Wayne P. at the 1st Young Peoples Conference – 1987

In case you've gotten in here by mistake, this is going to be a workshop on service. I had nobody leaving, all right. This topic is not always the most popular one in the fellowship. What perhaps I'd better do is tell you what my name is, and it's Wayne Parks. I'm an alcoholic, and I'm from Rogers, Arkansas. And I'm a member of the Rogers Group, and it's the only group I've ever belonged to. So I don't know if that says anything good or bad about me. It might be that I'm just lazy and don't want to go anywhere else. But as to why they ask me here, I am the past Southwest Regional Trustee. Theoretically, that makes me supposedly knowledgeable in the area of service. that's not always true it just i've been exposed to quite a bit and we do a little workshop down in arkansas and it originally started out and it was about a six-hour workshop so what you're going to get today is what that six- hour workshop started on and it Was strictly on service what you are going to get is a real condensed version of service structure and the main things that I think that we want to touch on is things that you do not come in contact with, such as your group, on a day-to-day basis. But what I want to do is kind of tell you a little bit about the things that You are not involved in on a Day-To-Day basis and some of the ways that it has come about. And of course, I'll start with the group because that's where it all starts. But what we're going to be talking about primarily is on page 21 of your service manual, and this is the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the reason that many of us think that this is important, it's very simple, because you have big books, and you have pamphlets, and you can write to the General Service Office and find out about the young people, what they're doing over in Oklahoma. You can find out about the International that's going to be in Boston in September, and how did these things come about? How come they keep going? You know, does it take money to publish some of these things? Does it take a, you know, who takes care of seeing that it is published and gets to you when you order it? You knows, strangely may seem, Hazleton doesn't print that book. It comes out of something called Alcoholics Anonymous' World Services, and that's what we want to talk just a little bit about and everything in the program of alcoholics anonymous starts with the group and service structure is no different it starts with the groove and I think that any time that you look at an organizational charge you'll see that the AA group is where it is and if you'll notice that the general service office the general service conference and the general service board is below the group and that's the one thing that you want to keep in mind in everything that we do in the program of alcoholics anonymous the group determines what all of us do and don't ever ever let anybody tell you any different because the group is where it begins and the group is where the power comes from for us to do anything in service work in the program of alcoholics anonymous if you don't remember another thing this afternoon that's the one thing that you want to keep in mind that the power comes from the group your group my group all of our groups now all groups of course we have We have our own local officers in our groups, and we have our people that are program chairmen. We have steering committees, and treasures, and the group secretary. It varies from group to group, but generally that's what we have in a group. There's a little pamphlet called The Group, a little handbook. It talks about all of the different kinds of meetings, and you're familiar with most of them. gets into quite a bit of it. But as I say, I want to skip some of this and get into some things that you're not normally involved in. But along with the group, you know about every two years you have an election. Usually it's in September, October, somewhere in there. And you lack something called a GSR, a group service representative. And that's the beginning of if you're like my group and most groups, anybody that's not involved in service, they say, uh-oh, they're getting involved in politics. Well, that really isn't true, but if you look at it on the surface, you might think so. But this GSR, this General Service Representative, goes to something they call district meetings, and you say, what district? Well, all of us are in districts. In my own particular area, I happen to be in District 1, and that's comprised of about 37 different groups, and it varies everywhere, wherever your group is, whatever area you're in it varies but you do belong to a district and for that district you have something called a DCM a district committeeman and these two people go about every three months to something and it varies here again but basically about every 3 months they go to something called an area assembly and And this area assembly, in Arkansas, the area is the state. In Missouri, it is two areas, eastern and western Missouri. They're two separate areas. Here in Kansas, Kansas is one area. But you go to these district meetings, and then you go into this area of the state, and you go through this area assemble on a quarterly basis. and this quarterly meeting they have there they have something called the chairman they have usually a co-chairman they have secretary treasurer and then they have a lot of standing committees and they vary but basically they're roughly what we all have pi cpc some of them have correctional facilities some of whom call it institutional committees various things but generally you have anywhere from six to twelve different committees within that area assembly also there's something there and this is the thing that i think that you might keep in mind the original reason for area assemblies was for one thing and that was to elect a delegate a delegate to represent the area from which you are in. In my particular area, we elect one, and as I said, in Kansas here, the Kansas and the area are the same, so you elect one delegate. And this delegate, the