World Wide Construction comes to a Shuddering Halt - Jehovah's Blessing has Evidently been Suspended! (page 6)

OrphanCrow

did not fall in line with the allowable exemptions for non-profit status. and all volunteers have to receive minimum wages, taxed and unemployment, health premiums paid. retroactively.

LevelThePlayingField

Now hold up a minute. I don't think WTS is as broke as we may think. Here's why:

Their accounts probably told them, "Stop! You are starting to touch the cushion money." And how much is that "cushion" money is the real mystery. You KNOW there is a cushion of something, they just didn't run out of money completely. They are not that dumb.

So how many more millions do they have?

Lee Elder

Difficult to budget for multi-million dollar judgements to say nothing of settlements that happen "out of court" and we don't hear about - I'm sure there are plenty of those. The other factor is that the WTS, at least when I was congregation secretary, was doing in house "self-insuring" to save money. That was one of the reasons for halls not having windows - to reduce break ins. What this suggests to me is that they probably do not have any errors and omissions or liability insurance. If so, they have no choice but to pay these judgements and settlement out of pocket. I don't believe that their pockets are deep enough to handle this. There is a very real chance they will face insolvency imo.

Lieu

Sorry about that "dislike" Lee Elder, I touched the wrong thing. Tablets are a pain for small links.

Tornintwo

I agree with 'level theplayingfield' I don't think they'll be on the brink yet, but it is quite a turn around on the construction.

i wonder if they got some new financial gurus in (non yes-men) to do a financial health check and they said "whooooaaa boys you're going to get yourselves in a mess if you carry on like this"..... They try to boost donations but it doesn't work so they have to call a halt to most construction. It makes sense to push ahead with Warwick because then they'll be able to sell the remaining buildings in Brooklyn which will free up cash to probably save the day and enable the other construction to start again.

in the meantime they cut costs where they can, the financial guys have probably highlighted how expensive the bethels are and other unnecessary expenses (a knowledgable bro told me a few years back that the 'voluntary workers' are a LOT more costly than regular employees). they introduce some exciting changes at meetings, more emphasis on preaching to get everyone excited about the imminent end and hopefully they'll start donating more again!

Ruby456

wonder if this has anything to do with a bill making its way through uk parliament

http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2015/june/lords-charities-bill/

members of the Lords offered broad support for the bill, but called for additional powers for the Charity Commission and extra responsibilities for charities to be added. Several members identified the issue of proper protection for vulnerable people and children as an area which needs more consideration as the bill progresses.

The bill is designed to protect charities from people who present a risk of abuse, and give the Charity Commission for England and Wales new and tougher powers to tackle serious abuse of charities.
It also seeks to give charities a new legal power to invest their funds in a way that provides a financial return, and furthers the charity’s aims.

baldeagle

This news makes me feel happified.

steve2

The new meeting format appears to be an attempt to put the door-to-door work back in focus. The unintentional effect of theliterature trolley work is it seemed to suggest the door-to-door work was now a secondary focus. I suspect there's been a drop-off in witnessing in many lands.

konceptual99

Good point Steve. Perhaps the powers that be have realised that the actual conversion rate of the trollies is so small they have no way of growing a new subscriber base from it.

The more I think about the implications of losing charity status I wonder if there is something in this behind some of the behaviour. Maybe not a key driver but perhaps someone has done a risk assessment on the implications.

Vidiot

konceptual99 - "Perhaps the powers that be have realised that the actual conversion rate of the trollies is so small they have no way of growing a new subscriber base from it."

The WT ministry hasn't been about ''conversion'' for a long time, now.

It's about demonstrating loyalty and obedience.

World Wide Construction comes to a Shuddering Halt - Jehovah's Blessing has Evidently been Suspended!

prologos