"Every AA Group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions”
As the 7th Tradition clearly states, every AA group should be fully self-supporting.
How does this sit with the idea of a charity providing a space for meetings to take place and that charity soliciting donations?
The SRC and AA, along with other fellowships, are entirely separate. There is no affiliation.
The SRC exists to provide a space where meetings can take place but every meeting held will have to pay rent for its timeslot. No meeting will be free.
However, the pricing is different to how meetings in central London currently pay churches, hospitals and other organizations to rent rooms.
SRC meeting rents will be priced according to the size of each meeting based on the number of attendees.
The more people who attend a meeting, the more that meeting will pay.
The structure of a per-person-rate rather than a flat rate per room helps smaller meetings, those with special requirements such as deaf groups or newer fellowships such as CMA. Many of these are currently priced out of central London room rental.
The SRC therefore allows new meetings to start-up and grow organically.
The success of the Hollywood Recovery Center (LA), Perry Street (NYC) and the Rainbow Recovery Room (Sydney) demonstrates that such models work, and can have a significant and positive impact on recovery, and there is no conflict with the 7th Tradition.