Properly Informed

A group conscience can only decide well when the members have the facts, so a business meeting with the facts kept from it is not deciding anything. Bill W. wrote (A.A. Comes of Age): "Harder still to accept was the now proven fact that the conscience of the group, when properly informed of the facts and issues and principles involved, was often wiser than any leader, self-appointed or not." Read the condition in the middle: properly informed. The group's wisdom depends on seeing what it is deciding. The Long Form gives that informed group the final say (Big Book, p. 563): "For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience." The threat today is the vote held in the dark. The treasurer reads a balance, but nobody sees where the money went. The rent is taken care of, and nobody asks by whom. A meeting is told its time is changing, as an announcement, with no reason given. In a facility room the business meeting may not exist at all, and the program's decisions arrive as news. A group that cannot see its own money, rent and arrangements isn't deciding. Someone else is, and the group is being told. Test it tonight: ask to see your group's treasurer's report and minutes, and notice how the room answers.