Directly Accountable

Conferring with the trustees was never meant to be asking a boss, because A.A. went on to make its trustees answer to the groups. When the Long Form was first printed in 1946, the trustees were, in Bill's later words, an independent body. The Long Form still told every group, committee and member to confer with them before acting for A.A. as a whole, because someone had to hold the whole in view. Then the groups built a way for their own voice to reach that board: delegates elected out of their own assemblies, meeting as a conference. Bill W. described where it ended (A.A. Comes of Age): "Even our Trustees, once an independent body, are today directly accountable to our fellowship. They are the caretakers and expediters of our world services." Expediters are the people who see that the work gets done. And the line that holds it together: "It is in this spirit of service that we elect the A.A. groups’ informal rotating committees, the Intergroup Associations of the area, and the General Service Conference for A.A. as a whole." The chain runs up from the groups by election and answers back down. Test it tonight: ask whether your group elects someone to carry its voice to the area, and what they last carried.