WTS Plan to Improve Stats (page 4)

ballistic

Do not be fooled into thinking that this change will affect the TREND of falling publisher numbers. It will only cause a blip in numbers in the year of it's introduction because there is only ever a limited number of these elderly / invalids, for obvious reasons; they die.
This change would only have on-going effects if the actual witnessing (all be it 15 mins) generated converts which would otherwise not be contacted through other means. Therefore, a graph of publisher numbers would most probably show a small one-time step up in the 2001/2002 service year only, and the over-all downward trend will continue.

This is a feeble attempt at hiding the dropping numbers in many countries which is becoming indefencible from the point of view of the end being due.

MadApostate

In ISP's thread, I posted that it was my recollection that the WTS allows JWs to count "family studies" as BSs, so long as it includes nonbaptized ones. Is that correct? I stopped reporting time back in the late 80s, and can't remember if that had already been started or whether I heard about it later.

Anyway, if true, that means that elders, mss, and the wanna-bes provide a large "foundation" number of BSs, which amounts to a inaccurate picture of such, and I suspect was instituted for the same reason as the new "15 ounce Pub".

PS: How long will it be before they can count time for bumperstickers!

Thirdson

I'm not sure that the change will cause much of a blip. What tends to happen with low hour publishers is that their time gets counted when they reach one hour of time. With an extra push periodically these publishers will report something and this swells the number of publishers reporting and hence creates the "peak" which is reported by the WTS.

The 15 minute reporting rule may increase the "average number of publishers" but it will reduce the "peak". If you look at the US figures for 2000 the average number of publishers stayed about the same. There was a sizeable drop in the "peak" number.

Fiddling with the figures doesn't solve the root cause of the problem. With CBSOs demanding to know the time the group members did each month I can imagine the last and first Tuesday's (or Thursday) group attendance will plummet.

Thirdson

'To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing'

LovesDubs

What this LOVING provision ends up doing is pissing off a LOT of elders who already have too much damn stuff to do in their lives and now have to go chasing after the elderly, infirm and lazy in PERSON to get their time sheets! And...when no time is available from Sister Senile does she become inactive and then not counted at ALL in Jehovahs Witnesses...or are their exceptions to THAT rule as well now?
Another thing that will happen is that the number of hours might increase which is I think like 1.5 billion or something...and that in turn when compared to the actual number of people BAPTIZED every year will make the preaching work results even MORE pathetic! Last time I checked...and I have to do this for this year too...the number of hours divided by the number baptized resulted in each and every one of those new ONES having needed a year and a half of TIME spent on them at like 8 hours a day, 7 days a week 52 days a year which...obviously didnt happpen. LOL! And...if you consider that the great majority of NEW ONES are KIDS of JWs and not recruits off the street the numbers are even MORE pathetic.

Soon, I predict, they will have some NEW LIGHT from Jehooover who will tell them that it is indeed proper to count as JWs those UNBAPTIZED PUBLISHERS since hey...they preach therefore they Dub. And then it will be children of JWs even tho they arent preaching yet...they are righteous by their parents baptism, then it will be dogs and CATTLE of unbaptised kids of JWs since they are righteous by association with the JWs....and on and on...anything to keep those NUMBERS up!

Ray Franz comments on this in Crisis of Conscience (Commentary Presss pages 280-281):

Regarding a conversation with Rene Vasquez..."The night Rene came by our room he had been attending a seminar for elders arranged by the Society. We discussed his impressions which were basically favorable. At one point in the converation, however, he said, "It seems to me as if we almost worship figures. Sometimes I wish we would do away completely with reports." By reports he was referring to the system of having each Witness turn in report slips each month listing what "witnessing" activity was done, including hours spent, literature distributed, and so forth." ... footnote 21: The importance given to these reports is undeniable. Every Witness reports to the congregation, every congregation reports to the Branch Office of their country, every Branch Office sends a detailed monthly report to the international headquarters where these monthly reports are complied, averages are figured, percentages of increase are noted. They are studied with the same avid interset that a large corporation would study the figures of its production records, its business growth; any fluctuations or downward trends in the number of Witnesses reporting time, the hours reported or the distribution of literature, become cuases for concern. Branch represetatives become uneasy if the monthly reports for their country fail to show increase, or, worse, show a decrease."

Get Crisis of Conscience at:

http://freeminds.org/sales/most_burned.htm

Scully

Pathofhorns writes:

The term "loving provision from Jehovah" was used to introduce the hour reduction for pioneers from 90 to 70 per month. It also appears to have accompanied these new arrangements.

It seems the logic in reducing the number of hours to qualify as a pioneer would have been to make pioneering more accessible for the average JW. After all, it wasn't long ago that the hour requirement for auxiliary pioneers was 60 per month. But it's interesting that even with this 'loving provision', there still aren't the numbers of pioneers that there once was.

The "herd" seems to be getting pretty tired of all that "prodding".

Love, Scully

It is not persecution for an informed person to expose a certain religion as being false. - WT 11/15/63

Mrs Rocky

Just a note on counting family Bible study, if I remember correctly, the family head can only count up to 4 hours a month. Don't know if that's changed - haven't been to a Sales - oops, Service Meeting for about 3 years.

Mrs Rocky

ballistic

that was how I understood it. It worked out that an elder, with the family study and his other duties he was allowed to count got in over the required average hours without knocking one door.

metatron

The 15 minute scam will promote lying by elders
(not that they need much help).

Brother Overworked will get tired of visiting Sister
Braindead in the nursing home to collect her 15 minutes.
He will simply write her down as a publisher until she
dies. Today's WT talked about a great tree falling down
because it rotted away inside - the old farts are encouraging
that rot.

metatron

MadApostate

Thanks for the answers regarding the counting of time and BSs for "family studies", but has such "ALWAYS" been the case? Some old things I remember perfectly, but some like this, I've completely forgotten. I thought that the counting of such had a beginning sometime in the past couple decades?

Oh well, MET:

Not only will some elders eventually start "assuming" time for the "15 ouncers", but it will be only a matter of time before Bro/Sis Elderly turns in time for a month or so after they are long gone. Those elders will have some egg to scrape off their faces.

Mrs Rocky

To MadApostate:

1983, Organized to Accomplish Our Ministry, page 104: "Those giving public talks may count the time spent delivering these, and a parent may count up to one hour each week when studying with his or her undedicated children." The "Organization" book, the OM predecessor published in 1972, does not appear to address how to count family study time on the field service report.

Mrs Rocky

WTS Plan to Improve Stats

Share this