Annual Report

by St George of England 88 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  TheOldHippie

  Slim, in stead of writing about the "real growth" for which I am ridiculed every year, I will rename it "new faces in the congregations".

  Some years ago, the WT stated some 1 per cent were df'ed in a given year, and 1 per cent left for other reasons. And in any given population, 1 per cent die within a year. That sums up to 3 per cent. So from 2023 to 2024, there was a loss of - to be utterly exact - 258,751. The growth was at 203,082. That means there were 461,833 new faces. Not all of these were new faces, as the report itself stated that 65,816 former publishers returned. So the number of new faces or names in the registers of publishers was 396,017 or 4.6 per cent. Better than your observations among other Scottish groups.
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  Vidiot

  Ugh, too many numbers, headache… 😵‍💫
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  Jeffro

  I noticed that they have started reporting activity for Monaco, and they call it a 100% increase over the previous year. That isn’t how math works.
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  Beth Sarim

  Jeffro;

  Actually I think it could be called....""massaging the numbers"".
• 

  Jeffro

  Beth Sarim:

  Actually I think it could be called....""massaging the numbers"".

  Indeed. It seems they don’t understand that presenting a growth rate where there is no previous value would actually be an invalid division by zero and so growth should be left blank or otherwise similarly noted for new entries. (And Monaco apparently wasn’t counted as one of the 33 ‘other countries’ before, which hasn’t changed.)

  Their growth rate percentages are usually accurate, and demonstrably based on the average publisher figures and not the peak (which is less reliable and can count some members twice). But in their public FAQ page about how many JWs there are, they promote the peak figure instead.
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  Jeffro

  Some years ago, the WT stated some 1 per cent were df'ed in a given year, and 1 per cent left for other reasons. And in any given population, 1 per cent die within a year. That sums up to 3 per cent. So from 2023 to 2024, there was a loss of - to be utterly exact - 258,751.

  There’s a few layers of compounded error in arriving at this purportedly ‘exact’ figure. The percentages given were only ever round figures and are not by any means recent.
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  joe134cd

  I totally believe Wt counting methods are accurate and correct. It generally aligns with the census of x2, and the census roughly aligns with memorial figures, of around 20 million attendees. Weather you take 9 million Wt count or 20 million memorial count, it's entirely up to you
• 

  TheOldHippie

  Jeffro stated, " It seems they don’t understand that presenting a growth rate where there is no previous value would actually be an invalid division by zero and so growth should be left blank or otherwise similarly noted for new entries. (And Monaco apparently wasn’t counted as one of the 33 ‘other countries’ before, which hasn’t changed.)"

  There HAS been a previous value, there have been JWs in Monaco for decades, so the unchanged number of "other countries" just means that a new country has entered the group.

  The 1980 YB stated about Monaco that " The small independent principality of Monaco on the Mediterranean seacoast comes under the jurisdiction of the France branch. As you may know, this is the home of the famous Monte Carlo gambling resort. Although house-to-house witnessing among Monaco’s 27,000 inhabitants is forbidden, publishers from the French Beausoleil Congregation have regularly preached there. By 1978 there were seven active Witnesses in Monaco."
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  blondie

  A well-known quote about statistics is, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics," often attributed to Mark Twain, highlighting the potential for manipulation with statistical data.