Third Legacy Procedure – A.A. Service Workshop – Part 2 of 2 – Billy N.

good evening everyone i'm billy i'm an alcoholic welcome before i forget happy thanksgiving to everyone hope everyone's safe and as i say every year i hope everyone puts their service manuals away and realizes that this is heavy recruitment season for newcomers coming to alcoholics anonymous in a really tough time of year for uh not to offend my big book thumper friends i know payday is no different than saint patrick's day is no different than next july but the truth is if you don't have a foundation in aa the holidays can kick your ass so there's a lot of newcomers getting their asses kicked so um we're still on the appendixes we're up to appendix g third legacy procedure um it's found on page 114 of the current service manual the third legacy procedure is what we see at most of our area elections every once in a while a district or somebody else uses it but where we really see it as an area elections and of course at the general service conference for regional trustees and trustees at large and the trustees actually use it um for the selection of the chair of the general service board and for selecting um the nominating committee uses it for selecting class a trustees for them to recommend somebody to the general service board so it says a's third legacy procedure is a special type of electoral procedure used primarily for election of delegates and regional and at-large trustees it is considered to be unique to aa and at first glance appears to introduce a strong element of chance into the matter that should depend solely on the judgment of the majority now many people have done lots of research on where did bill come up with this third legacy procedure where do we steal it from did we invent it whole bunch of stuff here's the best i can tell you look without taking an opinion on an outside issue but obviously we all know that bill became very close to father ed dowling who is a jesuit priest from st louis um who was fascinated with the steps so much so that he took a train to new york to go and hunt down this so-called bill w and from that meeting they become fast friends for sure um he became bill's spiritual advisor um bill has talked about or written about that he almost converted to catholicism because of how close he became the father ed dowling um there is a great non-aa book out there called the soul of sponsorship it's not published by aa but it is the letters in between bill and father ed dowling fascinating truly fascinating sometimes people think that bill w just was the greatest guy in the world and that's why he decided to give up all his power and turn a over to the groups but that is not really the whole story. The real story is that Father Ed Dowling told Bill W, that as long as he was a special class of alcoholic, as long as He was the end all be all, he would never get the spiritual benefit that the rest of the A members were getting and wasn't that a kick in the ass that he was co founder, but yet wouldn't get the same benefit that everyone else was getting so uh he was the one who encouraged bill that can't be in charge can't be the last word now i say all that because do your own research i've read other people's and done my own the closest thing you're going to find a third legacy procedure is the election process for a pope that's it you can google it read about it go to the vatican library i don't care what you do but you can argue that there aren't a lot of similarities between the election of a pope and third legacy procedure which um you know based on his relationship with father ed you know is easy to conceive how he found out about it so it goes on to say uh in practice however it says it is considered to be unique to aa and at first glance appears to introduce a strong element of chance into a matter that could depend solely on the judgment of the majority In practice, however, it has proved highly successful in eliminating the influence of factions or parties that seem to thrive on most political scenes. The railroading of a candidate for election is made difficult, if not impossible, since voters have a wide selection of candidates to choose from. more importantly a second place candidate who may be extremely well qualified but without early popular support is encouraged to stay in the balloting rather than withdraw so um i love what it says there um a wide selection of candidates to choose from i would just ask you when you go to your area elections is that what you see is there a wide selection of people standing for delegate alternate delegate area chair probably not because we've gotten so used to this kind of stepping stones promotion two years at a time that's not what our history talks about it's not that i don't believe that a lot of alternate delegates shouldn't become a delegate i was an alternate delegate who became a delegate I wasn't elected because my delegate passed away but I'm not anti-alternate delegate I'm just saying that in order for the third legacy procedure to really work there has to be a lot of candidates um the other thing i want to say about the third legacy procedure is that if you come out of the hat god did not choose you just want to say that again. If you come out of the hat, God did not choose you. No, a person chose you because that's who they picked. God's role in it is to make sure that we don't just take the person with the most votes. That's God's roll in it. The procedure, there's a a couple of common mistakes one is the most common but I'll go through it just so everybody understands I love the chart that they've put in here I love that chart um it says the names of the eligible candidates are posted on a board all voting members of the area or conference body cast written ballots one choice to a ballot the tally for each candidate is posted on the board the