Talk to Recovery EinsteinYou're not alone — day or night
Home › A.A. questions, from the books › The Concepts and service

Concept VII: who really holds power, the Conference or the trustees?

In short:

  • Concept VII says the trustees' Charter and Bylaws are legal instruments that fully empower them to manage A.A.'s world services, while "The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness" (p. 575).
  • Bill W.'s answer, written in 1962, is both. The trustees hold the legal power; the Conference holds the practical power, and that practical power "will nearly always be superior" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VII), because most of its members are group-chosen delegates who could, in the last resort, cut off the groups' money.
  • The trustees keep a legal veto. Bill expected it to be used seldom, and names three situations where using it would be their duty.
  • The idea that services are kept in line by members' money is already in Bill's 1946 essay: "These services must always serve us well or go out of business" (P-17, Money, 1946).

The earlier texts first (1946)

Bill's 1946 essay on money explains why A.A.'s offices can't take over: "These are places of service; they cannot really control or govern A.A." (P-17, Money, 1946). If one grew inefficient or overbearing, "The average A.A. would stop his financial support until conditions were changed" (P-17, Money, 1946). That is the "power of the A.A. purse" sixteen years before Concept VII named it.

Long Form Four (1946) asks that no one take action greatly affecting A.A. as a whole "without conferring with the trustees of the General Service Board" (p. 563), and Long Form Nine makes the trustees the receivers of the groups' contributions (p. 565). So from the start the trustees held the money and the groups supplied it.

What Bill's Concept VII essay says (1962)

The apparent contradiction. "This concept may appear to be contradictory; it may look like the collision of an irresistible force with an immovable object" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VII). The board has complete legal power over A.A.'s funds and services; the Conference has enough traditional influence and financial power to overcome it.

Why the Conference wins in practice. Its power comes from the Charter's traditional influence, from the large majority of group-chosen delegates, and in any great extremity from the delegates' ability to deny the board the groups' contributions. "Theoretically, the Conference is an advisory body only, but practically speaking it has all of the ultimate rights and powers that it may ever need" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VII). Since trustees have no salaried interest in their posts, Bill is "quite sure" they would never legally contest the clear, sustained will of the delegates.

How it was settled (1950). When the Charter was drawn in 1950, the question of the last word was open. Bill and the others agreed that final authority should not stay with "an isolated Board of Trustees who had an unqualified right to appoint their own successors" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VII). They considered and dropped three ideas: - incorporating the Conference, which would have meant giving all its members legal status, in effect incorporating the whole Fellowship; - nationwide elections for trustees, "a political shambles"; - having the Conference nominate and elect trustees, which delegates meeting briefly couldn't do well.

So "the Conference was given the right to reject, but not to elect, new Trustee candidates" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VII). A footnote updates this: regional and at-large trustees are now elected during Conference week.

Both sides should hold back. New trustees sometimes ask whether accepting a Conference directive violates their legal Charter. Bill says nothing compels them to use all their authority all the time; they can "simply refrain from using their absolute legal right to say ‘no’ when it would be much wiser, all things considered, to say ‘yes’" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VII). He compares it to a U.S. president's veto, legal but rarely used.

When the trustees should veto. "Clearly, then, our Board of Trustees does reserve a veto power over any Conference action" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VII), "even though the veto will seldom be used" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VII). Bill's three examples: 1. A Conference action in clear violation of its own Charter or the board's, or so reckless it would seriously injure A.A.: the trustees should ask for reconsideration, then veto if refused, and could appeal directly to the groups. 2. The trustees may cut a Conference-approved budget during the year, though they shouldn't much exceed it without consulting the Conference. 3. A plan that becomes unworkable during the year may be cancelled.

The balance. "We believe this balance can be maintained indefinitely, because the one is protected by tradition and the other by law" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VII).

What later sources say (dated)

  • P-8 (© 2017) says the board's legal veto exists "but in actual practice, it never has done so" (P-8). That is P-8's statement about practice up to its own date; Bill's 1962 essay says only that the veto would seldom be used, and treats it as sometimes a duty.
  • The current Charter (2024–2026 Service Manual) keeps the 1955 rule, as reworded by the 1986 Conference: a two-thirds vote of Conference members voting, with a quorum, is "considered binding upon the General Service Board" (The A.A. Service Manual, 2024–2026, Appendix K, Current Conference Charter), without impairing the board's legal right to conduct routine business.

Read it yourself

Sources

Source Where Written / first published
P-17, Money (Bill W.) — Grapevine, 1946
Alcoholics Anonymous, Appendix I, Long Form Four and Nine pp. 563, 565 1946
Alcoholics Anonymous, Appendix VII, Concept VII (short form) p. 575 Concepts 1962; short form 1971
Twelve Concepts for World Service (Bill W.), Concept VII, with later footnote in The A.A. Service Manual, 2024–2026 edition 1962
Conference Charter, current text The A.A. Service Manual, 2024–2026, Appendix K 1955, as amended
P-8, The Twelve Concepts for World Service Illustrated — first printed 1986; © 2017

Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, the Service Manual and Twelve Concepts for World Service, and P-8 are © A.A. World Services, Inc.; the P-17 articles are © AA Grapevine, Inc.

These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.