Around AA - Items of AA Information and Experience

In 1940, we organized AA in California (not knowing any better). We had a president, a vice-president, a membership committee, membership rules. We also incorporated AA for the whole of the state. We were going to give out charters for starting groups. We even put in Roberts' Rules of Order for a while (talks limited to three minutes, etc.). Well, all hell broke loose. Mort, the president, couldn't be at a meeting, so he asked someone other than the VP to run the meeting. This made the VP mad, and he got drunk (haven't seen him since). The secretary's husband got drunk because he wasn't given a title (he rejoined five years later). The membership committee got mad because the people they screened out came anyway (we wanted only "pure alkies").