first candidate to receive two-thirds total vote is elected so where do we run into problems so let's talk about problem number one alcoholics are a hard group of people to keep in line it's hard to have a tent to take care of that Circus so if you have a hundred people voting the first time you are not going to have 100 people voting in the fourth ballot it's just never going to happen but here's the mistake that gets made the two-thirds is based on the number of votes cast in that ballot not the two thirds from the start it's for that individual ballot did someone get two-thirds of that ballot now mistake number two that is made is the old you know rounding up so i'm going to try to explain this as slowly and carefully as possible but we do not round up in alcoholics synonymous. Now, this mistake has been made twice in the last six years at the conference. Both times acknowledged that the mistake was made at a particular time. So let me give an example of let's use the 135 voting members of the conference times 0.66, okay? that way you come with 89.1 okay now you could take 135 divide it by two divide it by three and multiply it by two. There you get 90, right? 135 divided by three equals 45 times two, two thirds. So 45th is a third, two-thirds is 90. Now that's the easiest way to figure out two-thirds, by the way, mathematically. I know people always want to go to 0.66666, whatever. Divide the total number of voters by three and then multiply by two. And then you have two-third. Now, if you take 135 and multiply it by the 0. 66, you get 89.1. Basically the same, which is why i want to explain that let's say you are in the audience of somebody using the 0.66 method right okay 89.1 we always round up always never round down because 89 would not be two thirds if you rounded 89.1 down to 89 it's not two-thirds and i know there's been a lot of things invented since aa started but we still haven't figured out point one of a delegate okay so until that is someday possible we round up if it's 29.4 you need 30 votes if it 62.4 you need 63 votes if 70.1 you need 71 votes so those are two common mistakes that that happen often now the chart is very nice place have the vote is there one candidate who has two-thirds yes congratulations they went no go on to the second ballot after the second Ballot someone has two thirds congratulations no go to the third ballot but then there's a stop there's a stop in the process the third ballot after that third ballot i mean after the second ballot candidates with less than one-fifth which is 20 of the total votes are withdrawn top candidates and all runners up must remain so what does that mean it means the top two stay for sure but if there's a tie for second whether it's one or two people tied three people tied they all stay then we have the third vote hopefully someone gets elected if not then candidates with less than one-third are dropped But again, the top candidate and at least one other person must remain. And anyone that's tied for second. After the third ballot, if there is no winner, we go to ballot four. This is sometimes where there's an urban myth. does one candidate have two-thirds majority of the vote if yes congratulations if no this is where everybody wants to say i want to make a motion to go to the hat so if there's anything i can make clear on this recording there is no such thing as a motion to go-to-the-hat in alcoholics anonymous it does not exist anywhere after the fourth ballot the chairperson asks for a motion to go to a fifth vote the motion is to have a fifth ballot not to go that if there is no motion or if there's a motion made and it's seconded or if there's a motion made seconded and it passes then there will be a fifth ballot if there is a motion and it's seconded, and it fails then we just go to the hat if it does pass we go to a fifth Ballot and if that fifth ballot no one gets two-thirds then it goes to the hat so the moral of the story is there's no such thing as a motion to go to the Hat now I want to point out a couple of things and I recently saw this at a third Legacy election it was the selection of a host city for the National Corrections conference there should be decorum in AA elections if we're trying to keep God in the process if we are trying to make it spiritual if we try to make everyone feel fair then we got to stay away from cheering and clapping we got to stay away from that actually i'm probably more impressed with somebody who's willing to stand and get two votes and go every round than i am with somebody who gets the majority but we shouldn't be clapping and cheering and after the fourth ballot we shouldn' t be yelling or screaming go to the hat or hat at hat no we should just stick with the process um and let somebody make a motion to go to that um but you know we're dealing you know the problem with elections is not everyone can win them so we're going to have people that don't win elections and a lot of those people have sacrificed many years for AA service as you go down the upside down triangle there's only so many positions and so anything we do that is not respectful of the people who are taking the time to stand we should just stay away from that in all cheering and a business meetings is not a good look it doesn't help with tradition one with unity so we should just stay away from it i think there was a question that came in so let me see our area had elections and during two of the elections after the third ballot candidates wanted to withdraw their names however it wasn't allowed they were told to let the spiritual body of the area decide can people withdraw their own names at any point yes they can this is probably more an urban myth i don't know where this comes from where people want to like recreate their version of robert's rules of order i'm sure hold on my computer is going a little crazy i'm sure maybe