In our Archives section you can find information about this particular area, some resources and a link to any vacancies in this discipline.
Any Historical collection at the Group, Intergroup, Regional or G.S.O. level is archive material.
The GSB recognises the urgent need for accurate records to be rescued, retained, collated and used in a manner which dispels myth and allows the Fellowship to reach a truer perspective, revealing our real heritage and ensuring our future.
The aims of the Sub Committee include implementation of Conference recommendations. Further, and more specific, details may be found in the guiding document of the Archives Sub Committee entitled “Archives Policy and Procedures Manual”.
Composition
A GSB Sub Committee may comprise a minimum of four (4) and a maximum of eight (8) members and is chaired by a Board Trustee. This may vary from time to time, dependant on workload. The Archives Sub Committee will also include the Fellowship Archivist. A member of staff will continue to manage and administer the GSO Archives for members wishing to consult them.
Archives may meet up to five (5) times annually, including an Annual Archivists meeting. Meetings take place at the General Service Office (GSO), York. GSB Sub Committees use Microsoft to carry out their day-to-day business.
Qualifications and Terms of Office
An Archives Sub-Committee member should be active in AA service and shall have at least five years continuous sobriety at the time of application. All Sub Committee members serve for a maximum of four consecutive years. Their details will be held at GSO.
A Sub Committee member may be re-appointed to Archives, or another GSB Sub-Committee, provided it is more than a year since she/he has left the Archives Sub-Committee and there is no other suitably qualified candidate.
If a member absents themselves from the Sub Committees’ active work or from three consecutive meetings, without apology, they will be deemed to have resigned.
Vacancies will be determined by the Trustee and advertised in AA Service News and on the AA GB website, ensuring the best use of resources. The closing date will be at least three weeks before a scheduled Nominations Committee (NOMs) meeting.
Structure
Minutes of each meeting are to be made available to GSO, York, for distribution to all GSB Trustees as soon as possible after each meeting. Any projects should be described in full (including risk assessment) and presented to the GSB for approval. An annual budget will be prepared for GSB approval. All reasonable expenses should be claimed, via GSO, as soon as possible after any meeting. Members of the Executive Committee of the GSB and the General Secretary may attend any meeting, as may Trustees from other disciplines – subject to invitation and GSB approval.
The full Policy and Procedures document can be found in the Archivists Resources folder in the Document Library, here
America formed the first trustees’ archives Committee in January 1971. Its mission was “to give the Fellowship a sense of its own past and the opportunity to study it and to keep the record straight so that myth does not predominate over fact.”
There is a National Archives network across England, Scotland and Wales. Regional Archivists work with teams of Intergroup Archivists to stimulate interest at the local level and the core of the National collection is housed at G.S.O. in York. The G.S.B. appointed the first Fellowship Archivist in 1987 and an Archives Committee, answerable to the Board of Trustees, was formed.
Taken from the AA Archivist Pamphlet which can be found in the Archivists Recourses folder in the Document Library.
In the Archives Folder in the Document Library, there are the following items representing Archival Resources
- Archives Policy and Procedure
- Past Particles, our Bi Annual Archives Newsletter
- The Archives Pamphlet
- The Principles of Archiving
- A presentation on the basics of archiving in AA
If you have an interest in a particular discipline, with the relevant sobriety and service qualifications, have a look to see if you could play a part within one of the sub-committees.
You may ask GSO to send a nomination form to you. The address is:
- AA GSO, 10 Toft Green, York, YO1 7NJ
- or contact Jenny by phone: 01904 644026 or by email: Jenny.Pryke@gsogb.org.uk
or you can download a form. It may be returned to the postal or email addresses above.
