by yesidid 10 Replies latest jw friends
In another thread we were reminded that the Brooklyn head counters had recently added
Alaska to the US, instead on having its statistics separate in the yearbook.
Could anyone tell us when this happened. Just wondering if this was the reason for the
3% increase this year.
Or am I barking up the wrong tree? Did that happen several years ago?..
Someone with yearbooks for the last several years may be able to help us out.
Thank you.
yesidid
Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. are listed separately on the 2006 Service Report.
On the 2007 Service Report Alaska has disappeared and Hawaii and the U.S. remain listed separately.
Someone had mentioned this it seems like several months ago. I would assume they added Alaska's numbers to the mainland. (They wouldn't add them to Canada would they?)
2006 Report - http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/125492/1.ashx
wonder if they took the corresponding 'Jump" in Pubs, or if they figured any increase based on the Alaska numbers?
Brant
deleted --duplicate post sorry
deleted--duplicate
Brant
Well, let's sort this out.
In the 2006 service report, there were 2,141 average publishers, as opposed to 1,008,281 publishers in the U.S. Adding Alaska to the U.S. would have increased the proportion by 0.2%. Unless they had a tremendously successful year in 2007, the impact of Alaska would have been negligible. I think the impetus rather could well have been the 1% decrease in Alaska between 2005 and 2006. What if that decrease had widened to, say 2%, 3%, or even more? There were 23 lands in 2006 where they had decreases, merging Alaska with the U.S. would get rid of at least one of these.
leolaia,
I think your take is exactly right. Another solid base hit!
Brant
I think Alaska has been running on a negative, a decrease percentage for most past years,,maybe they didn't like that showing that way & decided to absorb it in with the mainland.
Alaska's district overseer's wife died. They were sent to alaska like in the 70's to oversee the branch (in alaska, the branch overseer was also the district overseer). it's been a few years since lucy passed away, i think they probably just didn't want to send another couple to run the place. the alaska branch is just an office w/a KH attached and a house for the district/branch overseer. it's a pretty small operation.
SB
How coincidental, I was showing the Proclaimers book to the study conductor, and it has lots of pages of various WT real estate. The Alaska pic was a tightly cropped front door. I laughed, because I have been there. Majestic place. Not many people. Maybe 600,000 in the whole state. It is huge so they are spread out a lot.
I figured a proportionate JW population, a few thousand, so the headquarters was perhaps a tiny storefront and they did not want to show the whole building so they cropped it.
