East London Archives of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Below you can read how Bill and other members helped created General Service Board of A.A at the 1957 convention of England and Wales.

At the start of the convention Bill H was asked to speak on the General Service Board of A.A. for Great Britain and Ireland, how and why it was created. Read the below.

I have a very easy task today, because there is really nothing to say that has not already been written. Perhaps. However, we might go back a little when our A.A. tables were not filled with literature, when the big book was not printed in England, and when none of the pamphlets were printed here, as the fellowship grew, it was very obvious that literature was going to play an ever-increasing part in our efforts to carry the message and to become absolutely necessary in all our activities.

When Bill W was over here in 1950, he realized the difficulties into which we would be running into. The General Service Board of Trustees in New York also realised the position in which we would eventually find ourselves. So, when Bill returned, he spoke to the board, and as a result of these conversations, a gift was made to this country of a certain number of copies of the big book, with a proviso that the monies realised from the sale thereof should be placed in a separate account to be eventually used for a reprint in the book in this country. That was all very wonderful and eventually, the time came we had sufficient money to do this thing, then problems arose, because it had to be done by a legal entity, and by British law there is no such thing as Alcoholics Anonymous. So, in consultation with the legal profession and with America, it was decided that the simplest way of dealing with this would be for four members Alcoholics Anonymous to form a simple partnership and register themselves under a business name and so to proceed with this printing. This was done in the name of AlAnon publications and was duly registered.

America, who owns the copyright in these things, dealt with the legal aspect and allowed AlAnon publications the use of their copyrights. AlAnon, in turn, must preserve those copyrights on behalf of the Board of Trustees in America, the printing in this country was carried out for the purpose of supplying the Sterling area with the big book and other selected literature due to the difficulty in the dollar situation. The work of Alanon increased as the book was supplied to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England, Scotland etc. With the supplying of the book. There also came quite a large volume of correspondence from these countries. So Alanon not only had to be a machine that supplied the literature, it had also to the best of its ability to provide a service and answer a multitude of questions and inquiries and activity that went on increasing until the convention last year.

As you can appreciate, the big book is quite a costly production, and you can well imagine, when one is running thousands of copies quite large sums of money are involved. This brought problems for the four members of A.A. who had agreed to serve as a partnership. It brought the question of tax. It also brought the moral question of whether it was right that an alcoholic should have control of the large sums of money involved.

Our friends in the states foresaw our difficulties long before we did. We published a letter in the January issue of the ’News Letter’ a letter written by Bill W our co- founder in 1954 in which he pointed out the desirability of forming a Board of Trustees to take over the responsibilities from Al Anon.

Obviously, the idea was right and it was eventually suggested that we followed the same pattern of our American friends who, when faced with the same problem, created their General Service Board. The idea made good sense to us. So, after many consultations with gentlemen of the legal profession who drafted out articles of association for us, as and suggested a company limited by guarantee should be formed under the title of the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous in Great Britain and Northern Ireland Ltd. The company, if it was going to function properly and not be subject to tax on any of its profits, would have to be registered as a charity. This may sound pretty easy, this, however is not the case since it has to comply and be acceptable to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. Eventually, the Articles of Association were prepared and a draft sent to New York and accepted.

The Time was now ripe for members of this part of the world to have the opportunity to discuss the proposals and on October 20, 1956 a meeting was held in London, at which were present the five members of the Central Committee, members of the Scottish Intergroup Committee, and members from Ireland, along with four members of Alanon publications, and it was at this meeting that it was decided to bring into being the Board of Trustees, taking a leaf out of the book of our American friends.

When the American Board was formed, they decided that the number of trustees should be 15, comprising eight non alcoholics and seven members of A.A, we saw no reason to depart from this practice, so we agreed that our Board should consist of a similar number, on the other hand, we did not think we either had the right or the knowledge or were in any way qualified to completely fill the Board, and the number legally to bring it into being, was seven. After long deliberation chose eight names and asked these people if they would be willing to, they have agreed to do so (Bill H, Canadian Bob, Allan B, Richard P, Hugh B, Dr Fergus, Joe T, Maurice R) leaving seven places to be eventually filled as and when the fellowship feels able to legislate on those bases.

The board is in being for the purpose of looking after the commercial interests of A.A. and taking over from the present members of Alanon their responsibilities.

(The inaugural meeting was held June 29^th 1957)

The end.

In Bill H’s words, the below was taken from a speech he did at Conference in October 1966.

