True for you, Arthur -- but the creation of the service structure and thus of
Group Representatives (GRs, now General Service Representatives, GSRs) leads to
a quick test of what's a group and what's a meeting. If it has a GSR or
according to the District it's in should have a GSR (or if it's an institutional
group that doesn't have anyone available to be a GSR because the GSR can't be a
facility employee or an inmate), it's a group. Otherwise it's a meeting.

The text in the Third Tradition echoes "whenever two or three are gathered
together" from the Evening Service of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer and
thus implies a continuing existence for the Group as a spiritual entity, as
opposed to a single meeting.

But of course we have meetings that go year after year, but aren't groups,
either because they have no officers (including a GSR) or because the group
holding the meeting has more than one meeting. Thus the Fellowship Group in
District 65, Area 59, has twenty-eight meetings a week [Lebanon PA], as does the
Easy Does It Group in District 64, Area 59 [Lancaster PA]. On the other hand,
there is a Tuesday night meeting in District 65, Area 59, that, despite having
met every Tuesday for a decade, has no group structure (and no home group
members either, though there is one AA who has been there for, I think, more
than 500 of the meetings). It's a meeting -- not a group.

- - - -

From: jenny andrews <jennylaurie1@...>
(jennylaurie1 at hotmail.com)

"... any two or three alcoholics gathered
together" goes back long before the Episcopal
Book of Common Prayer, and clearly echoes
Matthew 18:20 in the New Testament:

"19. Again I say unto you, That if two of you
shall agree on earth as touching any thing
that they shall ask, it shall be done for them
of my Father which is in heaven. 20. For where
two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them."

Laurie A.

- - - -

> From: ArtSheehan@...
> Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009
> Subject: Group start date: how it is defined
>
> A group start date is based on when the second sober alcoholic shows up to
join with the first sober alcoholic. When they had the first meeting does not
determine the beginning of a group. That's the basis for defining the beginning
of AA when Dr Bob, the second alcoholic, joined with Bill W to form the AA
Fellowship (qualified by the date that Dr Bob had his last drink). It is also
the basis for defining the beginning of Akron Group #1 as July 4, 1935 when Bill
D left the hospital to join with Dr Bob to form Akron Group #1.
>
> From other postings, I think care should be exercised in people today labeling
groups as so-called "meetings" as opposed to "groups." Early AA made no such
hair-splitting distinction. The long form of Tradition Three was first published
in the April 1946 Grapevine in the article "Twelve Suggested Points for AA
Tradition" and stated "... Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for
sobriety may call themselves an A.A. Group."
>
> Cheers
> Arthur