Welcome to the Delegate's Corner
Information about and from our area delegate.
From the Panel 63 Delegate:
Good Afternoon North Florida!
The results of the 63rd General Service Conference are now available in the password protected section of the North Florida Website. I trust you will take a moment to review what actually became an “Advisory Action”. Also I would encourage you to review the “Additional Committee Recommendations”, committee recommendations that did not result in a Conference Advisory Action and the “Floor Actions” that did not result in a Conference Advisory Action. I will be discussing many of the above when I give my Delegate’s Report, but if your group would like further explanation before then please feel free to contact me.
I am currently scheduled to be in District 13 on June 8th and in Jacksonville on June 15th. For the convenience of those districts that reside in the greater Orlando and surrounding areas I will be giving my Delegate’s Report on Saturday Night at the Assembly. I am titling my report “Come and go to Conference with your Delegate.” I will be taking you on a photographic journey of my week in NYC and hopefully you will get a better insight as to what your Delegate does to prepare for Conference and how the General Service Conference works.
Throughout my week at Conference I was mindful of our past and the challenges that our fellowship has faced over these 78 years. In addressing the General Service Conference held in New York City in April, 1965, Bill Wilson said the following at the end of his presentation. “Let us never fear needed change. Once a need becomes clearly apparent in an individual, a Group, or in AA as a whole, it has long since been found out that we cannot afford to sit still and look the other way.” I believe Bill’s words 48 years ago are just as relevant today.
You cannot sit at Conference and come to any other conclusion than the 93 Delegates, staff, Directors and Trustees have AA’s best interests at heart with every vote they cast. Even though my vote was not always on the winning side, I realized that to ensure AA’s future we must “trust the process”.
You and I still have much work to do. Every day we are reminded that the “still suffering” alcoholic is out there and needs our help. I feel very grateful to serving in an Area that realizes we are in the “Life Saving Business”.
In Love and Gratitude,
Marilyn B. – Delegate, Panel 63
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Why Do We Need a Conference?
The late Bernard B. Smith, nonalcoholic, then chairperson of the board of trustees, and one of the architects of the Conference structure, answered that question superbly in his opening talk at the 1954 meeting: “We may not need a General Service Conference to ensure our own recovery. We do need it to ensure the recovery of the alcoholic who still stumbles in the darkness one short block from this room. We need it to ensure the recovery of a child being born tonight, destined for alcoholism. We need it to provide, in keeping with our Twelfth Step, a permanent haven for all alcoholics who, in the ages ahead, can find in A.A. that rebirth that brought us back to life.
“We need it because we, more than all others, are conscious of the devastating effect of the human urge for power and prestige which we must ensure can never invade A.A. We need it to ensure A.A. against government, while insulating it against anarchy; we need it to protect A.A. against disintegration while preventing over integration. We need it so that Alcoholics Anonymous, and Alcoholics Anonymous alone, is the ultimate repository of its Twelve Steps, its Twelve Traditions, and all of its services.
“We need it to ensure that changes within A.A. come only as a response to the needs and the wants of all A.A., and not of any few. We need it to ensure that the doors of the halls of A.A. never have locks on them, so that all people for all time who have an alcoholic problem may enter these halls unasked and feel welcome. We need it to ensure that Alcoholics Anonymous never asks of anyone who needs us what his or her race is, what his or her creed is, what his or her social position is.”
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What's New:
Check out the Minutes section of our website.