No Orders

When a facility supplies the person who runs the meeting, the group loses what Tradition Two guarantees it: the power to say who serves and on what terms. Bill W. described an A.A. group's committee once the members have taken charge of their own affairs (A.A. Comes of Age): "This committee can only make the necessary service arrangements by which the group can function. It can give no spiritual advice, judge no one's conduct, issue no orders." Its members, he wrote, are "servants, not senators." And: "Thus throughout our fellowship does the group conscience decree the terms upon which its leaders shall serve." Decree means sets by ruling. Now look at a meeting run on a program's schedule. The person in the chair is staff. She was hired, not elected. She may hand out advice, judge who has been compliant, and sign attendance sheets for the court. No vote put her there and no vote can remove her; her boss can. That room may read the Traditions aloud every week, but the authority the Long Form names (Big Book, p. 563), "a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience," has no group conscience to speak through. Test it tonight: ask who chose the person chairing your meeting, and who could replace them.