some of you have been at an assembly where there's a piece of business on the floor and it's been a motion made and it has been seconded and the motion maker says i'd like to withdraw my motion and some concepts lawyer goes to the microphone or the person says you can't it belongs to the body now we love to say that belongs to the body well it's kind of half true and half not true there's nothing wrong if the if the motion maker wants to withdraw it the proper way is for the motion maker to make a motion to withdraw his or her motion you can make a emotion on top of another motion under robert's rules in that situation but if somebody wants to drop out um i don't see anything in here that says somebody cannot drop out but maybe an area has their own guidelines and they've created that is it common for the candidates or other people talk on their behalf of the candidates between the votes or do the votes take place without discussion great great question so most areas end at the general service conference um for trustees a lot of times each candidate is given two minutes at the general service conference the regional trustee candidates aren't there so the delegate is given 2 minutes to talk about their area's candidate usually in area elections if you stood for area for delegate and didn't get it and you stood for alternate delegate and didn't get it, and then you stand for area chair, you don't get to keep giving you two minutes. Like, you get to give you two units or two minutes once. What I will tell you for anyone here who's going through this procedure, having seen a lot of these, service resumes, basically when you go down the upside-down triangle are all the same they're all the same oh wow you you're running for regional trustee shocking you've been a delegate you've been an alternate delegate you'd been an area chair you've a treatment chair you've been a dcm you're a gsr you worked on the state convention i'm telling you i've seen hundreds of these resumes we need to know that you're qualified to be there but if all your two minutes is is what you've done for aa you are going to sound exactly like everybody else. The best advice I've ever heard given about somebody's two minutes is make half about you, basically half about what maybe you have done for AA or served what positions, but the other half about what a service has done for you because that's important to people what is a service done for it doesn't need to be the billy show we don't need to know everything that Billy is done for a like I learned how to use Excel on a young people's bid committee okay i learned how to use word perfect on a young people's host committee i learned had to dress appropriately for a hotel contract meeting and negotiate i'm just saying this some people they've learned time management through a service some people have learned working on a team through aa service all i'm saying is don't make it all about about that um any other questions on third legacy procedure i do not see any i'm going to go to appendix h the new group form the small print on that form couldn't be any smaller and i'm not going to read it so i'm just going to tell you that right now um i will tell you something that i think we never meant to happen well first of all you can choose the kind of language it is you can say the area number the district the group start date the group name the number of members where the meeting meets um if your virtual group does not have a specific city or town what would you like used is it english spanish french is it in person or is it virtual um does your group meet in the hospital treatment center or detox is it open to aa members outside the center if it does then it has primary contact general service representative alternate gsr or male contact um and here's the difficulty with this group form and nobody meant for this to happen but i have a group pamphlet in front of me page 12 is there a difference between a meeting and a group but yet the only form we have is a group form that's it can't check that you're just a meeting just a group forum and if there is anyone who's done in a group service here a central office or still is currently involved whatever what i'm saying is not meant to pick on central offices or in the groups but one of the things that happened in the last 40 or 50 years is in some places if you call and say hey i started a new meeting i want to get it listed in the where and when a lot of places will say what is your gso number we won't list you until you get your registered gso number so we've been encouraging meetings to get all these group numbers um but that's where it all starts with that new group form there's there's two questions here i want to first say one thing about third legacy procedure there's no discussion in between the rounds of voting that's not third legacy procedure that would be something different kind of like but not third legacy procedure if there is only one person standing for a position do we go through the third legacy procedure or does the candidate get the position by acclamation this is a very important question so what happens if it's an important position and someone not qualified stands for it and they're the only one what do you do i can tell you that like four years ago i spent like three conversations with a bunch of area officers in a particular area because someone got elected who is totally non-qualified and it blew up in that area's face the best thing to do when it's one person is for someone to make a motion to have the secretary cast one ballot in favor of that person and then if that motion fails that person's not elected but we have to be very careful with these one candidate elections can you explain when people stop voting how to calculate two-thirds hmm do you mean like when the count ballot count changes sure i'm facilitating a third legacy