New Zealand bethel is to be closed down.

by karter 80 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  "Maybe the organisation is in more trouble than we thought."

  I'm thinking that is the case. Since none of the current GB are economists, financial planners, or have any education outside of reading Awake!, they don't have the training or experience to run the cult. My estimation of those guys is that if they had the cash, they would try to keep things running "business as usual." Certainly, the "true believer" mentality would be to spend it all before it's destroyed at the big A, very soon now. Evidently, WT can't afford "business as usual," so they have to get cash. And they've decided that selling some of this hard earned real estate as the easiest way to get money.
• 

  ziddina

  "which other bethels have been closed down recently? I only know of Ireland and now NZ...." Princess Cynic, page #1

  Spain's "Bethel" has closed...

  And America's "Bethel" is cutting back, probably to be closed within a decade....
• 

  james_woods

  And America's "Bethel" is cutting back, probably to be closed within a decade....

  Wonder if they will still call it "Bethel", when they bunker down in Wallkill?
• 

  pontoon

  Billy the ex....... I think I have to disagree. I think it's because they have financial planners, economists, and educated people on board they are making changes, closing branches, selling property.........

  Also, I might add, I doubt the GB are even much involve in this. We know it's the lawyers, accountants and business office that runs Wat. Corp.
• 

  ziddina

  " personally I think this sell off of peripheral Bethels is a mistake. For one thing , selling off properties at what may well be the bottom of the property cycle is a bad move - the Irish Bethel is still dormant & unsold at half the price the WTBTS could have got for it a few years ago. Also the lack of any kind of centre for the WTBTS in a country and control from a centre many miles away must make things more difficult to manage. ..." Dozy, page #2

  Yet more evidence that they are selling real estate in desperation, rather than being in a healthy financial position that would allow them to hold the assets for a few years - or even a few decades - until the market is much more favorable.
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  pontoon, It has been a while, so I won't pretend to know the insides anymore. WT certainly does have lawyers, but I can't think of anybody in Bethel that was really financially saavy in any of the departments I was involved with. I saw that bethel could be cheap with some supplies and equipment... but then thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of dollars would get spent on equipment that nobody knew how to operate (or buying junk that had to be rebuilt, but never worked), and later it would be sold for pennies on the dollar. As long as people kept sending in money and there were plenty of volunteer workers, they could plaster over all the stupid mistakes they wasted money on.

  I haven't yet taken many classes in economics or business, but the WT plan to close and sell branches sounds like a disaster. It might help the bottom line at the moment, but it seems terrible for the long term. By selling branches, WT is giving up their 'presence' in some very Catholic countries.
• 

  Sic Semper Tyrannis

  I think that historically the WTS has placed branches in places for 'exotic' appeal rather than logical reasons. Why else would they maintain branches in Alaska and Hawaii for all of those years instead of just running them out of Brooklyn? They wanted to paint an idealistic picture for Witnesses that the message was being preached to Eskimos on the tundra and to natives in hula skirts in some tropical locale. Today they still have branches in the Faroe Islands and Greenland, both lands of roughly 50,000 people. Why? They could be easily run out of Denmark, since both lands are a part of Denmark and Danish is a common language to all three lands. Instead they close a branch in a land of over 4 million people. Maybe they'll consolidate the Faroe Islands and Greenland branches into the Danish branch. Or maybe they'll justify it due to the differences in the Faroese and Greenlandic languages. Who knows what they're thinking over in Brooklyn and Patterson? For whatever reason, they decided the NZ branch was suddenly expendable. If Lloyd Barry were still around, the NZ branch would have never been shuttered.
• 

  steve2

  If Lloyd Barry were still around, the NZ branch would have never been shuttered.

  This speaks to the sharp differences between the different generations at the helm. I'm sure that any of the other GB who were Lloyd Barry's contemporaries would have moved heaven and earth to prevent the closure of local bethel offices. Bethel offices were a powerful way to both "advertise" the official JW-presence and to control the rank and file. I'd say none of the current GB would have been contemporaries from the Knorr- and (Fred) Franz-eras.

  To be fair, though, each succeeding generation of JW leaders moves it further and further away from its earlier peculiarity to a more modern-variant. Just as Chuck Russell would have spun in his grave at Rutherford's seismic changes, so Rutherford would have thrown hand grenades from his grave if he could at the "softening" work of the bland Knorr era. As for Knorr he'd be in absolutely no doubt: The modern-breed of JWs are limp-wristed dumbos who can barely string a row of scriptures together without feeling faint. Poor dears...
• 

  factfinder

  I was also going to say that if the original gb were still around, most, if not all, of the changes would not have or would not be taking place.

  The new gb are running the jw religion to the ground.

  I felt sad reading the dedication comments from the 1987 w about the New Zealand branch. None of the 7 idiots that are now the gb were there back then.

  Didn't someone on jwn once mention the society is planning to go down to 75 branches? I thought I read that here.

  They will most likely close all of the small branches. I would not be too surpriced if they close the one in Austrailia too, and have the UK branch take over for them, and eventually close the UK branch and have the one in Germany take over for it.

  They probably WILL combine the branches in Norway, Denmark and Sweden into one.

  Has that been officially announced too?

  I wonder if all of these branch office closings are upsetting to any of the publishers?

  About the time I was giving up going to the meetings they had announced the ending of mail subscriptions for the w & g and the plan to move all printing and binding in Brooklyn to Wallkill. They had already sold the massive 360 Furman St building.

  These things greatly disturbed me and contributed to my no longer going to meetings.

  I imagine if I had somehow continued on, these branch office closings, the plan to sell off Brooklyn Bethel and the 16 page magazines would have been the final straw for me.

  I wonder if there will be any publisher decreases in New Zealand due to the branch closing?
• 

  slimboyfat

  I think it's interesting the Austrian branch was closed despite it being Gerrit Loesch's former fiefdom. No sentimentality or favouritism there.

  The closures have got to impact morale. What message does it send to Witnesses in Spain, Ireland, Austria and so on that they are not important enough to have a branch any more. It must feel like being abandoned. It probably won't help them getting taken seriously in countries where their religious status is called into question either.