reason that you elect this person is because they represent your area at something called the General Service Conference. Now, this General Service Conference, I know you've heard of it and you've heard of the delegate, and we usually in my area, and I think you do in Kansas here, you have an alternate delegate in case something happens to the delegate. Once a year at this General Service Conference, it's held in New York and the delegates from the United States and Canada all meet there once a year in April, the third week in April, and there are 91 areas that are represented or 91 delegates. These 91 delegates represent all the areas in the United States and Canada. They get together and they discuss many things, but some of the things that go on at the General Service Conference are some things that pertain to the pamphlets and the handbooks that you you get, the one that just recently came out, called The Twelve Concepts Illustrated. This is a direct result of the General Service Conference and of committees at the General Service Conference. This is the end result. There's something on the back right here that's called the Circle and Triangle, and in there it says, Conference Approved. What that means is simply that this has gone through the conference process and that it has gone though these committees and it has been brought to the General Service Conference and it's been discussed and the entire conference has approved this to be printed and sent out to the fellowship. That's all in the world that your conference-approved literature. Well, here's some of these old-timers like myself. We're all the time hollering about conference-approved literature. And you say, well, so what? The 24-hour day book isn't conference-approved. And I think it's just fine. It is just fine, no problems. But it is not conference-appropried. And there's a very simple reason. It's a religious material rather than spiritual. And that's the only—nobody's arguing on it or anything. but the point I'm trying to make is there is a process every piece of literature that we put that conference sealed, conference approved circle and triangle means that it has been through the conference process gone through the committees gone before the conference it has being voted upon and it has be approved to be printed and sent to the groups or made available to the group Now these people, and you say, well, these 91 people get up there and they discuss all these things. How did they know about this, people wanting this in an illustrated form? You know, there's something in this service manual. You've got 12 concepts, and they're the back part of your service manual, and a lot of people couldn't understand this. So therefore, they had discussions when they got to this General Service Conference in New York at the various committee meetings. In this particular case, this came through the literature committee. And the literature community up there that is made up of delegates is also made up by some other people. It's made up some staff people, it's madeup some trustees, and these people are also involved in it. They discuss these things, they come up and they get somebody to come up with a draft on it. And it usually takes about two to three years from the time they start this until it finally gets to the conference floor through this committee. And all of the literature that you see around is a direct result of the various committees up there and there's 11 of them as a direct result of the work of these committees usually two or three years and it's because they have put it through this conference process discussed it sent it back for whatever and eventually they all agree and they put it to the conference for their with their recommendations to pass it and sometimes it gets quite interesting on that floor at some of the comments that are made but i want to to back up and get into the conference itself and we've talked about the delegate there's also there's other people involved in this conference and when i talked about the area there's something else that you're also a part of and this is something called the region. You are a member of the Southwest Region, and in the Southwest region you have something that are made up of 11 delegate areas in seven states. The Southwest region is comprised of Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas. Texas has four delegate areas. Missouri has two delegate areas. Arkansas has one. Kansas has one, Colorado has one New Mexico has one and Texas has 4 delegate areas which makes a total of 11 areas. This is what is known as the Southwest region. Like everything else that we've talked about is the GSR the DCM, and the Area Assembly and the delegate that is elected by the Area Assembly. There is also a person that represents the Southwest Region and this person's called a Regional Trustee. And I've been the Regional Trustee for the last four years. I am now out of rotating just like everybody else. You have a new Southwest Regional Trustee and it's a lady by the name of Jan Williamson. She comes from El Paso, Texas. Jan will be representing you for the next four years. So I think that you will be seeing Jan one way or another. I'm sure you'll get to meet her and she is your regional trustee. You say well what are these regional trustees do? Well they're part of the conference. I told you there's 91 delegates at this conference there's also the staff has votes there the trustees have votes and if you total up the total amount of votes that are are in are available to vote in the conference is total of 135 and without figuring out too quick I'll tell you before you get to worrying about it two-thirds is always going to be delegates now these trustees that I was talking about and these trustees now we have the regional trustees and we have something they call in town trustees and then there something that's called class a trustees and there's 21 of these three various types they're the regional trustees which in the United States and Canada there are six regions in the United States there are two in Canada it gives you eight and then they