Lets Ask Bill W.
Question & Answer # 12
What will the General Service Conference do?
Answer
It will hear the annual reports of the Alcoholic Foundation, the General Office, Grapevine, and Works Publishing and also the report of our certified public accountant. The Conference will fully discuss these reports, offering needed suggestions or resolutions respecting them.
The Trustees will present to the Conference all serious problems of policy or finance confronting A.A. Headquarters, or A.A. as a whole. Following discussions of these, the Conference will offer the Trustees appropriate advice and resolutions.
Special attention will be given to all violations of our Tradition liable to seriously affect A.A. as a whole. The Conference will, if it be deemed wise, publish suitable resolutions deploring such deviations.
Because Conference activities will extend over a three-day weekend, Delegates will be able to exchange views on every conceivable problem. They will become closely acquainted with each other and with our Headquarters people. They will visit the premises of the Foundation, Grapevine and General Office. This should engender mutual confidence. Guesswork and rumor are to be replaced by first-hand knowledge.
Before the conclusion of each year’s Conference, a Committee will be named to render all A.A. members a written report upon the condition of their Headquarters and the state of A.A. generally.
On a Conference Delegate’s return home, his State or Provincial Committee will, if practical, call a meeting of Group representatives and any others who wish to hear his personal report. The Delegate will get these meetings reaction to his report, and its suggestions respecting problems to be considered at future Conference sessions. The Delegate ought to visit as many of his constituent Groups as possible. They should have direct knowledge of their A.A. Headquarters .(Third Legacy Pamphlet, October 1950).
12A – Through the General Service Conference, A.A. as a whole is now brought into the picture. The Conference is a “huge rotating committee” in whose hands has been placed the responsibility for AA’s worldwide services – assistance to the Groups, public relations, preparation and distribution of literature, foreign propagation and other activities. (Bill W. 1st GSC, 1951)