The Third Legacy and Service Structure – Big Book Workshop – 2025 – Part 5 of 5 – Charlie P. and Joe M and John W and Willie B – Charlie Parker and Joe M and John W and Willie B

The following will be session number 16 of the 3rd Annual Northern California Big Book Seminar held on Saturday evening, September 24th, 1988. The subject of this session is the 3d Legacy, more specifically the service structure and the concepts as taken from the AA Service Manual. All four seminar speakers participated in this session, and the first part of the third legacy presentation is a discussion of the AA service structure as given by Charlie Parmley of Maysville, Arkansas. The second portion of the Third Legacy discussion was a panel discussion with each of the speakers commenting on a particular concept. The approximate listening time of this recording will be 107 minutes, or 1 hour and 47 minutes, with tape 16A having a playing time of approximately 48 minutes. Many times when you put out the words you're going to talk about concepts or the service structure, Nobody shows up at all And I'm really pleased to see At least half of us are here probably But those that aren't here I can certainly understand It's been a long, long day Been lots of talking Lots of absorbing And again I admire you all For your patience And your understanding And your willingness To sit there and listen To all this stuff Well, we talked last night about the first two legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous. A legacy being, of course, something that had been left to us by the original people. And Bill and the first 100 left us in the big book AlcoholicsAnonymous us the first legacy, or the legacy of recovery, where we could use those steps, apply them in our life, and not only become sober, dry, but actually be able to recover from a hopeless condition of the mind and of the body. Be able to find a way where we can live and be sober and be peaceful and be happy and be free. and that first legacy, the legacy of recovery. Today as I think about it I always still stand in awe of the power contained there when I think of the millions and millions of people who have been able to recover from that condition and be able to live the rest of their lives happy, peaceful and free and to be able to become useful members of society and to be able to become good fathers and good mothers and good husbands and good wives where before we were absolutely hopeless. You know, there's got to be a lot of power contained in the first legacy of Alcoholics Anonymous. As John talked last night and as we reviewed their traditions, we found that the fellowship itself was in danger of destroying itself too. Because of the disunity that we had between various different members of our fellowship. Because ofthe controversy that we have between various groups of our fellowshippe and because of the fact that we really did not have any guidelines that could pertain to the fellowship as a whole like the steps pertained to the individual. And because of that, Bill and some others began to be concerned about that in the early 1940s as our fellowship began to grow and expand. And they began to become more and more concerned and began to begin to be concern that the same thing could happen to us that had happened to some of the other fellowships who had gone on before us. And they begin to put together a set of guidelines to guide the fellowship itself and its relationship with each other. And we, of course, call those the traditions or the second legacy of Alcoholics Anonymous. And they were presented to the fellowship along with the first legacy in 1950 in Cleveland. And there all the members of Alcoholics Anonymous worldwide at that time had been invited to attend. And there, all the Members voted to accept these two things as the first and second legacy. And a loving God expressed Himself through the group conscience at that particular international convention. and those two things have never been changed since that time the steps nor the traditions and so far we haven't seen any reason to want to change either one of them they work so good in personal recovery and in fellowship unity we've seen no need to even think about changing them now also in the 1940s Bill and Bob usually represented the fellowship itself at any functions where business was to be discussed or money items were to take place or in our relationship with the general public or professional people. Back in the very beginning, they had formed a little foundation because they were writing the book and the book was going to make a lot of money and if you had a lot of money, you had to have business. And if you Had to Have Business, you had To Have Secretaries and you Had To Have This and you had TO Have That. And if You Were To Operate within the United States, business-wise, you had The Be Incorporated. And if YOU Had To Be Incorparated, that meant you Had TO Have Bylaws and et cetera. And they always did everything they could to keep the fellowship itself from becoming involved in those kind of things. because they most certainly do create controversy. So they had formed in the very beginning a little foundation made up of five people. Three of them were non-alcoholic. One of them was Dr. Bob and another alcoholic, made up the five people of the original foundation. And their job was to become incorporated, to handle the big book, to handle anything that dealt with money and business and etc. And they were incorporated in the state of New York. Now to represent the fellowship as a whole, the original 100 people told Bill and Bob, we want you to do that for us. We don't want to have to fool with that. So when it came to our business, Bill and Rob did that. Working with this little foundation. But in the 40s, it became apparent that the business was going to continue to grow and get bigger and bigger. And it became evident we were going to have to have more legal stuff going on. It became apparent there was going be more of this stuff involved all the time. And also, it had become apparent at that particular time that Dr. Bob was ill with another serious terminal illness. and they knew the day was going to approach fairly rapidly that he would no longer