Originally Posted by
AAPJ 
Interesting situation. Some folks have suggested that the chairperson should have shut this down. I see this a little differently. In AA, the meeting chairperson is a volunteer service position. Just like every other service position in AA. Now perhaps the AA meetings in our geographic area are different but we often have a shortage of folks who are available to chair meetings.
I've been in meetings in several places, and as a rule there doesn't seem to be much organizational management at the meeting level. At times, one person might usually chair a meeting, but if he doesn't show up, as would often be the case, someone would ask, "Is anyone willing to chair the meeting tonight?" Inevitably, someone would say, "Yeah, sure, I'll do it," and no more discussion or objection would follow. The only big responsibility (which was usually taken very seriously) was for the person with the key to the meeting place. If he didn't show up, which I've only seen happen once, people got rightly upset.
I do remember one petty squabble where a couple of members accused a guy that usually ran one meeting of not being willing to give others a chance. I was not there. I only heard about it from one disgruntled member. I found it odd, because I'd never witnessed a situation where people wanted to lead, and everyone or anyone filled in when someone was needed to open a meeting, and no one really cared who ran the thing. It seemed to run fine that way.
But human nature is such that as soon as a group reaches a membership of two, a conflict is likely to follow.