have something called a trustee at large us and trustee-at-large Canada and you will be having the trustee large u.s. at your area assembly here in Missouri, and I believe when is it, September, October, September? Don Pritz, whose home is Aurora, Colorado. Don will be here for your area assembly. He is the trustee at large U.S., but what I'm getting at, that's ten people from the United States and Canada from the regions. There are 21 people on the General Service Board, and those leaves you about 12 people that I haven't accounted for. We have something called in-town or Class B general service trustees. They do not represent a region. These people come from generally the New York City area that are nearby. There's four of them and they generally have some expertise that we need on the General Service Board. At present time, you have one man that is a lawyer that was a Far East representative for the Bank of New York, but he has an excellent legal and financial background. We have another one that he has some expertise in finance. We have one that says some background in advertising and publishing, which are things that we need on the General Service Board. And these people usually are selected from one of two places. They've usually been involved in some of the committees as advisors, and then they They have been directors on one of our two corporations that the General Service Board oversees. There are four of them, so that gives you fourteen alcoholic trustees, ten of them from the regions and four with some special talent from the New York City area. This remaining seven are non-alcoholic Class A trustees. seven people here again have some special love for the fellowship they're unusual people but they also bring to the board a lot of expertise that we need people that have backgrounds in publishing finance various areas that are invaluable to us we have quite a few that have been involved in the alcoholism drug abuse fields from the medical fields We have a couple of physicians on there. And these people comprise seven of them. The reason that I want to make special note of mentioning these Class A non-alcoholic, for the first time we have one from our own region that is a Class A non- alcoholic trustee. And his name is John King and he's a professor at the University of Arkansas in the Department of Social Services. And John is a first-year Class A non-alcoholic trustee on the General Service Board. First time we've had somebody from this area that is a Class A trustee. We have six others, and because of the time I won't get into some of them, but we have one man that's head of the trustees' finance committee. It just so happens he also has his own Wall Street investment firm, and he's also an investment banker. And he has knowledge that you can't buy. And the interesting thing is he is the second one. His father was also a non-alcoholic Class A trustee at one time many years ago. His name's Bob Morris, and we're very fortunate to have Bob. But these people make up your General Service Board. The General Service board essentially is a membership corporation, and it owns, it's like a holding company, it owns two corporations. One of them is called Alcoholics Anonymous' World Services and the other one is Grapevine. Alcoholics' Anonymous World Services is who publishes all of our material on the big book, all of Our Material, Our Literature, Our various handbooks. And it also takes care of group services, the money that your group sends in, the services that is provided. It takes care Of the staff that when you correspond with Our office, they also are paid by it. We have something like right at 100 employees. there this is called alcoholics anonymous as world services grapevine you're familiar with we have about 10 or 12 people over there and of course we have the various of the editors and the subscription people and the various things involved in the production of it but These two corporations are essentially owned by the General Service Board. These 21 trustees perform the custodial duties on oversight management for those two corporations. And this is where it begins to get a little bit interesting because on those two corporations, AAWS and the Grapevine, you have directors on their boards. There's nine on AAWS. There's ten on the Grabevine board. And it gets interesting from the standpoint of the mix on these. You have directors that say, we'll take AAWS, there's nine people on it. You have two staff people, the general service office manager and the staff coordinator are part of it. So that leaves you seven other people. Well, the trustees usually have someone on that board that's from the regions, usually two of them. In the case I was on the AAWS Board, which means simply that I was a trustee but I was also a director on the AAWS board. So you can be trustees and you can be directors. Also, you have some in-town trustees. They are also usually two of those on that board. They give you about six people and it leaves you three more, and they usually are directors. They are not trustees. There are just directors on that one corporate board. Same thing on grapevine. Has it gotten involved enough? It gets all confusing and I know that people get confused on it but you need to know that these things exist simply because it's your fellowship and you need to know where your money is going, where your literature is. You know we handle something like ten million dollars a year in that general service office the the General Service Board is directly responsible for. Your money, your fellowship's money, and I think you need to know about it. You can see service is not one of the most popular subjects in the world, and unless you're involved in it, it's probably the driest subject in the world to even talk about. Nobody gives a damn about the legal entities of Alcoholics Anonymous and the the directors and the corporate you know that's politics well there's another way to look at that and it's the thing and the reason that i've originally started going to the young people's conferences and it is very simple because if the young people aren't interested