be with us. And then that would leave only Bill to represent the fellowship as a whole in the dealings with this little foundation. And Bill knew that if there were ever to be any changes made, they would have to be made before Dr. Bob died. Because if he waited until Dr. Rob died, then the people would say, well, that's all Bill's been waiting on for him to die. And then Bill's going to do his thing. So Bill very reluctantly began to talk about this with Dr. Bob. And the question was always this. How can we, the two co-founders, turn back to the fellowship itself, the authority and responsibility for the fellowship worldwide? Now, you see, a loving God was the authority within each individual group. But now we were becoming concerned with the fellowship worldwide, and Bill and Bob knew the day would come when they would no longer be here. So the question became, how can we give this authority and responsibility back to the individual members of the fellowship? Because they certainly didn't want some foundation running AA. Today, always the question was how does AA take care of itself and its own members run its own affairs? And Bill and Bob had done that for us for many years. And they began to devise a little plan whereby the groups themselves, through certain elected representatives, would be able to represent the fellowship as a whole in its dealings with this foundation and with this little office that we had put in in New York City and with his little publishing company that was producing our literature for us. And they drew this thing up and they also presented it at this international in Cleveland. And Bill said, we believe this thing that we're presenting to you is absolutely necessary. But he said it will be different than the first two legacies because they were based on experience. These are the steps we took. These traditions were based upon things that groups had tried and failed at. And they were written on actual experience. But Bill said, this little plan that I want to present to you, we have no experience in this because we've never tried anything like this before. But he said, what I would like for you to do is to give us permission to use this plan for five years. And he said at the end of that five years, if it does not work like it should, we can always change it. We can eliminate it or we can do whatever we want to with it. So at that international, they approved a plan called the service structure. And the service infrastructure was set up so certain elected representatives would be able to represent the fellowship as a whole instead of Bill and Bob having to do that. And they used this little plan for five years. and then at the end of that five years they had another convention in St. Louis in 1955 and this service plan was presented there to the fellowship to become a permanent part of our legacies or to become the third legacy of Alcoholics Anonymous now Dr. Bob had already passed on five years before and they found that this little structure had worked so well that they didn't really see any need for any changes being made in it. And the fellowship as a whole at the International in 1955 in St. Louis accepted the service structure as our third legacy of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now many people today have become confused between that third legacy and between this thing called the concepts. Many people in AA today believe that the concepts are the third legacy of Alcoholics Anonymous, but they are not. They are not what the fellowship voted upon in 1955. They could not have been what the scholarship voted upon in 1955 because the concepts were not written until 1967. what the fellowship did vote upon was a thing called the charter they had drawn up a charter which had 12 points to it 12 tenets, 12 guidelines 12 parts or whatever you would like to call them and within that charter it calls out how a thing called the general service conference is set up. Within that charter, it calls out that there will be a meeting between the elected representatives of the fellowship as a whole, between these trustees on that foundation, between these people who worked in the General Service office, that this meeting would be held yearly in April and it was to be at that time and has been ever since in New York City. And there, whatever business AA had worldwide, whatever things that had to be discussed worldwide, they would be talked about, they would being referred to, they would brought up, they would changed when necessary and through this service structure, the groups themselves would then be representing the fellowship as a whole. And the trustees would be representing the trustees and the staff people would be representing the staff. Now actually when you get to thinking about this, there's some different functions that take place here. The fellowship as an whole Well, our primary purpose is to carry our message in our group to the alcoholic that still suffers, period. But the purpose of the Board of Trustees is to take care of the business. All the legal stuff that you and I don't want to get involved in and all that public relations stuff and all those things that would interfere with our primary focus here at the group level and the purpose of the staff members were to be able to do for the groups what the groups could not do for themselves. For instance, an answering service worldwide. For instance an answering letter writing service to people within the fellowship who had questions about it. For instance the making of and the saying that literature was published and distributed wherever it should be all different functions. Now in order for any of them to make any decent decisions, they would all have to meet together and be able to have the input from these different factions within this thing. The charter itself lays out how the General Service Conference is made up, who will attend, what they will do, and et cetera, and et cetera. Now rather than try to read to you from the charter which would be putting another thing with twelve things in our head we're simply going to look a little bit at how that conference is made up and who really is there and who takes part in it and we're going to do that through a