Nobody Called a Business Meeting

A group can lose Tradition Two without anyone taking it, simply by never meeting to decide anything. Picture a meeting that has run on Tuesday nights for years. The secretary has held the job so long that nobody remembers electing her. She picks the readings, the format, and who leads each week. The basket money goes into an envelope she keeps at home. Nobody objects, because she is kind and reliable and does all the work. But there has not been a business meeting in three years, and when a newer member asks for one, the answer is that it isn't needed. The Long Form (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." A conscience that never gathers can't speak. Group conscience is not a feeling in the room. It is the members sitting down together, hearing the facts, and deciding. Without that, the meeting has an owner by default, even a gentle one, and whoever takes her chair next inherits the ownership along with the envelope. Test it tonight: ask when your group last held a business meeting, who called it, and whether any member there could have changed anything.