What does it mean to be a GSR?
For most A.A.s, membership in a home group is one of the keys to continuing sobriety. In a home group, they accept service responsibilities and learn to sustain connections with other recovering alcoholics. The home group affords individual A.A.s the privilege of voting on issues that affect the Fellowship as a whole; it is the very basis of the service structure. While many A.A. members attend other groups as well, the home group is where they participate in business meetings and cast their vote as part of the group conscience of the Fellowship as a whole. As with all group conscience matters, each member has one vote.
The Role of the GSR
The role of the general service representative, or GSR, is essential to the purpose of general service. Bill W. wrote in Concept I of The Twelve Concepts for World Service: “The A.A. groups today hold ultimate responsibility and final authority for our world services.” The role of the GSR is essential to ensuring that groups can fulfill that responsibility. Only when a GSR keeps the group informed and communicates the group conscience can the Conference truly act for A.A. as a whole. This communication is a two-way street, making the GSR responsible not only for bringing forward the group’s voice, but for taking back to the group Conference actions that affect the Fellowship’s unity, health and growth.
The GSR is the link between the group and “A.A. as a whole.” This link becomes a channel through which news, information, opinions and ideas can flow back and forth. Importantly, this also gives the group a voice in the affairs of the Fellowship. The GSR is that voice.
There is more than one way for GSRs to express their group’s thoughts and wishes — their conscience — in general service.
When the GSR is present at assemblies, the group’s voice is heard. The presence of a GSR says their group cares about what’s going on in the Fellowship and wants to learn and make its concerns and suggestions known.
When the GSR participates, the group’s voice is heard. It can be through a GSR sharing the group’s concerns across a conference table from other GSRs in a district meeting. It can be through questioning a budget item or proposing an idea important to the group at an area assembly. It can be through making an impassioned plea about an agenda item to the delegate on the eve of the annual General Service Conference meeting.
When the GSR votes, the group’s voice is heard. The GSR votes on the trusted servants to lead the district and the area as well as the delegate to represent the area at the annual General Service Conference meeting. The group’s voice is heard when the GSR votes on how best to use Seventh Tradition contributions to carry out Twelfth Step services.
What’s important is to participate.
(Adapted from “The Group and its General Service Representative”, page 7 of the “AA Service Manual,” 2021-2023 ed., with permission of AA World Services, Inc.)