series of transparencies that John is going to flip on the screen over here. And I'm going to do my best to be brief, which is damn hard for me to do, in the talking about the service structure itself or those things that this charter pertains to. To start out with, it sets up for us within our groups some group officers. Now we know that any two or more AAs anywhere in the world, any two or more alcoholics joining together for the purpose of sobriety can form an AA group provided they are self-supporting through their own contributions and provided they are not affiliated with anything else. So to make up an AA group is a very simple thing. It could be made up of two members or five members or ten members or a hundred members or however many you want, but it does take at least two. Then that group, usually to function as it should, will delegate some responsibilities to various different people. Within that group you will normally have elected a general service representative. Now, that's the one that's going to represent us at the service structure level, the GSR. Most groups will have a secretary. Most will have treasurer. And today, most groups have a grapevine representative, our little magazine deal. And then many groups have within their own group different committees to do different functions. You know, not every member of the group would need to be there to make coffee. So we may designate two or three people as a coffee committee to see that the coffee is made. We may designat two or tree more to take the responsibility for taking care of the meeting plates. We may designate another committee to be sure that the literature that we need is always there. and various different jobs usually would be assigned through committees in the group itself. And you'll have all different kind of committees based upon how big the group is, where it meets, and so on and so forth. You may have a steering committee, a speaker's committee. Those things can all be added in as the group self grows and functions. But the main purpose we're interested in right now, or the main person, is this one called the General Service Representative. That's the one that the group elects to represent the group as a whole in any of our service structure beyond the group level itself. Now, I almost must make myself say this, that in the election of this GSR, this Group Service Representative, you are going to delegate to that person the authority and responsibility that you have in your collective group conscience. And that person is going to represent your entire group at whatever level they happen to be working at at any particular time. Now, sadly to say, usually the way this person is elected is whoever's not there gets elected. Or there will be a real sickie in the group and we'll say, let's elect him or her because that service work will make them well. Don't you believe that? It will not make them Well. They'll simply make service work sick in most cases. This is the first one of our elected officers or people we're going to be dealing with. Now, later on, as we go into the area assemblies and the delegates and the people that go into The General Service Conference, even the trustees, all of them will at one time have been a GSR. And every GSR you elect has the potential of being the delegate or the trustee at a later date. So for God's sake, elect the best one you possibly can. because if you elect sickies, you're going to have sickies all the way through. If you elect those that are not responsible enough to attend the meeting when you hold the election, they're not going to be responsible anyplace else either. Always get the best one you can. That's the first rung of the ladder we might say in our service structure. Okay, let's look at another little picture real fast. we have what we call the district structure the district structure will be made up of these local groups which are made up of the two or more AA's one group may have three people in it another may have 30 another mayhave 15 another one 50 but these are all groups that are within a district and there may be 10, 15 or 20 of these groups within that district and they meet together periodically in most places at least four times a year on a quarterly basis to discuss and take care of AA's business at the district level. Now your GSRs and your alternate GSR are those who attend those district meetings representing your group. And there they will elect certain officers also, such as the district committee person or chairman or man or whatever you want to call them. It's always been DCMs. Alternative DCMs, district treasurers, district secretaries, and then various different committees to function at the district level. And each district will usually have a committee for the institutions, another one for the public information, another one für die Grapevine Committee, and institutions has really now been split into two, one for hospitals and treatment centers and then one for correctional facilities. And all of our business in that district will be conducted by, talked about, decided at these district meetings where your GSR will be your representative. Okay, let's go one step further. We then have what we call the area assembly structure. now this used to be called the state assembly structure because at one time each state and each province in Canada had an assembly structure but as time went by and AA grew and population of the United States expanded more and more it became evident that some states the population of AA was so heavy that it needed to be split into two different assemblies. The state of Missouri is split into 2, east and west. The state OF Texas is split in to 4. California has how many, Tim? 5. New York has 4 or 5. Now, Arkansas is not very heavily populated. We've only got one. Kansas has got one, but all told today we have split the United States and Canada up into 91 different areas, with some states having more than one. Now at the area assembly, since that area is made up of different districts And it may be 10 districts or 12 or 15 or 20 It differs with different areas They will usually meet together at least once every two years And most assemblies at least Once every year and in many of them four