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Kudos for LifeRing -- Read the Testimonials Page and Add Your Own

Proposed Structure for LifeRing Secular Recovery

1. Meetings. The purpose of the organization is to serve the recovering alcoholic and/or addict and the general public by creating and sustaining a secular, self-help, abstinent pathway to recovery. The principal way in which we fulfill that purpose is by convening self-help meetings. The meeting is the highest form in which our organization exists and through which it delivers its services. Individuals who by reason of geography are unable to participate in a meeting will be considered members of an at-large meeting. All the rest of the organization either serves and supports the meetings, directly or indirectly, or it has no function. The meetings are autonomous and self-governing, except in matters affecting other meetings or the organization as a whole.

2. The Council of Convenors is the meeting of meetings. Through one or more representatives, each meeting participates in this regular periodic assembly to discuss and decide current issues that affect the organization as a whole. The Council of Convenors is the highest legislative body of the organization; it is its Congress. Its consensus is binding on the executive bodies and on the Board of Directors, except that the Council may not abrogate the fundamental principles of sobriety (abstinence), secularity, and self-help.

3. The Service Center and the Press form the "executive" branch of the organization. The mission of the Service Center is to provide direct, active support for the creation and sustenance of meetings. Toward that end, the SC will maintain an information and referral service, provide educational material, training and resources for convenors, arrange for speakers, generate media coverage, publish a convenors' bulletin and web site, and do all other things necessary and possible to get new meetings going and to support those that are already in operation. The Press has as its primary mission to create, publish and distribute books, pamphlets and other materials that will acquaint the larger public with the organization and will help to surround the meetings with an atmosphere of public acceptance and support. The Press and the Service Center should work closely together.

4. The Board of Directors' (or Trustees') primary function is quality assurance. The Board is responsible to the public at large and to the membership for the good name of the organization. Toward that end, the Board shall have the power to revoke the charter of any meeting that persistently and flagrantly violates a fundamental principle of the organization (abstinence, secularity, self-help). Neither the Board nor any other branch of the organization shall have the power to expel or otherwise punish any individual, nor shall the Board become involved in trivial disputes or personalities. The Board is responsible for the financial integrity of the organization. Members of the Board shall have a minimum of two years clean and sober and shall be active members of the organization who enjoy the respect of the membership. For the first five years, the Board shall elect its own members subject to ratification by the Council of Convenors; thereafter, Board members shall be elected by the Council of Convenors directly.

-- Submitted by Marty N., 8/15/99