in it we got a lot of problems down the road and even though it's not the most popular and you know you're not recognized at at all of the conventions, says, you know, gee, that guy is a director on AWS. Everybody says, so? You know, they're interested in listening to the speaker. Somebody has to do these jobs. Somebody has to see that those big books are printed. Somebody has to see that there's a conference up there and that it's got the money to be put on, that somebody takes care of all the work and it takes nearly six months to a year just to arrange for each conference each year. Then you've got something called an international convention every five years. Who takes care of those things? Somebody has to do it. That's your general service office, your general service board, and the people on the directors on those two corporations. When you have one printing of the big book today, just one printing, you're talking about something in the neighborhood of three carloads of paper. You've got to have somebody that prints it. At the present time, the ones that have the bidding contract on it is a printing company out of Philadelphia. But the plant where the big books are actually printed are down in Tennessee, in Nashville, Tennessee. Now these big books, they go to warehouses all over the United States and Canada so that when you order them we don't have to ship them out of New York City. We can send a teletype and have them shipped out of a public warehouse where these are stored that's closest to you. Everybody has to see about these things. Somebody has got to care enough to do this kind of work that requires nothing but showing up and standing there worrying about money, and worrying about getting out the right quantities, seeing that everybody has enough supplies when you ordered it that you can be serviced. Somebody has to care about this. This is the people who are involved in service work. This work is not just going to the Area Assembly, it's not just taking care of the area archives, it's not just going to the DCM or the district meetings. It's a lot of things and there's a lot of people involved in it. But somebody has to do it because this is what holds our fellowship together. When we want to know what they're doing up in Maine, we can write to the General Service Office and there's up there that takes care of the Southwest region, and they will write you a letter. At the present time, when the General Service Office first opened, they had one staff person for about every 21 people in Alcoholics Anonymous. Today one staff person takes care of 406 groups. One staff person, and I'll tell you that's money that has been well spent. But all of these things, these people have to take care of them. Somebody has to do this work. Somebody has make the decision. Somebody has order this paper. has to get the printing contract and you know the strange thing is these people these paper mills and printing companies these warehouses they won't cash they're not interested in anything else they want to know if you pay your bills they want cash when they do the work and we have to warehouse it when you send money in from your group you want to that got to that office you want to know what if you if you get a receipt you want on how much other groups are giving we have a record department up there of the groups we have the records of what money is sent in and it goes into something called group services and group services money is not spent on the general service board and it's not spent on the conventions it is only for those services that are directly related to groups and for what it's worth money is something that you have to ignore and I I know that there's a lot of them in our groups, and all of us have them. They're interested in the spirituality of the group, and they're interested In 12-step work. But you talk about money, And they're out the door like a shot. And you say, Well, there's A business meeting tonight. I don't know how your group is, But I know how mine is. And there may be 60 people At the meeting, But I'll guarantee you If there's 15, It'd be a big night if we had 20 At our business meeting. now the next week when you tell them that you bought a new air conditioner for the building now you got 60 people saying what the hell did you do that for how much did you pay for it and everything well i'm a strong believer that if you don't show up to business meeting you got no say and i don't want to hear anything you got to say if you can't showup to business meet you show up there then bitch like hell but if you dont then I don't think you have a right to say a word but this is the way it is and that's somebody has to do it same thing, the general service board those two corporations now get to thinking about it, those people up there have no power to tell you what to do, the groups tell us what to doing and how would you like to have about a million and a half bosses out there each and every one of them with the right to say we don't like the way you did that job And it takes some awfully dedicated people to even put up with that. And they get calls every day and they want some laws. I don't know how your people are, but everybody I've ever known in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, when I want to get my way, I want a law. And I'll go to the concepts or the traditions or to the 12 steps and I'll read a certain one. And maybe it's just my interpretation, but you disagree with me. I'll call the office up there, and they'll send me a law, and I can prove you wrong. And what happens is, of course, every day, they get letters, they get phone calls, and they get these. Well, what if we do so-and-so? Then they can't do so and so. And the answer that always comes out based upon our experiences and those of other groups, this is what generally seems to be the case. However, your group has the right to do it as they see fit. And for those of us that want laws to prove the other one wrong, you just feel a little bit frustrated. But just think if you did this every day and you got these calls every day and then you get somebody