Notes From the Annual Meeting - Oct 3, 2009 (page 7)

willyloman

Translation of the minutes from Annual Meeting:

"The generation you thought I was talking about is not the generation you thought I meant."

sir82

the new policy of allowing both parents to count the family study. Previously only the "family head" could count it.

FYI, just a clarification, the new adjustment is that the spouse can count the time spent in studying with unbaptized children, but not the study itslf (nor the RVs). There still should only be one study reported, by the father.

But I do suspect the new peaks in Bible studies are a direct result of canceling one meeting night per week and emphasizing "family study". If the congregations I have attended are typical, I'd say less than half of families with unbaptized children regularly studied with them. If the family study rate jumped from, say, 40% to 70% due to one more "free" evening per week, that would explain many thousands more studies being recorded.

That, and maybe others had the same erroneous idea about counting the study - and neither the Society nor the elders care about the accuracy of any individual's report, just "get it in on time".

Also, the point about Latinos is true - in the Spanish congregations around here, there are still literally dozens of new studies monthly, and baptism rates at assemblies and conventions are triple or more what you see for English congregations. As of 5 years ago, 25% of US JWs were in Spanish congregations; I have to believe the ratio is much higher, maybe 30% or more, by now.

Hispanics are joining at a higher rate than English speaking JWs are leaving - thus a net gain. That trend will probably continue for a while.

I've also noticed that when English speaking JWs get disfellowshipped, the return rate is less than 50%. Hispanic JWs get DF'ed just as much, if not more, than their gringo counterparts, but the rate of return is much higher - maybe 80 or 90%.

dissed

The 'new understanding' on Family Bible study counting and partial-hours on field service reports explains the distortion.

The facts are, the work is contracting. If it was as the FS report indicated, the KH's would be bursting and the calls would be out for Bethel expansion.

Are the JW's that stupid to buy such spin?

Is this a case of intellectual dishonesty to fool the faithful?

"Could be?!".....as the wise scholar Bugs Bunny once said

sir82

The facts are, the work is contracting. If it was as the FS report indicated, the KH's would be bursting

Keep in mind the US is a big country. What you see in your neighborhood is unlikely to reflect trends in other areas.

Without exposing too much detail, I live in the US Southeast. Here, Kingdom Halls really are "bursting at the seams". It is quite common for Kingdom Halls to host 4 or even 5 congregations, and double halls can host 8 or more congregations. The RBC is enormously busy, projects every weekend. A new Assembly Hall is being built, because the closest one literally ran out of open weekends - some Sapnish congregations rent facilities for their CAs.

Why the big influx? 2 main reasons: (1) Huge Latino population, mostly recent immigrants working construction. The immigration has slowerd or perhaps even reverses, but there are still 10's of thousands of Latinos still around and vulnerable to the JW sales pich.

(2) Population shift. Yankees swooping in and retiring here. Florida is pretty much passe as a retirement site, so we get hundreds of northerners moving in. Even English speaking congregations are "growing", in the sense that the number of publishers is increasing. Of course, that is at the expense of northern congregations shrinking, consolidating, even shutting down.

Due to those 2 issues, it is not surprising at all to me that (1) the JW counts continue to inch upwards - as I noted earlier, more Latinos are joining up than English=speakers are leaving - and (2) KH construction is booming, at least in certain regions.

Anyways, enough highjacking - see my earlier post, we may be reading too much into the AGM notes.

metatron

Wow! an increase in publishers! So, where's the money?

an increase in pioneers! where's the money?

Where are the donations? Why all the cuts? Layoffs? No subscriptions? No food service at assemblies?

You have a choice: believe the Society's claims of growth or consider the lack of donations. Which tells you the truth about the health of the organization?

metatron

logic

I do believe the monkeys have taken over the zoo. This generation change thing may break

the record for the sodom and gomorah thing. I thought I was keeping up with the generation crap

but this takes the cake. I defy any jw anywhere to explain this . This is a desparate attempt to

to keep 1914. You would think these sinile fools would just give up , shut up and go away.

yknot

Well that sounds like a very disappointing AGM!

For the love of Money, Power and Influence.....please let them drop the subject of 1914 already!

Damn disappointing!

moshe

Blondie, I too am appalled at the comment that nobody died from the recent tsunami- I guess 150 Samoans who weren't JW's have no value as human beings in the eyes of the GB.

OnTheWayOut

Okay, just so we are all on the same page- Only one parent counts the study, but both count the time. But with one less meeting a week and the Borg wanting to have everyone have a "Family Study Night," the elders must be pushing all families to at least mark down a study with their children, and the parent does it to keep the elders off his back even if he rarely studies with the kids (highlighting the WT mag with them occasionally).

I don't know how fast the Spanish are "coming in" in the U.S. but the growth is 4% according to this report. The growth has to be beyond the number lost to DF/DA/Inactivity. Well, he only said the "PEAK" for July and August was that high. That is not the average. So that's not very much growth at all if you consider that the elders collect all the missing reports for several months by the end of August and they boost the peak. I would bet that the growth is that and Spanish children more than anything else, and Spanish moving from their home country to the U.S. that were already JW.

I am no expert and maybe there is "growth" but I highly doubt it. Even if so, 4% in peak publishers is pretty low for all those hours of recruiting.
If Latinos are studying and getting baptized in droves, then English must be leaving in droves.

Logic said: I thought I was keeping up with the generation crap

but this takes the cake. I defy any jw anywhere to explain this.

Me too. The overlap thing will mostly be ignored. But it does seem to be put in place to try to get a sense of urgency back into the members. Don't forget the psychological barrier of 2014 coming up in 4 years and a couple months.

stillajwexelder

The smell of bullshit on this 1914 is so strong. I can smell it here in Kansas City

Notes From the Annual Meeting - Oct 3, 2009

Share this