Two Thirds Delegate Majority @ Conference – An ongoing desire!

Key Conference Resolutions Guide

The following thoughts stem from the fact that I am running a series of online workshops on each of AA’s Concepts. As such, AA’s current level of participation in general service has very much been on my mind. Last night we looked at Concept 4, so…

One document we all now have access to, thanks to this amazing member site, is ‘Key Conference Resolutions’. <LINK>

It summarizes all major Advisory Actions from the 60’s to 2022. Recently I tallied up the amount of such actions to do with members, or conference/board committees, suggesting ways we can create a two thirds delegate voting majority at the AA Australia Conference. Trust me, there are heaps of them, going back nearly 30 years!

To summarize, suggestions come in two basic approaches:

• Conference/Board Action planning groups being formed to make recommendations – an approach which, so far, has never led to any major changes being made
• The use of what amounts to arbitrary mathematical formulas designed to take away votes from some non-delegate conference members, OR increasing the value of delegate votes. Either way it involves manipulating the numbers to produce a change in the voting ratios.

Biggest Hurdles

When I get confused or flooded by an AA-related issue, I like to hit the books. In particular, I like to ask “What did Bill Wilson actually write about all this…or didn’t?”. Let’s begin with the biggest hurdle to just stripping votes away from board members, the GSO or World Service Delegates. Concept 4 – The Right of Participation. I won’t quote massive chunks of Bill’s essay on the subject (It’s in the Service Manual), but in short, AA’s strong suggestion is, if you put in the work, you deserve a vote. Plain and simple. Incontrovertible… unless of course, you deliberately elect to controvert it, which other conferences have. New Zealand, for example, used maths to achieve a two thirds delegate majority, resulting in some board members not having a vote at conference. Interestingly, Bill warns the fellowship
specifically against this sort of thing in his Concept 4 essay. Same with paid workers, such as the single vote awarded to our hard-working GSO. Again, if you put in, you deserve a vote – it’s your right of participation.

Imagine if our GSO didn’t get a vote, which is obviously on my mind given that this is what occurred this past 2023 conference, no doubt as a result of the Office Manager’s role not being immediately filled after the previous holder left earlier this year. Now, a one-off situation is one thing, and no doubt the GSO vote will return next year, but just for the sake of exploration, let’s imagine that it didn’t. That would leave AA Australia with two votes for the General Service Trustees who specifically oversee the GSO, but none for the office itself. Whether it’s board oversight, or packing the next box of Big Books for delivery to a meeting, it’s all work, isn’t it? Those guys work hard at the GSO, and Concept 4 ensures they get a seat at the table, even if it means two third Delegate majority is a little further off as a result.

One of my favorite, and rejected, Advisory Actions involved the suggestion that current sitting Board members could also double-up as World Service Delegates, thus reducing two non-Delegate votes. Very clever, but still no cigar. Maybe it was a two-hats concern, or maybe it’s the fact that our Board (and WSGs) work their backsides off throughout the year and certainly warrant a seat at the decision-making table.

Australian Groups To Consider

In short, here in Australia, groups have to seriously consider what’s more crucial to the spiritual integrity and future of AA Australia; two thirds Delegate majority or full respect and adherence to an entire Concept?

As always, I like to let the literature guide and inform my viewpoint. The trouble is, whilst he produced an entire essay advocating for right of participation, it’s hard to find something similar advocating for an AAWS two thirds delegate majority. I finally discovered something however, on page 216 of AA comes of age. Bill writes about how they created delegates for the first conference, using the US states and Canadian provinces as a rough guide (1 delegate per state/province, with more than one in populous areas). As such, geography alone guaranteed a two thirds delegate majority from the get-go. Perhaps this is why Bill never includes any reasoning for its value and importance in any of his Concept essays. He had the luxury of accepting ‘it just was’. That being said, on page 216, he writes about it in
fairly plain terms:

‘It was felt that the elected delegates, meeting in New York in conference, should have very real authority. Therefore, the tentative Charter drawn for the Conference provided that the delegates, on a two thirds vote, could issue flat directives to the Trustees (Remember people, they had a pre-existing two thirds majority of numbers). Even a simple majority could issue a strong suggestion to the Trustees.’

Why the Two Thirds?

So, there you have it – Bill W’s reasoning for two thirds majority of delegates. If they vote as a block, they can get things over the line all on their own. No other reason is offered.

Hmmm… just a thought, but if that’s the basic reason to want such a majority, then why can’t a vote where all Delegates go the one way, be considered as a majority vote, regardless if the numbers stack that way or not? In other words, if the only actual result of two thirds Delegate majority is Delegates getting their way, then a block Delegate vote could conceivably just be seen that way. If such was the case, then we could stop wasting all this time and effort in playing with numbers, and in the process, eroding and negating Concept 4

Anyway, just on the subject of block-voting, both Bill W, in the Concept 4 essay, and in fact the current AAWS Service Manual, both point out the same thing…

…it’s never happened! Not once, in the entire history of AWWS! In other words, despite the fact that AAWS has existed since 1955 with a two thirds Delegate majority, it hasn’t actually directly impacted a single vote! In the Concept essay, Bill goes further, writing:

‘Perhaps someone will object that, on close votes in the Conference, the combined Trustees and service worker ballots may decide a particular question. But why not? Certainly, our Trustees and service workers are no less conscientious, experienced, and wiser than the Delegates. Is there any good reason why their votes are undesirable? Clearly there is none. Hence we ought to be
wary of any future tendency to deny either our Trustees or our service people their Conference votes…’

This is just one member’s view but for me, Bill seems a big fan of our Right of Participation, and warns against looking away from it in any way.

Even if it means some of us, including me btw, don’t always get what we want!

Perhaps More Spiritual Foreword Path

One last thought. In the last coupe of years, AA Australia has moved from 22 to 24 Areas; one larger NSW Area was split in two, and of course we now have Virtual Area A. Maybe the real means of achieving two thirds delegate majority has been sitting at the top, not the bottom, of our structure all along. Willing, informed group participation in general service.

Right now, if every group willingly participated in general service, we may need a lot more Areas to accommodate all those new GSRs! It would certainly mean all the closed areas that don’t currently have committees (I write this article whilst sitting in one!) would be active again.

This is surely the organic, and perhaps most spiritual way of getting there.

There’s my food for thought on this ever-present subject, hopefully free of controversy and full of
God and AA’s primary Purpose. Have a happy sober day.

AA Member Area B Southern Region