that calls you and says, how come you made that last pamphlet green, black, and orange? That should have been blue and white because those colors are aggressive colors and we don't like aggressive things in our group. I mean, things of this type. These are the things that are taken care of. What do we do if we don't have people up there taking care of these things? What do you do if nobody chooses to do service work anymore? What happens? It comes back to something that I choose to call responsibility. If you've enjoyed some sobriety in this program, and your group has seen fit to make you GSR, they've seen fit to make you a DCM or an area officer, a delegate. In my opinion, and this is Wayne Parks' opinion, you have a responsibility to do whatever that group in that area has asked you to do if you've enjoyed any sobriety at all. Because somebody has to do these jobs. Somebody has to deal with them. And I choose to thank any of us that have sobriete. and we're asked we should do it and I'll tell you I went kicking and screaming all the way I didn't damn sure intend to ever be involved in service work as long as I have been I've told my wife for over ten years that this was the last time I was going to be involved and I keep coming up with something else and I think well this two years and then I'm through I'm, I'm through with all of that I don't like that criticism you know and I, you know I'd like to stay at home and mow the yard uh but you know for some reason and you know i haven't seen fit to question it i you know I don't like getting criticism because the general service board did this or the area did that or how come we spent money for this or I hear you've got that secret fund up there and then then the real classic one was one uh regional forum I was at where they told me how much they heard that i was making as a trustee and that one's i had kind of one i wish that they were right on they they had heard i think something like fifty thousand dollars that the trustees got for doing that job but these are the things that you but you know who's going to do them somebody has to care enough to do them and it's not popular and very few people seem to want do it and you know you go to conferences and i guarantee you that the one on service is the least attended of all unless it happens to be a service uh regional form there's about the only time i know of that it's not and that's all right so long as the people we ask to do the jobs show up and do the job that's alright the other thing that uh you know they get to talking about um you know that board does this and that you know i wonder what they do about so-and-so you as an individual member have a right to ask that question i don't know of any other fellowship in the world where you you have that that privilege and that right and it's in this book this little serviceman you've got a right to ask me or anybody else you don't have to go through any channels and then you can pick up a phone and call the general service office manager john bragg and say i want to talk to john john comes on the phone say john what's the service are the reserve fund at right now and he'll tell you that you're right to know there's nothing that is hidden there's no secret funds there's nothing that is not available to you as a member now we get people that go to the extremes we got a letter from a guy in rhode island he asked 71 specific questions 71 and he wanted a specific answer to each and every one of them we got to figuring up in order to answer his letter in the way that he would prefer to have it it would cost us in time and material something like 21 000 to answer that letter now that's carrying a little bit to the extremes so we got a hold of his delegate and explained to him and everything and it said we would request that if he wants some of this information if he would come to the office we'll be glad to show it to him but uh if there's something you wonder are about, it's available. There's nothing hidden and there's nothing that you can't find out and most of the time you can find out without even having to call the office by just asking some of the people that have been involved in service work because we have quarterly reports that come out from the general service office. It tells you what we did that quarter, the money we took in, how much is in group services, how much AWS made, and we do make some money. We make a profit on the big book. We make a profit on some of the things that we do. But if you look at it very closely, there's a reason for it because the group services always show up with not quite enough money. So we have to pay as we go. We don't deficit finance in AA. We have to play as we go. So where does it come from? And it comes from profit off of the big-book. It comes off a profit from our literature and that's here again that's available what the profit is what it's what's involved in it the reason i'm bringing this up you say well but if you make too much money and of course uh this can happen we could get to be real rich what are we going to do about it it's very simple we charge less for what we're doing and if we ever get to the point where we got so damn much money that we don't need any then everything will be free so don't worry about it it hadn't happened yet and i'm not losing any sleep over it just yet however you will be getting some new price list and you will see a 12 percent reduction in prices and this is a direct result of this that uh those of us that are involved in service and particularly those of have been on the general service board have caught hell about You know, you're not supposed to talk about money all the time. But that's our jobs, those of us in service work. But we had something that was giving us a little bit of problem about two years ago. And a lot of these profits that we get from selling the big book and pamphlets and the various things that we have, these profits were increasingly coming from people like Hazleton, Compcare, and some of these people, people outside the fellowship. Which meant we were increasingly becoming dependent upon profits