times a year There is some variation here. It is left up to the discretion of these assemblies themselves as to when and how they're going to meet. But at that assembly, they will be representing AA's business for that whole area, whatever it is. In Arkansas, which I'm more familiar with, it is for the whole state of Arkansas. But in Missouri, it would be for the eastern or the western half, depending on which one we're talking about. And at the area assembly, you will have these district committee persons. And in many assemblies, the GSR is also attending each of these area assembly meetings and are taking care of our business for that whole particular area. Now they will meet together and they will also elect some officers. We have a chairperson for the area assemblies. and I believe the chairperson for this particular area is sitting back here behind me over here at the taping session. One of your trusted servants. One of Your servants, I don't know how well he's trusted. And you usually have an alternate chairperson and you usually have a secretary and a treasurer. They are the officers of the area assembly. Now, in the beginning, this area assembly met for one purpose and one purpose only. And that was to elect a person to attend this meeting in New York City every year. What we call the delegate to the General Service Conference. Tim, of course, as we said before, is the delegate from this particular area. Now, since AA has grown and expanded, the area assemblies of course have taken on a lot more work than they used to do. They are taking on now responsibility for the committee work such as public institutions within your entire area, and the work with the professional people through committees called cooperation with the Professional Community. functions that we need to do within the area is now being done primarily by these assemblies. But the first assembly met with one idea, and one only in mind, was to elect that representative. So what we've really done, we've run a chain of responsibility and authority here. The group, remember, a loving God expresses Himself in the group conscience. That's the only authority in your group. Now, we have taken that authority, transmitted it through the GSR to the district level, to the area assembly level, and then through the delegate to the General Service Conference. That delegate becomes your voice and your authority and your responsibility at the General Service Conference in New York City in April. That's how the fellowship itself is represented. At that conference, there are 91 of them there. Unless one is sick, and then they have an alternate that will usually take their place. Unless one dies en route, or unless one gets drunk while there, is sick. And then they'll have an alternative that will take their places. one dies en route, or unless one gets drunk while there, which has happened in the past a time or two. You know, after all, they're all human beings. Even the delegates are. God, I couldn't keep from saying that. Barring no accidents, there'll be 91 of them there. Okay, that represents the fellowship as a whole. That represents the real conscience of Alcoholics Anonymous. That represents The Real Authority of Alcoholic Anonymous, a loving God who expresses Himself through, eventually, through the delegates themselves. Now let's see who else is going to be at that General Service Conference. We have a thing we call The Regions. Now remember, we've got to have people to do business for us. We've got to have people who can handle the legal stuff. We've gotta have a corporation, and that corporation has to be chartered somewhere. And that corporation must have bylaws and must conduct itself according to the laws of the state wherein it's chartered. Now, we have a thing called the Trustees for Alcoholics Anonymous, or call maybe simply the Board. Two or three different names they're known by. And what it really is is a corporation made up of 21 people. Twenty-one trustees. Now, fourteen of those trustees are alcoholic. And seven of them are non-alcoholic. Now, it hasn't always been that way. Remember, the first little foundation was made up of five people. Three non-alkoholics and two alcoholics. and for years it was felt that we people who are the power drivers would never be able to conduct our business in such a manner that we could actually take care of it and it was always felt for years that the majority of these people would have to be non-alcoholics so they would have the voting majority to overcome we irrational people if necessary one of the final things Bill did for us was to change that ratio. At one time, it was 14 non-alcoholics and 7 alcoholics. And finally, before Bill died, it was changed to 14 alcoholics and 7 non-alkoholics. Now the 7 non‑alcoholic they are called Class A trustees. The 14 alcoholic are called class B trustees. I've never been too fond of that. But maybe it was for our humility. Anyhow, that's the way they're set up. The seven non-alcoholic trustees are picked on that board and placed on there because of their expertise in some field. There will be one there representing the medical field, another one the educational field, another one in the psychiatric field, and so on. Another one will be an attorney in the legal field. Another one would probably be an accountant in that field. Another one will be an expert in investment things. And the time that these people devote to us with no pay whatsoever just literally blows my mind. These people are all people who are capable of making millions of dollars, and they take their time, and they takes their expertise, and they give it to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous absolutely free of charge and they've been doing that now for over 50 years. And I don't think enough of us know that and I don'T think we really recognize nor show them the gratitude and respect that we should because AA wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for non-alcoholic trustees. AA wouldn'T be here tonight if it WASN'T for the non- alcoholic people who helped us in the beginning like Ruth Hawk and God, we can name hundreds of them from behind the podium. Oh, we'd like to think that we did it all, but we sure as hell