Report of the General Delegate Assembly
January 7, 2000 in Nashville, Tennessee
Morning Session
The morning session of the General Delegate Assembly was a workshop on AA’s Twelve Concepts for World Service, presented by AA old-timer and trusted servant, George D. The following notes are adapted for SA from materials handed out at this workshop.
1) SA groups have final responsibility and authority for SA services as a whole.
2) The groups meet this responsibility and maintain their final authority by delegating responsibility and authority to representatives to a General Delegate Assembly.
3) The (delegates) members of the General Delegate Assembly will establish general policy, but will delegate responsibility for doing the work to the Board of Trustees, to Committees, and to their SA Central Office workers.
4) When we delegate responsibility (ask someone to do some work in SA), we give them authority to make decisions about how to do the job. Bill W. of AA often asked, “If you don’t trust someone to do the job right, why do you give them the job?”
Group representatives or General Assembly delegates are trusted servants. That means that they are trusted to use their best SA conscience to make decisions affecting all of SA; they are not simply messengers obeying instructions.
5) In SA service we should always take special care to be certain that the rights of the minority receive not just protection, but unusual (special) protection. But, we must also be careful not to allow what Bill W. called the “tyranny of the minority” to forever prevent us from doing what we need to do.
6) A General Delegate Assembly should be willing to work very hard to achieve substantial unanimity in all important matters.
7) A group conscience is not just a vote. It is a process by which SA members, working together, seek knowledge of God’s will for us to better carry the SA message—just as in the Eleventh Step we seek knowledge of God’s will for us as individuals. No one wins; no one loses, if we have honestly sought the authority of a loving God in reaching our decision.