that came from outside entities, not AA entities. And you say, well what do you mean? Very simply this shortfall in group services where we get the money from the groups that we apply directly to this account, is always seems like, well, this year I think it was something like $600,000, $638,000 short of meeting what the group services cost and what they actually spent. And it was made up by the profits we've made on our publishing. And if it continues, of course, it's going to be at some point in the very near future where over half of our net profits from publishing is going to come from people like Hazleton and outside entities. Which puts you, if we choose to believe, in violation of the seventh tradition of self-support. We feel that it was important that we get this information out to the fellowship as always and let the fellowship make its own decision. This is what the message we've been carrying. It's been misconstrued about every way that you can possibly get it, and we are not out of money. We've got plenty of money, we're not going broke. The problem is the participation. You see a little less, a little more, but roughly 50% of the groups in the United States in Canada send contributions in, the other 50% do not send any money at all. So when we have to take this shortfall of group services from our publishing profit, that's when we get into a position of getting money from outside entities. But it does not mean that we're broke. It simply means that we have about 50% of our groups that are not participating. If we could get just fifteen, twenty percent of our groups additionally to at least send in some money, the participation part of group services, to where they at least would be paying for the group services. Then we would begin to solve this problem of self-support. Not money but self- support. So we started on this message about a year or so ago. And as always, when you tell the fellowship what's involved and what you want and what you're trying to accomplish, they respond. Unfortunately, the groups that were already giving just increased their money. We got very little increase in total number of groups. However, we got more money in which caused us to have a nice financial sheet that made this look good? So when we saw that we looked like we were going to make quite a bit of money in net profits, we started reducing the price. And that's the reason for the 12 percent reduction in the new price list that's coming out. If anybody tells you that we're in trouble or going broke or we don't have enough money, that's not true. And this reserve fund, this secret fund that you'll probably hear told every way in the world and that secret fund is called a reserve fund and the reason we have that reserve fund the general service conference told the general services board for a prudent reserve which your group my group and all the groups have that for the general service board that we should have a prudential reserve of one year's operating funds whatever the of the previous year present time we have over six million dollars almost seven million dollars in the reserve fund but this is still not a year's operating funds and we're doing strictly what the general service conference tells us to do we think that we're getting to a point to where uh you know and you're chasing each year of course we spend more money which makes the reserve fund go up and it's kind of but it's getting to a point where i don't think that we're be needing a whole lot more money in the reserve fund but this is possible but we have to wait see the general service conference tells us what to do and i told you the groups through your representatives are what tells the the General Service Board what to do. And you say, ah, Fiddle, that's still politics. Well, let me tell you what happens at the General Services Conference as far as the General Service Board is concerned. At that General Service Conference if there's a vote there and I don't care what it involves and it's put us in a bind a few times where they tell us this new film on young people coming out is a good example. They told us to make that film. Now when you have a two-thirds vote of the conference. And there's usually something like 70 conference actions, 80, of things they want the General Service Board to be responsible for and see that is done and reported back to them as accomplished the next year. Now when they give us a two-thirds vote it isn't a question of whether we agree or disagree or want to or not. Two-thirds voter that conference makes it mandatory upon that General Service board to do whatever that conference has asked to do. and that gets to be real interesting sometimes. But that is mandatory upon the General Service Board. Now, that's not a legal requirement. That's a requirement of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Legally, the board does not have to do that. But up until this day, they take that as absolute law. It isn't a question of where you're going to do it. It's a questionof how we're goingto do it and how we are going to get that back to the conference by next April. and it's never never been questioned so when that conference the people that you've elected to represent you up there tells that general service board to do this the only thing we have to do is to see that it's done the young people's film cost us a lot of money and we can't deficit finance so it has to come out of that year's operating fund and it was expensive to produce and we had to do some fancily juggling to come out and be able to pay cash for that and still stay in the black by the end of the year. Sometimes that's what happens. But it's all right. That's what the conference told us to do, and we did it. But this is true on everything. You look through the conference actions and there's a little book that comes out after every general service conference you can find out exactly what the conferences voted on and asked the board to do including new pieces of literature and we now have one coming out on Native Americans. We're going to have a new piece of literature out pertaining to Native