didn't and we don't today. Now, to get the 14 alcoholic trustees, they hold elective positions. The United States has been divided into six regions. Canada has been divided into two regions. Six of these trustees come out of the six U.S. regions. Two of them come out of the two Canadian regions. In other words, there's a total of eight regions with one trustee elected from each region. And then we have four what they call in-town trustees or general service trustees. These are people who live in close proximity to New York City who can be called in for a meeting any time, any day of the week, for any emergency reason and function as trustees and then two will be trustees at large, one U.S. and one Canada. that these are all elected positions. I don't think we really need to get in too much into how they are elected, but they are selected at the General Service Conference and they are selectable and selected from the different regions and the different area assemblies. When it's time to elect a trustee from your region, each assembly within your region will put forth a name and then those names will go to the General Service Conference at the next meeting and there they will be voted upon and a trustee will come out of your region and they serve for four years. Now that makes a total of 14 alcoholic and there will be seven non-alcoholics. The purpose of the regional chart is to show you where these alcoholic trustees come from. Let's move one more, John, if you please. This is what we call the legal entity's structure. The 21 trustees that we've been talking about made up of the 14 Class B alcoholic and the 7 Class A non-alcoholic are what we call the General Service Board. The General Service board is chartered, incorporated within the state of New York City. And it is a legal entity. I mean within the State of New Yor- not New York city and it is a legal Entity. The General service board owns two companies. You might call the General Service Board a holding company because it owns two companies. It owns what we call Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, and that is also a legally chartered corporation in the state of New York. And it is a legal entity owned by the General service board. and it is made up of our General Service office, that thing in New York City, and a publishing company that publishes our literature for us. It has its own board of directors. Then also the General Service Board owns The Grapevine which is another legally incorporated corporation Corporation in the state of New York. And the Grapevine has its own board of directors, but the Grabevine is a company owned by the General Service Board. So there's three legal entities within AA. The General Service Boards, AAWS, and the Graepvine to represent and do the legal work for us. Now, if John will go one more chart, we will now come to this thing called the General Service Conference. This is the thing that is put together in New York City that meets in April of each year that represents AA as a whole. not only the Fellowship, but also the General Service Board and also the two companies, AWS and the Grapevine. Now there's where the business of AA takes place worldwide. And the Charter was set up to make up the composition of this. The charter called out the GSR, the DCM, the area officers, the delegates. The charter calls out the legal entities. The charter call out the grapevine and et cetera. And the 12 points of the charter makes this thing up. Now you'll notice at that meeting there's a total of 135 different people. So, you'll notice that of that 135, there will be 91 delegates, 21 trustees, 7 directors from AWS and Grapevine, and 16 staff members. Now, those staff members are those people that work for us in the General Service Office and in the Grapevine. And they are also alcoholic people. And they handle mine in your daily, daily, day operation and business. And their input is very valuable. They can see AA from a way that nobody else can see it. The trustees look at it from a way nobody else can see it. And the 91 delegates look at is from a way nobody can see, and the 3 joined together gives us the input of AA as a whole. And with the knowledge from all three of these areas we can reasonably conduct our business. Now there's one thing I would like for you to notice. Two-thirds of 135 is 90. Nothing is ever passed at this conference that does not have at least a two-thirds majority vote. And it takes 90 to make two- thirds, and 91 of those people there are delegates. So the delegates always have the voting majority if they wish to express it. Now, very seldom do they all vote exactly the same way. They're just like within your group when you're discussing Coca-Cola or Pepsi. But if it ever becomes necessary, these 91 delegates always have the stick at the General Service Conference. They have the right traditionally and through our charter to throw the whole 21 people off the board of trustees if necessary and replace them with a new board of trustees. So far that has never been necessary to do, but it can be done if necessary. Now one other thing before we leave this entirely is this. these 91 delegates represent you they are your collective group conscience speaking at that general service conference there is a remote possibility that all of these 135 people could go up there sometime and go plumb nuts and decide to do things their way and to hell with the rest of the fellowship legally they can do that legally the board of trustees owns those companies legally they could do whatever they needed to do if they had to but there is one authority in AA that controls the whole 135 and that's the power of the purse strings you see if we depend upon group contributions only to conduct our business at that level then the groups are always the authority. And if they go dingy, all we've got to do is just don't send them any more money. And they can't function. They can't do anything without the money from the groups, providing that's where the money comes from. But now if we let the board of trustees through their publishing company double the price of literature and make thousands and then millions of dollars and then squirt it away and use it at a later date, then they