election we count up the first round of ballots there's 120 i put 120 up on the board i put what's two-thirds of 120 up on the board then we go ballot by ballot someone calls out the ballot and i mark Joan, Wendy, Susie Then I pass out the second round of ballots And only 105 come in As long as 105 meets the quorum Of that setting The new two-thirds is based on that 105 Not the first round of elections so that's what i was trying to say appendix i is the group information change form just letting you know what it looks like appendix j is the dcm and dcmc change form that is submitted around election time the group formation change form appendix I is submitted around election time when you elect the new gsr a new alternate gsR um those are important things to send in from your group when you have elections and from your district for the dcm and dcmc change form um any questions on the group or the dcm change form uh here's a good question what is a common reason that a new group form is not accepted that's a great question prior to contrary belief prior um they do not look and see if there's a meeting right down the street at the same time in the same day and write me back and say hey have you talked to them no that doesn't happen the biggest problem is names of groups if there is any reason why the the biggest reason why certain group forms are not originally taken in it would be that the name of the group does not currently meet our criteria it could be the name of a living or deceased AA member, including Bill or Bob. Now, before we had that, there are some groups still with that in their name. But the conference took a hard turn a bunch of years ago that we treat Bill and Bob like any other AA member. They are not gods, not deities, not prophets. they're just drunks sometimes somebody will name something after a treatment center or a hospital we don't do that either it's funny what gets slipped by um in southern california here in the San Diego area um uh what the hell is it hold on I gotta grab something hold on there is registered a long time ago the mfsg group just with those acronym that would stand for mother second word i can't say spiritual group um that slipped by how about this one the resentment from the international convention in san diego and the money the fny group in good old san diega county um yep but that is the biggest reason the person will ask that question um just so you know it's names okay point of clarification i keep hearing acclimation when there's only a single candidate in the third legacy procedure acclimatization refers to the process of an organism adjusting to a new environment i believe the term to be used is proclamation which means an official formal and public declaration issued by a body of authority so i'm not going to debate that i would probably agree with this question maker's logic um but each area is up to do what they want to do and they call it what they want to call it if a dual purpose group like yoga for recovery sends in a new group form should they be allowed to be a group no no double trouble groups of any kind um there's two kinds of meetings open and closed you can be a special purpose meeting but that should not be in the name let's see I'm going to go to the conference charter the original conference charter which I'm really and then the next is the current conference charter I think what I will do is we'll go through the original conference charter at least tonight remember this is the spiritual handshake this is where it all starts here's a last minute question of course what if a group changes into a double purpose group well of course you know i know i'm not know shocking people might be dishonest or lie even in alcoholics anonymous that register is it one thing do as another the only thing i can tell you is this as an old timer pointed out one time and it made a lot of sense to me only in alcohol x-anonymous do we have to put an adjective in front of honesty like a kind of honesty in the rest of the world just honest honesty nope in our fellowship we had to throw rigorous in front of it because we know that for alcoholics just honesty isn't enough there's a little legal room there whereas the rest to the world honest is honest so what can i tell you they might send in one form and they might do another um somebody just asked a question is it still delayed 30 days for a group to be registered um yes but there is not an investigation the area the delegate is given notice to registrar and they might check the address make sure the information is correct but we don't send people out to like go to the meeting and make sure it's 100 a.a we definitely do not do that and the other thing that's really important i want to say before i get to the conference charter there is no such thing as an official aaa group i know people don't want to hear it i know it drives people crazy but that number means nothing that number is a way for you to be communicated with because you say you're an aa group not we say you are in a group so all it is is a registration number that you are listed as a group because you say you are there is no official good housekeeping seal of approval that you are some kind of official aa group is oiaa allowed to accept any group names for the rest of everybody else that's the online in a group of alcoholics anonymous i do not know what their rules are um what their guidelines are but you could write to oia and ask them any other questions and i'm going to go to the conference charter okay here's another question is it common or appropriate for an intergroup to send a representative to a new meeting it would matter why if it's to greet them and thank them and be grateful for another new meeting i think that is awesome and to let them know that in a group exists and what and that in a group is there to serve the group not to watch over