Americans. The young people's handbooks and films, this was a direct result of people saying hey we need to recognize the young people, we need to address their problems and there was a lot of work and effort went into it so that the young people would have. Something that they could identify more closely with. People at their age. And it's good, in case you haven't seen it. I've seen it and it's an excellent film. These are the things that your money, but somebody has to do these things. Well, that's fine and dandy, but old Wayne's getting old and he won't be around. There's a lot of bunch of us that are getting old and won't get old. They won't want to be around who's going to take our place? The people that are involved in service work for young people the young people day and whether you like it or not there's somebody probably here at this meeting this weekend that's going to be the trustee there's somebody here that you're going to your next delegate when or what i don't know but if they're not involved in servicework they're not going to do it they're going be there so you see what i'm really telling you is if the young people don't get involved now and care enough about this fellowship to see that these things are done in the future, we're not going to be around. Nobody's going to print the literature. Nobody's gonna be making the decisions. Nobody is going to see to it that when somebody over in Russia sends us a letter wanting some information or somebody in Finland or South Africa or guatemala that they want to know how to get their general service office going in their own a going who they're going to write to unless there's somebody involved and somebody seeing that these things are done that there's a point of correspondence can come in a dissemination of information and it's you all of you particularly the young people if you don't get involved in service, where are we going? Where are we gonna get them? It's your future. And if you care about the fellowship, you can tell me all day how you feel about it and how great it is and how much you believe in God. We got a guy in my group that says, you know, God may make them potatoes grow but you better hoe like hell. Same thing in AA. Somebody's got to do the work. God will make it grow, but he has to work through people. He has to work through People. And he has to work through people that have been involved in service and care about it. So, you know, if you're not involved in it, if nobody's involved in it, how are we going to do it? You can't hire service work then. You either care about it, and you care enough about this fellowship to do it, but you can't make people do it for money. They either love the fellowship enough to do some of the jobs that require work and they're not convenient service works not convenient anytime that you do it at your convenience forget it because it never works out that way i guarantee you if you care enough about this program to do the work some of it's not the popular part of it but it's certainly the most responsible way of seeing that we have a message and literature to help and of course our whole bottom line for all of this is one thing and that's to help another drunk to carry the message but somebody has to do it and it's up to the young people to get involved into it and i don't care what a bunch of old bastards like me say you may not like my attitude you know that old son of a bitch don't want me involved in there that's all right keep just keep plugging away because you got something to give and you better get involved because it's going to be on your shoulders and it's gonna be there quicker than you think you see I've shown up and I've done as best I know how as long as I have now just in case you're wondering my sobriety date's March 21st, 1969 but I've been doing what I've asked and I'm not through I've just done up to this point what I was asked to do but sooner or later I won't be around and there won't some more like me that won't around unless the young people are involved and have been involved and I don't care if they don't like some of them old people the way they're doing things you don't think you don'y like it damn it get in there and tell them you don''t like it get involved in it argue with them fuss with them just because they're old doesn't mean they're right sometimes we think because we're old we're right but that's not true and you know it but we need for you to be involved and don't let this old crap of us some of us old heads run you out hang in there get involved and learn more about what's in this book than those old bastards around there that are sitting there bitching because they can't argue with this if you know the facts and we need you i'm dead serious we need for you to be involved that's the reason that some of Us have been going to the young people's officer everything we want you to know we want you we want you involved we want you involved in every way we can possibly get you involved because if we care about the future of this program you're it not us you and don't let a bunch of knit shit stuff keep you from a damned area assembly or keep you from being the GSR if they say well we'll let you do alternate GSR because we think you're too young for it to hell with it go on do it and just show them get involved there's one little joke old norm out of california i loved him he talked about 10 000 miles an hour but when he was young he got involved in a group out in californian and he noticed a bunch of these old bastards were running things you know and they got to figuring out how those guys were running that whole damn group so they thought we'll fix those old suckers so they get together and they get one of their people And they promote like hell, and sure enough, when election time come up, they got their man in. He said the only problem was he'd become one of them. Get involved. I know that we're right out of time, and I knowthat I haven't got to cover one-tenth of what I'd like to. I can tell you how many books we've sold up from January 1 to now. I can give you figures on the reserve fund. and I can give