Meetings and Group Conscience when??
 

I was at a "meeting" the other night, not a home group, but just a BB meeting. There is no regular buisness meeting to my knowledge. Anyway the leader starts the meeting with a question " should we turn the window AC's off or leave them on" this starts the typical alcoholic melee of answers and suggestions. Confusion ensued and people shouting out opinions and wants followed. My question is this could the leader just have asked for a "group conscience" at a "meeting" and taken a simple vote and allowed a loving God to express himself, one guy told me that a group conscience can only be called at a buisness meeting and I disagreed. Aren't they two completely different things with a group conscience being expressly for settling disturbances like this at a "meeting" or am I off base , any input appreciated. I like the meeting and would just like to see it run smoothly Thanx:herewego

i have asked for a group conscience a few times.. i've never seen a rule book in A.A. your club house may have one though.. smooth is good!

It's in our group format that a group conscience can be called at anytime.

We come from a group that has its group conscience meeting once every 2 months in place of the regular meeting and everyone in the group is expected to attend. They vote on whether to discuss the topic or not and the chair person is only a time keeper. They go around the room and everybody has 1 minute to discuss the topic. Everybody gets equal share and there's no passing. This way, there's no politicking the meeting. Those with more education or those who speak more or those with more time cannot sway the meeting. The minority opinion is heard carefully so nothing is missed. They bet that God will show up and will be heard.

We are much smaller and just do our GC meeting at the end of the month. It's too bad that such an issue has to interfere with the recovery portion of the meeting.

We have group conscience the second Wednesday of the month after the regular meeting.

We have two window A/C units that can be very noisy during a meeting, so whoever opens up that night usually comes pretty early to get the place cooled down (it's a large room with 12' ceilings), and then we turn the noisiest one off before the meeting ever starts. :)

You all have air conditioning??

Peace & Love,
Sugah

I smell a joke .

Q. How many alcoholics does it take to open a window?

A. 5- one to say we need a gc meeting to shut the window, one to say we don't, one to say we need a gc to determine if we need a gc, one to finally get fed up and walk over and close the damn thing, and one to tell her sponsor she resents the guy for opening the window without gc.

We have regularly scheduled business meeting which are our GC.
We run them according to the AA Service Manuel

While an emergency GC can be called by any member
by having an active Steering Committee ...plus scheduled
GC......it's been years since that was done.

Do I think the matter could have been handled better?
Yes. Any meeting that becomes a shouting match is
not following the AA program

only in AA would we have to have a vote to see if it was ok to open or close a window or cut an a/c off..
keep it simple,get up,go cut it off.If it gets hot,cut it back on.Thats what we do in our newcomers room.

HA HA! I was thinking the same thing Tommy. We can complicate anything.

Actually it really makes a difference, what is the point of being in a meeting if you can't hear anything that is being said

Exactly, so the secretary, as a trusted decision should make a decision. There are things called the twelve concepts, which mostly apply to the service structure at a larger level. But just like with the traditions, we can incorporate them into our personal recovery:

http://silkworth.net/pdfBillW/Bill-W...rd-Concept.pdf


The third concept speaks about right of decision. As a trusted servant you have such a right even at the lowest levels of AA service.

Not every decision in AA requires a consensus.

Sadly, many AA's are as unaware of these principles as they are the steps and traditions. Just go to a district or area meeting and you'll see what I mean.

The concepts are just a broad form of the second tradition, which is about the voice of God being found in the group conscience and about how we trust our servants to use the authority we give them responsibly. Many groups can't come to that because they aren't conscious as a group.

The right of decision comes from intuitive thought. If I've woken up, and my thought life is cleared of wrong motives I can trust my thinking and rely on intuitive thought. But no, we stay asleep and in the dark and afraid to use the right of decision, because after all "My mind is a dangerous neighborhood to go into alone."
Jim

Thanx guys I will be getiing a copy of the concepts and try to learn more, there are 2 kinds of knowledge... those who know the answer and those who know where to find it I am always willing to learn in order to be informed