June 30, 2015

Dear Adult Children,

ACA’s Annual Business Conference (ABC)[1], is the annual gathering of delegates from ACA groups and intergroups.  At the ABC, the delegates consider fellowship proposals for possible action at the world service level.  During the ABC delegates also receive reports from the ACA World Service Organization (WSO) and its committees.  The ABC is usually held on the fourth weekend of April.  Next year’s ABC will be held on April 22-24, 2016.  The location is still to be determined.

ACA groups and intergroups are invited to submit proposals for the ABC to the WSO.  Once received, the WSO analyzes and obtains translations of each proposal (where possible), and forwards the proposals and analyses to all ACA groups for their group conscious vote.  In order to do this effectively, the following timetable has been adopted:

  • September 30th, 2015, is the deadline for submitting proposals.  The WSO will take two months to analyze the proposals and obtain translations of both the proposals and the WSO analyses.
  • On December 2nd, 2015, the WSO will send the proposals, analyses and translations to all the registered groups and intergroups for their groups conscious votes.  The groups will have about three months to review and vote on the proposals.
  • February 28th, 2016, is when the groups’ votes are to be received by WSO.   

Please mark your calendars accordingly

Only groups and intergroups may vote on the proposals.  It is suggested that each group and intergroup carefully consider the proposals.  Following ACA’s traditions, voting should take place within a group conscious.

Only those proposals that receive a 2/3rds favorable vote from the groups and intergroups are placed on the ABC agenda for the ABC delegates to discuss and to take possible action.  Please note: the ABC delegates may decline to act on any given proposal.

Kindly share this information with your group(s) in the event they would like to pre-schedule special group conscious meetings to review the proposals and or to submit a proposal(s). 

ABC proposals should primarily concern matters that groups think should be addressed by the ACA WSO.   In considering whether to submit a proposal, please consider whether the issue may be better handled at the group or intergroup service level while the WSO may be better able to address issues affecting ACA around the world.

You may want to review the various reports and minutes in the Repository on the ACA website to determine if there are similar projects already underway at the WSO level.  You might want to determine if the proposal is something that will benefit ACA as a whole?

In service,

The Board of Trustees

ACA WSO, Inc.

[1] ACA Concept VI

On behalf of ACA as a whole, our Annual Business Conference has the principal responsibility for the maintenance of our world services, and it traditionally has the final decision respecting large matters of general policy and finance. But the Annual Business Conference also recognizes that the chief initiative and the active responsibility in most of these matters would be exercised primarily by the Trustee members of the World Service Organization when they act among themselves as the World Service Organization of Adult Children of Alcoholics.