Posts by dozy

19

Christmas Decorations at the Kingdom hall

by Simon in

i can't remember if i've told this story before .... but back in the day, in irlam congregation (northwest england, uk, cheshire #1 circuit i think) we used to rent a kingdom hall for many years before we eventually built our own.. preston hall.

ah, the memories .... it was primarily used as a community hall for old folks, but we had it friday night and sunday morning.. there was a loft and fold-out ladder and we used to store the chairs up their.

every meeting, there would be an assembly line of all the "lads" to pass the chairs down and set them up, then collect them up and pass them back up at the end of the meeting.

dozy

Back in the day three day elder and MS schools were usually held just after Christmas or New Year ( for all I know they still are).

Anyway - ours was scheduled for 26th and 27th Dec and was located in a hotel with a large function room and we arrived to find it totally festooned with Christmas decorations. There was some rather heated discussions going on with the rather skeleton holiday hotel staff. As somewhat of a token gesture , a large inflatable Santa and reindeer were eventually wheeled out (to a few ironic claps) , but the rest of the decorations stayed - including a massive Christmas tree. it was a very large and high room and logistically it would have been impossible to remove everything - and the hotel staff just weren't having it - you could hear them quite rightly saying that no request had been made in advance to remove the decorations.

So we had the rather surreal setting of a two day elders meeting discussing the importance of "following theocratic order" held with lots of Christmas bunting and supposed "pagan" symbols everywhere. I was already somewhat PIMO and looking back , the hypocrisy and irony of the situation was just another stage in the awakening process. It was the last elders school I ever attended.

25

New convention video: Do you see what I see?

by neat blue dog in

.

dozy

The guy does have a beard - it is standard stock footage. I guess he is supposed to be a "worldly" guy in contemplation - just ready to transform his life by attending a convention. For all of their studios , the Org still use a huge amount of bought in "wordly" material in their content . The opening shot of cars on a freeway is from Moscow - again , stock footage.

https://stock.adobe.com/uk/video/at-sunset-waking-guy-through-the-beach-side-beside-the-sea-he-have-a-meditation-time-alone/384957819?prev_url=detail

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-1039103963-beautiful-top-view-autonomous-cars-self-driving-on

45

Ramapo

by Mit123 in

how much is ramapo going to cost?

my daughter in africa meets in a cow shed for her meetings.

i wonder how many khs in africa they could build if they dropped ramapo?.

dozy

The $160 million figure is for the residences only. The total figure would be much higher , but remember that most of the cost is done by virtually free labour , which is the highest element of most building costs , so the value is much higher. The whole point of these projects is to build tax free with "slave" labour , hold for a few years , sell , repeat.

16

Almost got caught lying about listening in to yesterday's Memorial

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

i have not attended any kingdom hall meetings in 10 years.

the elders gave up on me a while ago.. the last 3 years i get phone calls to listen in to zoom meetings.

listened in several times... nothing has changed!

dozy

It seems a bit strange that the Org puts so much emphasis on passing the emblems even to the rather theatrical method of serving the servers , yet they are comfortable with people dialling in via Zoom for the memorial.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

dozy

Am I missing something? if he has 500 patrons paying (on average , lets say) £10 - £20 a month plus a bit of income from Youtube ads and occasional live streams - how is that so bad? As a side hustle - in addition to a job - it seems a pretty good income to me - even if you have to pay Tibor to edit the videos (which is hardly rocket science these days).

23

Cost of living crisis

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

during the height of the pandemic all elders had to report to the co anyone who was struggling with bills or who couldn’t pay the rent.

the co reported it to the branch.. i don’t know what happens next.

do the branch help at all?

dozy

I remember when I was an elder quite regularly in elders meetings we would have a discussion about a needy JW in the congregation who was saying they couldn't afford to go to the convention or pay their electric bill or whatever. The problem was that we weren't allowed to use congregation funds for this kind of purpose ( this was before the Society appropriated them all ) and because an announcement was made every month about how funds were spent it would have had to include such an announcement.