Bill H – In 1948 there had been one very small group and a few loners in different parts of the country. There had been no problem about accommodation or money because meetings had been held in members’ houses and a whip-round had produced what money had been needed. Sobriety had been an elusive quality and an address not connected with any member had become a necessity. That had brought about the birth of BM/AAL which was still in existence. Jobs had been done by those willing to do them and the secretary had been the person willing to do that work. The secretary and two other members had been elected to handle the business of A.A. and had been called the Advisory Committee. As A.A. had grown and the one group had become six, there had been problems about electing the Advisory Committee. All members had been eligible to vote and they had wanted to know how the three members of the Advisory Committee had acquired their authority to advise the Fellowship. At that time sobriety had become more constant but serenity had been conspicuous by its absence.

An idea had come into being that if each group were to choose one of its oldest and most trusted members to meet the other elected members, they would be able to elect annually an Executive Committee to handle the business of A.A. Thus, had been born the Group Representative Committee. The Fellowship had still been without an office. The Advisory Committee had its name changed to the Central Committee which it had kept until 1963, when it had become the General Purposes Sub-Committee – this was its present name.

The Group Representative Committee had met regularly and had worked reasonably well. Its first real step forward had been the instruction to the Central Committee to hire 11 Redcliffe Gardens and the promise of financial support. Perhaps the next most important step had been 11 the scrapping, after months of work, of a. set of rules of procedure. A memorandum had been drawn up which had left the group conscience as the governing factor in all circumstances.

In 1956 there had been 60 groups in England and Wales and it had been suggested that the Group Representative Committee would be more effective and better attended if the groups in an area were to meet at regular intervals and to elect their representatives to attend a meeting on a national basis.

In 1950 Bill W., one of the co-founders, had visited Great Britain and had seen the need for books. He had suggested that the members here should elect a committee to handle the sale of the Big Rooks which he was going to suggest to the American Board should be sent by America to this country as a free gift. The money from the sale of the books could be used to capitalise the publishing of the Big Book over here. The books had arrived and the committee suggested by Bill W. had been set up and had been called the Pre-Foundation Committee to keep in step with America whose Board in those days had been called the Foundation. As time passed it had been thought that a Company should be formed and the Publishing Company, Alanon Publications, had come into being and had been registered as a company.

The first printing, 1,000 copies, of the Big Book had been done in 1954. In January of the same year Bill W. had written about Alanon Publications and in his letter had said “would it be practical to form something you might call ‘The General Service Board of A.A. for England, Scotland and Ireland’’. The directors of Alanon would be named by such a Trusteeship or corporation and be accountable to it. Such a General Service Board would name its successors subject to nominations from the principal A.A. areas. This larger Board could take Jurisdictions of any problem; it would not be limited to publishing. It would correspond to the Alcoholic Foundation here whose name will, by the way, be soon changed to ‘The General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous – (North American Section).

(The royalties for the BB and 12×12 was waivered by Bill W. he asked the money be spent on spreading the message) the big book and 12×12 was allowed to be printed in the U.K.

On 20th October, 1956, a meeting in London had been attended by representatives from Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, Central Service Office and Alanon Publications. That meeting had decided that a Board of Trustees should be elected, the final number to be 15 of which 8 should be non-alcoholics, and that the name of the Board should be the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous (Great Britain & Ireland) Ltd. It had then been arranged that the Board would take over Alanon Publications which would have its name changed to The Alcoholics Anonymous Publishing Company of Great Britain and Ireland. A small sub-committee had been set up to deal with day to day matters and the publishing of literature. That sub-committee met still about once a month and the full Board three times a year.

The Board first met on 29th June, 1957, after nomination by representatives from Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales. It had consisted of three non-alcoholics and six alcoholics. Since that date there had been three resignations and four appointments among the non-alcoholic members. Six other people had been approached but for one reason or another had been unable or unwilling to join the Board. Only two of the original alcoholic members still remained on the twelve Board. There had been eight vacancies caused by death, sickness and resignation but new members had been appointed and the number now stood at 6. It was the intention of the Board to have fifteen members.

In America the first Board had consisted of three non-alcoholic two alcoholics and the Cofounders. That had been in 1938. Two years later the Board had been increased by two non-alcoholic and three alcoholics. This year the number had been increased from 19 to 21 members and for the first time there were more alcoholic members than non-alcoholic. Bill finished by saying that no nomination received from within the Fellowship had been refused by the Board, whether for an alcoholic or a non-alcoholic; and that in all their deliberations the Board had never had to vote on any matter.