Blondie,
Thanks for that; it fits the close/combine/consolidate strategy I see occurring. Using existing assets is a plus, as it shifts O&M costs for a non-production sunk cost to the production costs for a production unit (KH).
I can close my eyes and 'see' the spreadsheet they have built. The rows are the easy part - they are the however many thousands of congregations/KHs. The columns are the genius of the spreadsheet, including the types of data they will evaluate and the math/weightings they give to each, for which congregations get new KHs, which are combined and which ones just have to make do (run to fail or at best maintain at the minimal level). I could build this thing on my own in a few days.
Columns would include: Existing options (such as the assembly halll you just mentioned) for combining and consolidating - and potentially enabling closing. That would have the highest weighting. Other columns: b. zip code/zone; c. Historical and projected population change; d. Historical and projected income levels; e. Historical and projected educational levels; f. Historical and projected changes in racial/ethnic makeup of population (weighted higher than simple populaton growth); g. age and current condition of KH; h. Whether KH is shared and by how many congs.; i. Whether KH is paid for; j. Low-cost transportation available (poor congs. without would be rated high but poor congs with low cost and available public transportation would be rated lower); and k. Historical and projected growth (past/future 10 years for publishers- congregations with high recent growth of newbies would be weight higher than established congregations with little or no growth. Those with high projected growth would be weighted high. This is the second most important column, as the math would include weightings from other columns, such as ethnicity, income, education levels of population).
If you tied this thing in with real time census data the damn thing could run on its own. The Dark Lords could make decisions simply based on the math. Likely, well established and financially ok congs. would wait a long time for a new KH or serious maintenance for existing. Based on what some have stated, the the Dark Lords expect the KHs to send them a monthly check AND put some $ away to fix things, this seems to be exactly where they are going.
White, middle class congs. with low growth would be the last to receive any assistance. Wealthy congregations, because of their wealth, would likely fare better even though they would mathematically not do so well in the spreadsheet. The Dark Lords would either call these 'exigent' circumstances or more likely create a column which allowed them to weight wealthy congs. higher. It wouldn't be a 'legitimate' dataset or weighting, but the Dark Lords could soothe their consciences about favoring wealthy peolple by blaming it in on the math.
The decisions would be made for them. Other than tweaking the formulas and the weightings, seriously lurkers, this thing could run on its own.