you contributions up to this point. I can tell you about anything you want, but I generally wanted to tell you just a little bit of what goes on up there. Those people in New York. You see, those people in new york are us. Guys like me from Rogers, Arkansas on the general service board. People from Canada. Those people from New York are those people from all over. From your group maybe. I just wanted you to know that there's some things going on up here. That there's money up there being handled. There's things being done up there. And the reason they're doing that, you've given us the power to your group. The thing that I keep harping on. There's your chart right there. It all starts with a group. But we have got to have people. And we've got to Have you young people particularly involved. Those of us that are involved and older, We're going to hang in as long as we possibly can. But you've got a responsibility as much as I have. and you've got a responsibility if you say that you care about this fellowship don't tell me about it show it to me show me how you can show up and do these jobs because I strongly suspect you'll do a better job than we will now is there any questions that I can answer it's almost 2.30 is there anything any questions that you want to ask anything I might answer yes in new york how many did you say were non-alcoholics seven if you'll notice it's always just like on the delegates there's always two-thirds or more of the alcoholics and that will be uh the dominant vote so that you know they're always in control now it hadn't always been this way up until 1962 they didn't think we had enough sense to handle money so they kept the non-alcoholics more than the alcoholic 1962 was when it changed and they went to the 21 members but there are seven non- alcoholics but i'll tell you what if you get into a general service board meeting like i've been and they're just as nutty as we are and you get in a meeting with some of them and i guarantee you can't tell the drunks from from the known there's all kinds of suggestions but there's no law on any of it generally it's suggested somewhere in the neighborhood of ten years but there is no law it's just like they suggest two years for GSR but I'll bet you I can tell you more GSRs with one year than can with two years but just you know here again these are things that are suggested and it's right here every position that I've talked about right here in this book I didn't even get into things like charters and the things like that there's little things in here you wouldn't believe and you say well all that gets confusing as heck well that's the only reason I'm talking here is try and cut out a lot of the bullshit and get to just a few things, it'll give you an overall picture of what's going on and how it gets done. But there's so, so much in here. So many things that would answer questions if you ever took the time to just look at it. You see, you know, these concepts. Good way to remember. You know, we got the three legs of the triangle. recovery unity and service kind of relate that recovery to the 12 steps unity to the twelve traditions and service to the twelve concepts if you can kind of relate to it that way and you'll hear people talking about around a lot of times about this guy say I'm a past delegate so oh yeah what panel were you and he'll say I was panel 30 you think oh what the crap that is you know I was around a long time but I wouldn't ask anybody because I you know but sooner or later you know you find out if you stick around long enough so maybe you know we ought to start telling people what that is but it goes back to when we come up with the general service conference structure what I've been talking about here and it happened right over here in St. Louis in 1950 you know if you've read enough of your big book, your 12 and 12s. They thought that they'd try for five years to see if this General Service Conference structure would work. That was 1950. And they said, well, let's see if the thing will work. So they started out, and the first delegate was called Panel One. And he started and took place in 1951. so you can just keep going you see in 1979 I was a delegate from Arkansas and I was on panel 29 so all you got to do is just think about 1951 was panel 1 and go right on through see we're in panel 37 now it's very simple you'll hear it but of course it was adopted and I could go on and on and it's 230 and I've got enough sense to shut up but I'll be happy to answer any question you can but if I don't do anything else except make you aware that these things happen these things do exist out there and that you can be a part of it and that you are ultimately the ones that are going to be doing this and you have just enough questions to maybe get into this little thing call the service man well then my trip here would have been well worthwhile but you've got a lot of people involved in service and you can ask anyone they're all involved in it you know it's interesting it really is if you'll just get involved and it really isn't politics it really Isn't it's service it's 12 step work and it's a great way to live once you've been involved with it because once you get involved with a bunch of people that have been in service work for anywhere from one to thirty years they're a neat bunch of people and I can't describe the feeling but those of us that have been around them and I've sat in rooms where there's nothing but people that have being involved in service work for years and years and there's a special quality about those people that's hard to describe but you can sure feel it and I guarantee you it gives you a feeling that can't be explained but once you get hooked on it you'll never be away from it thank you very much for letting me present a dry subject. If there's anything I can do or if there's any questions I can answer, please feel free. And I'm listed in the directory that comes out of the General Service Office. My phone number and my address are in there. And you're certainly free to call or write anytime and I'll try and get you an answer. Thank you. Thank you.