the meetings were held in michigan (bibleexaminer), long island (nytelecom), san diego (elder families only), and here in toronto.
the stadium we used is the same we normally use for district conventions. unlike the DC tho, which is spread over 2 weekends at the stadium, it was packed absolutely full. it was very hard to find seats anywhere, just a few singles here and there and lots standing in the halls. (same in nyt's) and because everyone drove and parked at the stadium and not at hotels, parking was even harder to find.
i moved along with the crowds towards the doors and just managed to brush aside my jacket far enough to reveal a bit of green from the corner of my ticket/badge for the attendant as i was corralled in, carrying my large tape recorder (which turned out to be near useless due to sound quality.) nyt is right. anyone couldve easily got in.
The program: (times are approx)
Watchtower summary (local speaker - 30m)
usual for any assembly that preempts the usual WT study.
Summary of experiences and talks at annual meeting (Splane 15min)
very brief
Relief from Crisis - A Practical Remedy (Pierce 15min)
buildup to announcement of new yeartext, 'Come to me and i will refresh you - Mt 11:28'
Highlights from special conventions in italy and france (2 parts - local brothers 1hr)
conducted in interview style, 4 brothers for each country for 8 long interviews.
Song
Courageously trusting in jehovah in these critical times (Splane 30min)
started out with importance of trusting in jehovah and not ourselves as we get ever so close. summary of situations in armenia, georgia, russia, france, and NYC. nothing much new to jws and ourselves who are on the net and get these experiences ourselves. couple interesting comments were:
'brothers ask if there is anything they can do besides prayer. but prayer is the MOST important thing they can. the most helpful...'
'we can be sure the heavenly organization is focused right now on the events here on earth. all the angels, the 135,000-some anointed already in heaven...' (thought the 144,000 minus 8,000+ calculation was interesting.)
the meeting is obviously running long and people are starting to drop off now.
Moving forward unitedly with jehovahs organization (Pierce 45min)
now, a full 2 hours and 45 minutes into the 3 hour program and Br Pierce came up to give the last talk and im thinking, 'ok. finally. this is it. whatever they came to say will be now.' He starts out, 'some have wondered why we set up these special meetings. was there going to some momentous announcement? maybe announce a new date for armageddon?' there were light chuckles. i thought it was nice that the GB can joke about it now. theyre really ok guys. he continued, 'no. the governing body just felt that it would be nice to include more people in on the excitement every year that goes on at the annual meeting.' He lamented that their original plans had to be scaled down a bit because of major league sports rescheduling. He then pointed out how much excitement there was, for example, in the fact all the attendees at the 4 locations got to find out what the new yeartext was AT THE SAME TIME. i had goosebumps. he followed with some more NYC experiences and tidbits from the meeting the day previous. as he was finishing up he said, 'the governing body have given prayerful thought to this meeting and have composed this announcement.' could he redeem himself with some actual content, i wondered. the announcement, as near as i can recall was this:
as we look ahead to these critical days, it is important not to 'forsake the gathering of ourselves together' to 'incite to love' but especially so 'as you behold the day drawing near.' in keeping with this, the governing body has plans to hold district conventions all over the world next year. and in 2003 iiiifffff it is jehovah's will, we maaaaaaaay hold international conventions in certain locations.
pierce over-emphasized the words just like that. now conventions around the world is a non-announcement of course. and the last international convention was in '98 and these are normally held every 5 years so this is another non-anouncement that only served another opportunity to get people excited about 'how close' we are. after reading the quoted announcement, he couldnt leave it alone but summarized, 'so thats what we plan. we dont know what the world situation will be by then.
the entire 3hr meeting ran 45min overtime.
mox