Report on Jacksonville losing WT convention (page 2)

Marvin Shilmer

Yes, Maximus, you hit on one of the most frustrating realities facing JWs. Those who are best postured to affect good are too often hindered from sharing how they really feel! Frustration is not strong enough to describe an occasion of having to sit and listen to one of your closest compadres spew a bunch of nonsense they privately told you they disagreed with!

Farkel

Marvin,

: Take for instance this case in Jacksonville, FL.... The WTS has no qualms about sending thousand of friends further away to a convention site at far greater personal expense.

Point: the WTS cares more about itself than the "brothers" who support it and thus make it viable.

: I have seen the WTS pull out of a convention site for less than a thousand dollars difference, resulting in several thousand conventioneers having to spend hundreds of thousands on hotel and travel expenses that they would not have otherwise had to shoulder.

See my first comment.

: The WTS does not feel it loses in this effect because their statistical studies, I am told, indicate that conventioneers do not contribute any more or less regardless of personal expense to attend.

See my first comment.

: Therefore the WTS convention office has little motive, other than ethical, to shoulder some additional expense for the sake of saving hundreds of thousands on the part of my friends and brothers.

The irony of this is that the WTS is shafting the very people who make them viable: keep a thousand bucks for themselves and make the R&F pay hundreds of thousands so that they could save their thousand.

: This is why the worst side of these affairs is selfishness, selfishness at the friend’s expense.

Since when did the average "friend" mean anything to them, Marvin? "Friends" are "bodies" and "bodies" are always being replaced. Such has been the case since at most, 1909 or 1917.

: The WTS may or may not know it, but among local heavies this whole subject is becoming a very sore one. They would probably be surprised at what loyal JWs "in the know" are saying to one another about this.

The heat is on. May it ever burn hotter. It's time for a change. Or a fall. If the former proves true, it's "God's Will(tm)." If the latter proves true, it's also "God's Will(tm)."

I'm still addled as to how the WTS can think that everything that happens to them is "God's Will(tm)." That includes their various and sundry criminal activities. Like parking lot revenues they've foresworn not to collect. Will it ever end? We shall see.

Farkel

ozziepost

G'day Marvin and well done on an informative post.

Why do you suppose the WTS convention office doesn’t sponsor conventions in every location having JW demography able to support a district convention?

In years gone by, we were led to believe that holy spirit was involved in the choice of site for District Conventions! So, when a location was inconvenient to many, we obediently made our plans to attend, believing that in so doing we were following the Spirit's leading. Clearly we had it all wrong!

This reminds me of the change in the distribution arrangements for subscriptions. Here in Oz we had a change a few years back. This arrangement is known as the Club Subscription arrangement. Perhaps you have it in other countries too. No longer would subscriptions be sent in the mail. Instead the magazines (with address labels affixed) are sent to local congregations for them to distribute i.e. the publishers care for this. In practice what has happened in Oz is that it has been left to a few pioneers to drive around the territory delivering the magazines into household mailboxes. The Society has saved the postage, but the pioneers have borne the cost of petrol, etc in driving around in their vehicles. (BTW postage in Oz is 45 cents for a letter.) Somehow the Society got the elders to believe that this was a cost-saving for the Society. How many elders could see through this, I wonder.

Cheers,
Ozzie

Freedom is not having to wear a tie.

mustang

Wow!! U know (pardon the phrase), I've always wanted to say this:
They really are CHEAP, aren't they?

There is a word for that in the U.S.: chickenshit!!!

Mustang

Tina

Greetings!
Wow! Thank you expat,Marvin and posters.
This is really educational information. I never really knew how these behind the scenes negotioations worked before.
Looking forward to learning more on this. regards,Tina

Prisca

Ozzie, the pioneers must have complained. My mags are now sent thru the post.

Also, aren't there ANY witnesses in Tampa?

I just find the "aww, we had to travel" whine a bit silly, considering that many others have to travel long distances each year to travel to their convention.

When I was a JW, I lived in a country town where the Circuit stretched for over 500miles north to south, east to west. To compensate for this, the circuit assemblies were alternated between two towns. One town would hold it for one assembly, the other town would hold the next assembly. So those who lived in the east spent no more than those who lived in the west. It was a fair deal.

