Final responsibility and ultimate authority for COSA world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole Fellowship.
The Annual Meeting of Delegates and the ISO Board of COSA has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole Society in its world affairs.
To insure effective leadership, we should endow each element of COSA, “the Annual Meeting”, the International Service Organization of COSA and its service committees, contracted worker, and executives with a traditional “Right of Decision”.
At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional “Right of Participation” allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.
Throughout our structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.
The Annual Meeting of the board and delegates recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most International service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Annual Meeting, acting as the International Service Organization.
The Charter and Bylaws of the International Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct international service affairs. The Annual Meeting Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the COSA purse for final effectiveness.
The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities.
Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the trustees.
Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined.
The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, and rights and duties will always be matters of serious concern.
The Annual Meeting shall observe the spirit of COSA tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and, whenever possible, by substantial unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of government, and that, like the fellowship it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.