the group i think that's awesome if it's to go out and find out are they like a real aa or whatever else listen there's a lot of legal implications there aa groups are not connected legally to districts or the area or even intergroups or central offices the last thing we need is a central officer in a group being sued because some group didn't shovel the snow out in front of the group right or they meet in a parking lot with bad lighting and somebody wants to like we're not a franchise each aaa group is a spiritual entity it's not legally connected to the central office or the inner group more questions coming in can you explain when people stop voting all right i did that right how to calculate yeah i did okay the meeting guide app has meetings with an individual's name if a listing goes through a central office site it is on the meeting guide app within 24 hours but that's different than being a group see a lot of people don't understand this let me kind of explain meeting guide app meeting guide app is basically a spider web connected to every in a group and central office website that chooses to participate and what it does as a digital electronic spider is it scrapes the meeting information from that in a group and downloads it into meeting guide app so the information does not come from the group listing at gso that's a separate listing it comes from the meeting guy it comes from the individual meeting listings of central offices so if there is a meeting that has the person's name in the central office accepted it and they didn't register as a group it's not going to be kicked back oh is it common or appropriate for an intergroup to send a representative to a new meeting to if they're following traditions etc well don't come to my home group because uh we might get a failing uh listen i my home groups the primary purpose group at the uh oasis club 7 00 am i'm sure that there's probably something we do wrong um often at the uh lunchtime meeting i don't even know the name of it at the jupiter first church um i have to say that in all no it's not to go out there and like look for traditions violations um it's the group's job to make sure the inner group is doing their job it's not the intergroups job to make sure that the groups are doing their job oh i'll read this question for any current trustees that might listen to this recording or anybody at gso staff but the question is how long should we wait for receiving a gsr packet after we register as a g s r it seems there's difficulties with this in a while if you think that you're waiting too long i would contact your delegate um and listen you know the service manual keeps getting bigger and bigger right there's a downside to that like now the service manual the best thing i for somebody my age right the best thing i can describe the service manual as is the old sears christmas catalog that's the size it is now that used to be the greatest day in the fall when the sears Christmas catalog arrived at your house um our service manual is now that size now here's the difficult part of that they no longer mail a service manual to a newly registered gsr because it got too expensive they're too big so hopefully they're getting it from their area or their district or um but if you think you haven't received it in time please call your delegate do intergroups generally go out and create new groups themselves since it was asked generally no might they ever do it there are some intergroupes that allow a group to meet in their location at lunchtime or at night but i don't know of generally intergroup's going out and starting new meetings what do you recommend to a group who digitally collects 15 i'm guessing they mean 15 000 per year from their members incorporate uh uh whoever asked me this question um I am going to that's such a complicated question please send me a text message I put my number there um it's a million considerations on the uh money um how do you bank i mean we have so many are you still we still have groups that are using somebody's social security number who's been dead for 20 years who was the first person to start a bank account in like 1982 right it used to be you could just go down to your local bank say hey i'm william this is my last name this is myself security number i need a bank account in the name of the one day at a time group and they just did it and then after 9 11 and a lot of money laundering and source of funds uh laws it's not that easy anymore um so that person reach out to me i'd be glad to ask more questions about your particular situation and what might be best for you uh this is in reference to the conference charter I'm going to ask that person to save that question for next week what is the difference between inner group and steering committee so um a group can have a steering committee an inner group can be a board of directors can have a steering committee and then the group might have a board of directors the problem in aa is we have so many different service entities and we use a lot of the same language with different definitions which is why i always suggest get your district guidelines get your area guidelines get you're in a group um guidelines so that you know what they mean when they're using that phrase or word so I'm gonna call an audible um I don't want to only have 10 minutes or so to do the original conference Charter which might be better that next week we can do the Original and the current in the same hour talk about the differences between the original and the current one but i think what i'll do my my if my ipad is like on the fritz i'm gonna go crazy um anyway here's your opportunity to ask any general service question that is in the back of your head that is not about some controversial conference topic. But if you have one, I would gladly take it now because we're going to go back to the conference