What tended to happen is that one of the elders would say that they would give (say) $100 to the sister and deduct $20 a month from their donations for the next 5 months so in essence the congregation would be paying. I actually did this myself a couple of times. It was the only way we could work things around.

18

Do the old boys on the GB actually report their field service hours?

by eyeslice in

this came to mind as my 71 year old wife got up at 6:30 to drive 1.1/4 hours to meet the field ministry group.

we live a long way from the kingdom hall and the traffic is horrendous where we live!.

somehow, i doubt the good old boys do much themselves.

dozy

Ray Franz said that the GB members did very little ministry (ISOCF P200).

Just my limited experience - there was a vacation home in my territory that the owner would only rent out to "higher-ups" in the Org as a freebie. Basically the more senior you were - the more chance you would have to stay there. So there were prominent JWs from all over the world - Construction Overseers , Regional Overseers , Branch committee members , Bethel Heavies- a Who's Who of JW top brass. I was a keyholder and myself and my wife would often clean it so we often would meet the occupants , who usually stayed for a week. Somewhat optimistically , the meeting times and field service times and locations were pinned up on a notice board inside. Occasionally they would turn up for a meeting (KH was only 10 minutes drive away. ) NEVER did anyone ever go to a scheduled field ministry arrangement. NEVER.

Regularly on meeting up I would ask them if they wanted to go out for an hour doing a few RVs close by and often my wife would ask the sister if she wanted to go on calls or a bible study. I supposed I had an assumption that as "spiritual people" they might want to do an hour on the ministry locally during the week. Virtually every single time the offers were kindly refused - I can honestly only think of a couple of occasions ( over 10 years ) that someone went on a study with my wife ( and the property was occupied almost every week of the year).

I actually mentioned this to the elders who visited me after I faded and one of them was honest enough to admit that it was something that really stumbled him as well.

I know these people were on vacation and the Society gave them very little time off but it does show the attitude towards field ministry by the higher ups in the Society that I would assume is mirrored by the GB.

7

question for those who had been elders on judicial committee

by enoughisenough in

i was wondering if some who may have been in the judgement seat ( so to speak ) had a wake-up call while judging someone who was defending leaving jw.

( or maybe it was from reading a letter of disassociation.

) .

dozy

Same as Blues Brother - nothing I saw in JCs raised any flags whatsoever.

The JCs I was involved in were the usual run of the mill - adultery cases, courting couples having pre-marital sex , smokers ( cigarettes , pot ) , boozers etc. Often repeat cases and most involving marginal JWs that basically believed but couldn't live up to the rules. Generally just private / public reproof - I think only two or three got DFd and they were pretty much open and shut cases. Apostasy cases were rather rare back then pre-internet - I never dealt with one.

19

Watchtower November 2022... Adapt to new adjustments and new changes

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

the watchtower—study edition | november 2022. study article 48. keep your senses when your loyalty is tested.

14 vlado, a 73-year-old elder in slovenia, struggled when his congregation merged with another congregation and the kingdom hall that he attended was closed.

he says: “i did not understand why such a beautiful kingdom hall would be closed.

dozy

The trend has got to be a further reduction in Kingdom Halls - if even 25% of JWs are accessing via Zoom (anecdotally , much more than this in some congregations) , inevitably many more KHs are going to be sold. And as much of the easier mergers / sell offs have already occurred , some of these sell-offs are really going to bite - JWs won't like the idea of driving 40 minutes or more to their new congregation.

20

Unmarried couple staying at my house

by suavojr in

jw
friends

i need your help with this topic.

i’m trying to find an elder’s letter or wt article that frown upon a good standing jw allowing an unmarried couple to stay over their house for the night.. my wife claims this is a conscience matter and i say that’s bs, this leadership does not allow it.

would like to find this info..

dozy

This situation is pretty common. Policing it is a challenge - depends on the elders and the nosiness / gossip of the congregation and the person concerned and their standing in the congregation. An elder in my own congregation often had his (non-JW) daughter stay with her long term boyfriend in their house but he basically told anyone who enquired to mind their own business as far as the sleeping arrangements were concerned.