Committees
Area Committees
The area committees are especially focused on the health of the area and thus on growth and harmony in the A.A. Fellowship.
An active committee deals with all kinds of service problems: Is experience being shared among groups? Is the A.A. message getting into hospitals, prisons, jails and rehabilitation centers? Area news media and professions who deal with suffering alcoholics well informed about A.A.? Are new groups and Loners being visited and helped?
An area committee usually has other officers who are responsible to the committee for special activities. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following committee chairs:
- Public Information
- Cooperation with the Professional Community
- Correctional and Treatment Facilities
- Literature
- Grapevine and La Vina
- Archives
- Area Convention
- Accessibilities/Remote Communities
- Finance
- Liaison (to Intergroup/Central Offices)
- Translations
Some areas find it helpful to select alternates for all committee officers, especially for the chair. The alternates can provide continuity at the area level; they may or may not be seated as voting members, depending on local decision and area needs. In this as in all other levels of service, alternates should be encouraged to participate in committee activities as fully as possible. Qualifications of alternates are generally the same as the qualifications for the positions they may be called upon to assume.
