WSBC 2025: Concept 3 Motion

SHORT NAME: Concept 3

MAIN MOTION

The WSI Bylaws Committee moves that the Short Form of FA’s Concept Three be modified to refer to the voting members of the FA World Service Conference as World Service Conference (WSC) members.

CURRENT WORDING

To ensure effective leadership, we should endow each element of the FA Conference, including the World Service Board, the group delegates, and any other corporate entities, staffs and committees that may be created in the future, with a traditional “Right of Decision.”

PROPOSED WORDING

To ensure effective leadership, we should endow each element of the FA Conference, including the World Service Board, the World Service Conference members, and any other corporate entities, staffs and committees that may be created in the future, with a traditional “Right of Decision.”

RATIONALE

Using the term “WSC members” rather than “group delegates” brings FA Concept 3 into conformity with the WSI bylaws. The WSI bylaws use the term “WSC members” to refer to the voting members at the World Service Business Convention. WSC members are members of the World Service Board (WSB), WSB standing committee chairs, board members of FA intergroups and chapters, as well as “members of the fellowship elected by FA meeting groups to represent the fellowship at the annual meeting, known as the World Service Business Convention.” Article III, Section 2(a).

The term “group delegate” implies that a voting member represents the individual FA meeting group that elected them, and is therefore inconsistent with the bylaws, which make clear that voting members represent the fellowship as a whole, not an individual meeting. As explained in the WSC Member Manual, even though voting members are elected by a meeting, they vote in accordance with their own conscience, keeping in mind the needs of FA as a whole, rather than serving as the voice of an individual meeting."