LovesDubs

Sounds like the Society is waiting for somebody to give them facilities for FREE. Like as if bringing all those Dubs into the city for two days does anything REALLY for the economy of the area. They are absolutely the cheapest people on the planet. They dont TIP and they destroy hotel rooms and have bratty kids like anyone else. They dont go touring during the day, they are in the meeting hall all the time except for the few who escape to eat outside the confines, and then go back to the hotel and back home afterwards. The locals businesses might as well have fire ants invade.

We used to have our conventions at Sportsmans Park, a horse racing track in Chicago. We came in and cleaned that place from top to bottom and were told to bring our own cleaning materials and brooms. The brothers took care of the grounds the whole time including doing repairs and maintenance and painting if need be, and we scrubbed the slimey men's rooms and filthy scummy floors and sat there with the smell of horse manure wafting in on the July winds...our eyes following all the planes taking off from Midway Airport...wishing to hell we were on one. The Society's slave labor took really good care of those facilities and Im sure was getting them for next to nothing. Convention EXPENSES? For what?? Brothers did the shipping, brothers did the purchasing, brothers did the delivering, brothers did the cleaning, brothers did the wiring of the sound systems and built the stages and brothers brought the flowers and brothers distributed the magazines and hauled the garbage out...what FREAKIN expenses are we talkin here? Electricity for the A/C and the sound? And STILL they whined and whined everyday about giving more more more!! And it turns out most of that was sent to the Society...not used for expenses incurred for the site.

AND....they charged for parking by the axel. Gawd I hated hated hated going to District Assemblies. It was shear torture.

Now Im in West Palm Beach Florida...and grateful to have NO WHERE TO HAVE TO GO and sit on my ars for three ankle swelling days.

Tina

OMG ((((((((((((((((Dubs)))))))))))lol
I cleaned at Sportman's too! lol
An experience I told myself I would NEVER repeat ugh.......Im gonna have nightmares about the crusted filth in the mens rooms tonight lol.

And you're dead on about them being the cheapest peeps in the world......we had talk after talk every year about 'tipping' seems that the bros and sis continued to think leaving magazines in restaurants,and for housekeeping was a good enuff tip lolol....... and always about how 'some' abused the facilities-they had absolutely NO repsect for the places they stayed,kids ran around like animals unsupervised etc etc etc.....
Even while a dub I was embarrassed and ashamed at the way they behaved...................Cheers sweetie! Tina

Hey Loves,just thinking here,did you help build in Romeoville too? I did-slaved away on that monstrosity(got baptized there too) ugh

joelbear

Money makes ze world go round.

LOL. I find this very humorous.

I lived in Jacksonville for 7 years and often helped out in the audit department at the conventions since I had been a bank teller and could count money very fast. There has always been a lot of powerful rich witnesses in Jacksonville. I bet they are irritated at this change.

And by the way, it was Jacksonville Beach that I went to with Judah Benjamin Schroeder. I thought y'all should know that.

Why in the world Shroeder would like Jax Beach is beyond me. It is hideous. Probably the ugliest beach on the Atlantic side of Florida.

Sigh. I have spent many many weekends in that Jacksonville Coliseum.
Brings back a lot of memories. My congregation from Valdosta used to run a concession stand every year at the convention. I remember how rude most witnesses were, pushing and shoving to get something to eat.

Sigh, heavy sigh.

hugs

Joel

LovesDubs

"Hey Loves,just thinking here,did you help build in Romeoville too? I did-slaved away on that monstrosity(got baptized there too) ugh"

Nah..I managed to steer clear of bulding that place, tho my husband who is a contractor, got dragged down there. We lived in Schaumburg. We did go to conventions there tho. My step father in law designed the sound system there and my sister in law apparently helped make those huge gray/maroon (I think) curtains that were all up along over the stage, I think to cover the speakers there. It was a pretty nice dig. I believe they told us that it was self contained, that when the tribulation came we would be able to live there with our own bomb shelter and generators and some such nonsense. That cute little bridge over "paradise" out back was a nice touch :) I got baptized in Janesville WI.

Loves
(still picking horse patties outta her nails)

Report on Jacksonville losing WT convention

Share this