Did you ever look up the word Colporteur? (page 2)

james_woods

OK Quentin - check this one out -

Remember when we used to say we were making a "back call" on people we met who would take the magazines? Then, it got changed to "return visit".

Yup...strange how the wt, or any entity for that matter, has a need to change wording...seems I remember though it went from "back call", to "call back", then "return visit", but then again, it's been forty years or more....memory gets a little cloudy...

Gregor

Before "Presiding Overseer" was "Congregation Servant" and before that the position was called "Company Servant". This was because individual congregations were called a "company"...

A "company" had a "territory" as in Sales Territory. The company had sales goals and quotas. Each "publisher" (voluntary sales person) turned in a monthly sales report. Each company had an accounts servant to keep finances square with the parent company in Brooklyn. Product (literature) was shipped out to each company with 30 day payment terms. The parent company got paid for the product, whether it was sold or not, by the publishers who placed their individual orders. The goal was to recruit more sales people. The classic pyramid.

Seems like the further back you go the more the terminology frankly related to a commercial enterprise. The whole thing started as nothing more sophisticated than a goddamned (take your pick) McDonalds, Amway, Knapp Shoes, etc... franchise.

VM44

The Watchtower gave up the use of the word "Colporteurs" because they wanted to claim in a court of law that the people distributing Watchtower publications were not "peddler's of God's word"!

The very use of the word "Colporteurs" disproves that assertion.

So they came up with the words "publisher" and "pioneer" to use in its place.

snowbird

Seems like the further back you go the more the terminology frankly related to a commercial enterprise. The whole thing started as nothing more sophisticated than a goddamned (take your pick) McDonalds, Amway, Knapp Shoes, etc... franchise.

Yet, this Mammon was overlaid with such a veneer of spirituality that it hooked the best of us.

Sylvia

VM44

Let us ask this very simple question, From what source did The Watchtower receive its income?

The answer: From book and magazine sales!

Why do you think that The Golden Age magazine was published? Because The Watchtower had excess printing capacity. The presses were idle after they had finished the print run for The Watchtower magazine. This represented a loss of potential revenue, hence the creation of a new magazine (really a tabloid), The Golden Age, in the year 1919.

MONEY is the reason that The Watchtower has published so many book, brochures, booklets and magazines over the years.

james_woods

VM44 is obviously right. And, paradoxically, money is also the reason that they are now cutting back on the publications, bound volumes, etc.

I think that losing on the sales tax issue is proving to be a very significant turning point for the tower.

Hortensia

that's interesting. I looked into forming a non-profit corporation a while ago. If non-profits engage in business they have to pay tax on the portion of their income from business activities. If they are telling you how much to pay them for the mags, that's a business activity, isn't it? But they don't pay taxes on that income.

VM44

If non-profits engage in business they have to pay tax on the portion of their income from business activities. If they are telling you how much to pay them for the mags, that's a business activity, isn't it?

The Watchtower got away with doing that for decades. When they were faced with paying a tax, the magazines set price was removed and they went to a donation basis.

They didn't receive enough income so they stopped mail subscriptions and reduced publication of the Awake! to once a month.

The cash-flow isn't what it used to be.

tfjw

rendezvous
colporteur
back calls
Ahhhh, I remember those well.

And everybody was basically a "servant" back then as someone in a reply above said. These words were still used by some of the old timers like myself for years after they changed them to what they're using now.

Now the Society is nothing but a publishing company and members (a.k.a. "publishers") are distributors of a product manufactured by the publishing firm and Kingdom Halls are local franchises.

No matter what they say, they're still peddlers.

Did you ever look up the word Colporteur?

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