charters next week. I don't know why my I'm going to leave a little time okay i asked the area chair about area guidelines the response was we use committee guidelines okay i'm sorry that was the response because it doesn't help you and it's my pet peeve in a service like we shouldn't flippantly dismiss questions or give answers that you need 20 years in service to understand they might be called something else you might keep track of like a book of motions and that's how you know how your area does business I would ask your area chair like where are the policies and procedures for how we do business but there the rare area that doesn't have it they just do it by motion the problem with that is it's hard to look up those motions when you're trying to see how you do business what is included in the new gsr package you refer to and can the new GSR just order it well you can go to aa.org and you can see it right there and you can get an electronic version um that's number one and number two uh if you register as a new gsr you should automatically get it also you mentioned that a group can use then they can't use the names but can a meeting so like i said gso doesn't have a way to register meetings but you're in a group may and they don't care if you're a registered group with gso and they may not care about names as much as the general service office does what if there is no motion to have a fifth ballot then it like the book says it goes right to the hat straight to that okay that person is going to reach out on the money question how has a quorum decided does a small district have to do that we have small meetings with few gsrs we are geographically large district with weather being a problem for many months well what What I would tell you is your district or your area gets to decide your quorum. There's really only two ways to base a quorum on the number of people who show up or the number people who actually hold the position. At the General Service Board, the AAWS Board, the AA Grapevine Board and the General Services Conference, it is not based on how many people show up it is based on the total number of that position but most areas because a lot of groups don't participate if they did the same they would never be able to conduct business so what they usually do is say at nine o'clock on saturday we're gonna cut off registration and that's going to be our two-thirds number for the summer for the weekend like that we have 200 people here when we started we have to have at least 80 or two-third of that to conduct business for the rest of the weekend but at the awa at the general service board there's 21 trustees it's based on 21 all the time not based on how many show up at our last assembly several folks said i want to do service a long time so i don't want to be a delegate yet it seems like you have done a lot of service after being delegate what are they talking about let's see i want and i'm not going to do that i'm going to be a delegate want to service a longtime so i dont wanna be a delicate yet i guess that thinking that like once you're done with being a delegate you can still do service which that's not true um but without me understanding what they were really saying i can't interpret for them does it get confusing for areas in gso whether a meeting is a meeting or a group to track active participating groups in the cert yes of course when we say only 40 percent of groups part contribute we're saying 40 of the groups registered and we know that a lot of them are just meetings so it has an effect on that number or when we say we only need so much money per group to be self-supporting well for a group or per meeting so this whole meeting and group thing has really thrown our numbers uh been a problem for sure let's see our area just held elections every panel usually starts out with a lot of enthusiasm but at some point during it significantly declines any suggestions on how to keep servants engaged and is this common in other areas I think it's common in life I don't think it is an AA thing or an area thing what I would tell you is I go to a lot of AA events or service events and a lot of them you wonder why we were gathered today like there doesn't seem to really be a reason there's not a purpose we seem to just be regurgitating because that's what was supposed to do every two months or every quarter and i would tell you that's a way to bore people and keep them from never coming back there should be a reason to engage um i'm a big fan of the book it's not an aa book it is a business book death by meetings death by meeting about how to have effective meetings that keep people engaged some of our meeting scripts are just it's like we just want to check the box and say we had the district meeting in september rather than what do we want to accomplish at the meeting okay here's what i'm going to ask everyone to do and if you're listening to this on the recording please get a highlighter or a pen and read through the current conference charter and the original conference charter and look for any things that look different or anything in either one of them that causes you to have a question. It's the most important document in the whole service structure. Nothing is more important. Everything rests on the conference charter. It's documented handshake agreement between the trustees and the groups. And because the conference is an illegal entity, that conference charter is a spiritual agreement. But everything we talk about and everything we do comes from the conference charter. That's how important it is. So with that, I am going to close with the responsibility statement, wishing everybody a happy Thanksgiving again. i am responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out to help i want the hand of aa always to be there and for that i am responsible thanks everyone have a great night