don't have to be responsive to us financially any longer. So that's why your group contributions to the General Service Office is so important so that you and I can always be the authority for Alcoholics Anonymous. They are allowed through our charter and through our structure to put in a prudent reserve. And a prudent reserve is one year's operating expenses. And if they went crazy on us, they could only be crazy a year before they run out of money. Really, they don't have that much in the prudent preserve. I'm not sure what it is today, but somewhere about 75% of a year is operating funds in that prudent reservoir. now through this general service conference then this is a thing that Bill and Bob and those people in the 40's set up to ensure that the fellowship itself with a loving God expressing himself at the group conscience would be the final authority for Alcoholics Anonymous and then when Bob died and then it became apparent Bill would die someday, they felt safe leaving it in the hands of the fellowship itself, the 91 elected delegates to the General Service Conference. Let's look very briefly at the power flow in Alcoholics Anonymous. In most organizations, such as a company or the federal government or county government or whatever it might be, you usually have somebody at the top of the heap. That's usually the president of the company. And then under the president of the country, you will have various vice presidents for each different department all responsive to that president. And under the vice presidents, you willhave your department heads in each of their different departments. and then under those you will have your foreman and then finally you get down to the actual worker who does all the job. But the authority flows from the top down and each level from the bottom down has the right to discipline those below them. Now that's the normal organizational chart for any structure you hardly ever see anywhere in the world. except for Alcoholics Anonymous. And we're just as ass-backwards from that as we can possibly be. You see, we don't give our authority to any one individual. The only authority in AlcoholicsAnonymous is a loving God expressing Himself in the group conscience through the individual AA members. And then from the group through the GSR to the district and from the district to the area assembly and from the area assemble and the regions and the legal entities to the general service conference so the higher you get in AA the lower you become the highest person in the list of authority in Alcoholics Anonymous is you, as an individual member of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is the only thing I've ever seen that the harder you work, the more you work and the less you have. The more you serve, the less she has. And finally we get down to people like Tim and these delegates and they have no authority whatsoever except what you and I give them. So we're not an organization. We are a fellowship. and we are upside down, ass backwards fellowship and it's not supposed to work. But it works pretty damn good. Everybody in the world looks at this chart and says, hell, it can't work. But you and I know it works and we know the reason it works is because God is the final authority in Alcoholics Anonymous. That's why it works. Now that's the third legacy of AlcoholicsAnonymous. That's what Bill proposed to us in 1950 in Cleveland. That's the first thing we did. That's that's what the fellowship voted to accept in St. Louis in 1955. That became the third legacy of Alcoholics Anonymous, the service legacy to serve the fellowship worldwide. The first legacy for the individual, recovery. The second legacy for the groups, unity. The third legacy to serve the fellowship worldwide rather than at a group level. Now, they had these meetings for five years. They made it permanent in 1955. And then as the years went by, Bill began to see something that disturbed him quite heavily. He began to See these 135 people meeting together up there and nobody really knowing who was supposed to do what. could the trustees say to the staff members you do this or could the staff members appeal a decision made by a director in AAWS to the board of trustees could the delegates really fire and get rid of the trustees could the trustees tell the delegates what to do and being normal human beings that began to be infighting at that general service conference. Everybody always wanting to come to the top. Our little egos taking over and wanting to run the show. So Bill said, you know, there ought to be another set of principles. And I don't know whether he said they ought to Be 12 or not, but it turned out to be 12. And he said this set of Principles will be the final set I'm going to write And he said, these will guide these people at this General Service Conference. These will lay out who is to do what and who has what authority over whom and how this business here can be conducted at the General Service conference. Remember, as we looked last night The twelve steps entailed action For the individual to recover from the disease We looked at them up here And we had those steps Of three through eleven as action things The first step being the problem The second step being The solution Three through eleven being action with twelve being the results. We also talked last night about the twelve traditions being non-action things. The first tradition being the problem, group unity. The second tradition being the solution of loving God expressing Himself in the group conscience. And traditions three through eleven being non action. And tradition twelve being the result spiritual anonymity. Now, Bill, I believe, followed the same pattern. I'm not sure that he knew he was doing it. But I believe that he either consciously or subconsciously followed the sameness and the same pattern when he set up these guidelines to guide us at the General Service Conference. These things he called twelve concepts. This concludes session 16a of the third annual northern california big book seminar as presented by charlie parmley of maysville arkansas please go to tape number 16b for a panel discussion of the concepts of world service along with questions and answers from the audience