Twelve Concepts of FA - Short Form

Terms and Definitions. For purposes of these Concepts, the following terms and definitions shall be used.

• World Service Conference (WS Conference). The voting body at the annual FA business conference, which serves as the collective conscience for the FA fellowship. The voting body comprises voting members elected by FA meeting groups to represent the fellowship, the Board of Trustees of FA, and the board members of any FA service entities (i.e., intergroups, chapters, and any other service entities which may be developed in the future).
• World Service Board (WSB). The Board of Trustees of FA, elected by the fellowship of FA as represented by voting members elected by FA meeting groups to represent the fellowship and board members of all FA service entities.
• World Service Office (WSO). Refers to the central office of Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous, based in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at a location designated by the WSB.
• Annual FA business meeting (WSBC). Yearly meeting of the WS Conference, FA members, and visitors.

The Short Form of the Twelve Concepts of FA:

1. Final responsibility and ultimate authority for FA world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole Fellowship.
2. The World Service Conference of FA is understood to be, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole society in its world affairs.
3. To ensure effective leadership, we should endow each element of the WS 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.”
4. Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined.
5. Throughout our world service structure (groups, chapters, intergroups, the World Service Board, and the World Service Office), we ought to maintain a traditional “Right of Participation,” allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each individual or group of our world servants must discharge.
6. Throughout our world service structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.
7. The WS Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference, acting as the World Service Board. In this capacity, the trustees shall serve as the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and finance, as well as the overseers of any subsidiary entities that may be established.
8. The bylaws of FA are a legal instrument, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct world service affairs. The WS Conference itself is not a legal entity; it relies upon tradition for final effectiveness, and its practical power will nearly always be superior to the legal power of the trustees. The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and finance.
9. At all levels, good service leadership by those demonstrating long-term physical, mental, and spiritual recovery is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, initially exercised by the group of members who founded FA, must necessarily be assumed by the World Service Board of Trustees.
10. The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, rights and duties, just financial compensation, and the nature of working relationships, will always be matters of serious concern.
11. Among Twelve Step programs, FA is unique in that food addicts must work with their drug, food, each day in order to survive. Therefore our program must differ from other Twelve Step programs with respect to structure and disciplines. Notwithstanding our immeasurable debt to Alcoholics Anonymous and other Twelve Step programs, our ultimate source of direction must always remain our collective experience of recovery through the FA program and our personal understanding of the will of God, as each of us understands God.
12. The WS Conference shall observe the spirit of FA tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and, whenever possible, substantial unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of government; that, like the Fellowship it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.