AA Conference questions (2015) contd

Committee No. 2

1. Would the Fellowship discuss if it would like to adopt the Young People’s Liaison Officer (YPLO) position, to be incorporated into the Service Structure of AA Great Britain in line with the proposed role description outlined below.

Background

Committee 2 at Conference 2013 recommended that ‘Intergroups and Regions may, where appropriate, appoint a Young Person’s Liaison Officer’.

Since then there have been regular enquiries from members around the country seeking clarification about eligibility for the YPLO role and what the position entails.

Concurrently the General Service Board has been running a Young Peoples (YP) Project and has recruited a team of motivated younger members to further develop the YP agenda. The aims of the YP Project are:

• To attract young people with alcohol problems into recovery in AA.
• To engage them in the unity of the Fellowship.
• To encourage them into service via the service structure.

To develop the Conference 2013 proposal, a job description was reviewed by the Young Peoples Project Team. This was originally drafted by a YPLO in Continental European Region where the position has been held by a succession of young service active AAs for over ten years. It was therefore based on experience.

More recently, after consideration by the GSB and the Young People’s Project Team, the following draft job description was proposed.

Role Description

The Young Persons Liaison Officer (YPLO) is a full service position recommended for Intergroups and Regions with voice and voting rights equal to other service positions.

The YPLO service position is recommended to run for a term of three years.  It is suggested that each Intergroup and Region create a maximum of one YPLO position with voting rights at their respective assembly.

One fundamental aim is to get more younger members into AA and involved in service generally. YPLOs should strive to be of service to AA in other disciplines, especially after rotating out of service as YPLO. 

Qualifications:

• Having come into AA at the age of thirty or younger
• Having a minimum of two years continuous sobriety for Intergroup YPLO
• Having a minimum of three years continuous sobriety for Region YPLO
• Having a good working knowledge of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions,

The YPLO is a contact and conduit for young newcomers with a desire to stop drinking. The YPLO receives and answers referred email and phone enquiries about AA from young people. This gives young people someone to talk with who has sober experience in Alcoholics Anonymous and who can share experience, strength and hope about getting sober at a young age.

A YPLO will be available to assist the Public Information Liaison Officer (PILO) with public information talks where the audience is anticipated to be of a younger age, such as schools, universities, young offenders’ institutions etc. The YPLO could also be of assistance offering perspective to PILOs when creating PI presentations and other PI work in relation to carrying the message to young people.

A YPLO should develop a contact list of members of AA who got sober at the age of thirty or younger who are available and willing to be of service for PI talks and 12-step calls.

All YPLOs are welcome and encouraged to participate on the Young Peoples Project Team of the General Service Board, for as long as that team is convened.

In the spirit of unity and fellowship YPLOs are encouraged to support other Intergroup and/or Region activities concerning young alcoholics. Such activities may include workshops, PI events and Conventions targeting younger AAs.

A YPLO should encourage younger members of AA to get involved in all aspects of service where the recommended qualifications for sobriety are fully met. Younger AAs are needed in all disciplines e.g. Literature, Electronic Communications and PI to ensure the perspective of young people in AA is represented.

Comment: Fantastic idea! But we think we've come up with a much better one! An OFLO (Old Farts' Liaison Officer). Now it's well known that AA suffers from a serious shortage of old farts. Old farts (a much discriminated against sector within society generally) find recovery particularly difficult what with the predominance of younger farts within the fellowship. The latter tend to want to “run the show”, “arrange the scenery” etc etc whereas old farts, by and large, are much more reticent. We believe that more attention should be given to 'attracting' old farts into the fellowship, and encouraging them to be more active participants (well as active as they can be what with being hampered by Zimmer frames, hearing aids etc!). Of course differences in gender will have to be taken into account when dealing with old farts of both sexes. We suggest separate Liaison officers viz. MOFLO (Male Old Farts Liaison Officer) and FOFLO (Female Old Farts Liaison Officer), and thereafter meetings run specifically for each demographic (the current gender based “special interest” meetings will simply not do when it comes to dealing with their 'special and different' characteristics). Moreover to ensure that these are properly met we should leave no stone unturned. Hence a further subdivision should be incorporated to account for sexual preference. Admittedly old farts generally are not so burdened with such preoccupations as are their younger counterparts but nevertheless these concerns need to be addressed. Therefore we proposed a further sub-division of service positions into GMOFLO (Gay Male Old Farts Liaison Officer) and LOFLO (Lesbian Old Farts Liaison Officer) again accompanied by special groups to meet their specific and diverse requirements. Finally we come onto the vexed question of race. Unhappily as a society we are still beset by problems relating to discrimination. To this end we suggest that the preceding groups' interests are represented and met by a further subdivision of these categories accordingly. Now, having dealt with the more contentious issues, we need to reflect on the subtler but by no means less important categories that exist within each of the above divisions. Old farts can hardly be described as an entirely homogeneous group, or, to put it another way, there are old farts and then there are OLD farts .. and then there are VERY OLD farts. It would be entirely unreasonable to expect old farts to be able to identify with OLD farts and even less so with VERY OLD farts. To this end again we are obliged to concede the possibility that the above categories will need to be further separated to conform to each groups' specific requirements... and so it goes on and on and on ….. Old farts incidentally should be regarded as those over the age of 40. We haven't even got started on a MAFLO (Middle Aged Farts Liaison Officer) yet!!

So whatever did happen to “look for the similarities”?

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous) 

PS For AA Minority Report 2013 click here