she could stand for at-large. But Susie can't be the candidate for both. Can only be a candidate for one or the other. Those resumes are filled out by the candidate that's selected by the area by third legacy vote. They are sent in to the conference desk, the nominating desk. This is where it's a little different than regional. There is something we have a lot of dinners and lunches at the General Service Conference. We have past delegate dinner. I mean, we have the delegates only dinner. We are the AWS dinner, the grapevine dinner. the general service board dinner where we have rotation talks after that are different than the rotation talks on saturday um then we also have regional lunches so on wednesday afternoon there is a regional lunch before the trustee elections and in years of a trustee at large election each delegate inside that regional lunch will present their candidate from their area to be a trustee at large the delegates at the regional lunch we'll listen to each delegates candidate and then we'll have a third legacy vote and they will come up with one candidate from their region so one from the northeast one from the southeast one from the pacific except for canada because there's only two regions we allow four people um but once they're selected out of their region on wednesday afternoon all the delegates from that country are segregated in a particular part of the conference floor with the trustees nominating committee and the conference committee on trustees and then a third legacy election is held and whoever the winner is becomes the next trustee at lodge canada or u.s trustee it lodges duties and responsibilities they're members of the trustees international committee now they're on some other committees but they're always a member of the international committee just like the treasurer is always a member of the finance committee and the chair of aws and the chair of aa grapevine is always a member of the nominating committee they also represent the us and canada as delegates to the world service meeting which is held every two years if you're not familiar with the world service meeting it happens every two years every four years it's in the u.s or Canada. So it'll go U.S. and Canada, two years later somewhere else in the world. Then U. S. and Canada two years, later somewhere elsewhere in the World. They are expected to attend regional forums in both the US and Canada if schedules permit each trustee at large could attend one regional forum in each of the eight regions. So here this is a mistake where they say each of the 8 North American regions we don't have North American Regions because we don t have a north american service structure each of the united states and canada eight regions mexico if you want to google it you can check me as part of north america mexico is not central america geographically um they also go to invitations to celebrations when countries are celebrating 50 years or 80 years with aa they also go to zonal meetings, regional meetings. For us, we go to what we call the REDELA, which is the meeting of the Americas, but REDEL is the acronym for that acronym in Spanish. They can be appointed to serve on AWS or the grapevine if there is an opening, like if someone gets sick or someone passes away or if a regional can't do it. the term of service is just like general service and regional class b's it's four years four one year terms um i think i'm going to stop there we will resume at chair of the general service board so we'll call this part one of the General Service Board and we will go to questions so please send in your questions Thank you. I will give a couple of minutes for questions. Okay. How common or uncommon is it for a trustee to not serve out that term? Great question. I do not want to get in trouble for this answer. So, it is very uncommon for a testee to serve out their term. trustee to not finish that term. There have been people who've gotten sick, but usually they don't resign from the board. There has been deaths while serving as a trustee. I think the person is asking the question because over the last four years or so, between the General Service Board, the aaws board and the aa grapevine board there have been like six people who have left before that term was over for the interest of this recording and everything else we had the chair of the general service board resign two months later or around that time a general service trustee serving on the grapevine board resigned um we had last year a non-trustee director on the great fine board resign before their term was over this year we had two class a trustees who decided not to go on after their first three-year term that is not normal um so it is fair to say over the last couple of years there has been an unusual amount of resignations that's for the board to look at and figure out why not me but the question is is it uncommon yes prior to that prior to the six in the last couple years the last trustee that resigned for anything other than health or death was like 2003 was a long long time ago so it's it's uncommon Mexico is not or is part of U.S.-Canada. Okay, geography, world map, North America includes Canada, United States and Mexico. In Alcoholics Anonymous service structures, our structure is the United States in Canada. We do not call it the North American structure because it's only the United States and Canada. Mexico has their own service structure. Actually, they have two. That's a whole other topic for five hours. But Mexico has its own service structure. Does it happen that a recommendation for a trustee position is not approved by the General Service Conference. There's big debate on this topic. I come at it from a point of view that the conference's job is not to rubber stamp, that we don't make the conference vote on something unless it's a large matter of policy, finance, or tradition. So if you ask the conference to approve who you've selected as a trustee, then the way I read the conference charter and the concepts, they could not approve the slate. There is further debate as to whether the conference has the ability to remove somebody from the slate, in other words, somebody is selected as a trustee and the conference says i like 20 of them but not the 21st so i want to make a motion to remove somebody for consideration again i know that some people chairing the general service conference have said that that's improper i can't find it in the charter or the bylaws or the concepts that a voting member of the general service conference could not make a motion to amend a recommendation and remove a name but at the end of the day the slates have to be approved by the conference can someone who has been a regional trustee can come back and later be nominated for a different trustee like trustee at lodge or can you only be a trustee of any kind once great question. I cannot be a trustee at large or a regional trustee. I'm allowed four years as a trustee class B. I can come back as a chair of the board. That's it. A separate four-year term as a chair, but you can only be one kind of alcoholic trustee once. Any other questions? okay um like i said please if you want to read read again where it starts with chair of the general service board and the officer positions and the treasurer um and all the trustee committees we will cover next week um somebody said see that you know i'm going to actually mention this somebody said thanks for hosting despite monday night football good call but what i would share with you is two things the first thing is that it's why i always tell people when people say because he knows the jets are playing tonight whoever asked that question um when people say that a service is politics or anything else no it feels like commitment when your favorite team is on when something you would rather be doing is going on it feels like commitment now what i would also share with you is that you know if you are a jet fan and used to being disappointed every weekend for your whole life it's a constant source of spiritual progress and growth so um delaying watching that game has probably been great for me to be perfectly honest so uh thanks everyone we will close with the responsibility statement i am responsible when anyone And when anyone anywhere reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA to always be there. And for that, I am responsible. Thanks, everyone. Have a good night.