AA MINORITY REPORT 2017 (revised)

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Friday, 29 August 2014

Conference questions (2014) – almost! (contd)


50. Would Conference pass a recommendation that the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, as guardians of the Twelve Traditions, condemn the actions of Intergroups and Regions, which exclude registered AA groups, and individual AA members from exercising their right of participation in our service structure?

Background

A registered AA group in Bournemouth, South West Region, and its members have for 7 years been excluded from participating in their local Intergroups, despite repeated attempts to join. [Let's make it 8 years, and then 9 and then …..]
This AA group, which is to be found on the National list of AA meetings, has donated thousands of pounds directly to GSO, as local Intergroups have consistently declined its donations. [Anybody can get listed nationally. There are no checks carried out. Go on! Try it out! Make up some daft group name and apply for registration!. And of course the local intergroups are going to decline a cult group's donations. The real question is why is GSO accepting them?]
No credible reason has ever been given for these clearly discriminatory actions. Does any service board ever have a credible reason for excluding any group to which it is directly responsible and which it serves?
(Tradition 9) [Untrue. See: Bournemouth Road to Recovery group]
These actions have created disunity locally and diverted attention away from efforts to carry the AA message. [Untrue. The existing intergroup and groups are positively thriving without the participation of the Bournemouth cult group. And no one can claim that the Bournemouth cult group EVER carried the AA message!]
Many members have been left feeling very insecure in the Fellowship that saved or could have saved their lives. Some may have left AA all together. [Many members leave AA and some die because of the cult groups. See Bournemouth Road to Recovery suicide]
Very willing and competent AA members have been denied the right to serve in the local service structure. [Untrue. Bournemouth members can hardly claim to be competent. Competent implies responsible – a quality completely lacking amongst the cult membership]
This right should never be denied any AA member based on membership of a particular group. [It's not a right – it's a privilege]
Failure by the GSB to express any views on this disgraceful state of affairs, may well have been deemed as approval of their actions by local Intergroups. [Untrue. GSO has made its position quite clear. It's ultra vires as far as they're concerned]
In any organisation where discrimination takes place it is the role of the leadership of that organisation to take a clear stand. [GSO has. See above]
Up till now the GSB has shirked on its responsibility and alcoholics could well have died as a result of this inactivity. [Again untrue. See above. We know for a fact that many alcoholics have already died because of the cult's activities. See Medications and Recovery]
Similar actions go on unchallenged in other parts of AA in the UK. [Excellent. Let's hope this trend spreads with the exclusion of further cult groups from participation in the service structure. See our Cult Where to Finds:



o Tradition 1
o Tradition 3
o Tradition 4
o Concepts 4, 9 and 12.

Terms of Reference No. 7 From the supplied background material this is a local issue”

Comment: We can expect no doubt the Bournemouth Road to Recovery cult group's complaints to appear again next year in 'Questions that didn't quite make it'

See here for a full list of other questions that didn't quite get through the 'filter'

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

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