The Big Machine

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Posts by The Big Machine

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  11530

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

  by Newly Enlightened in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  original reddit post (removed).

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  The Big Machine

  So if he drops under 540 patrons, does that mean he lets Tibor go? I’m pretty sure that was the mark he had to hit to hire a video editor.
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  48

  Changes In Canada

  by LetTheTruthBeKnown in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am surprised no one has mentioned what is going on in canada.. maybe they have but i missed it.

  so here are some of the facts as i know them.

  ontario only.. sault st. marie had their six congregations whittled down to two.

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  The Big Machine

  Thanks for the update LetTheTruthBeKnown!

  I started a thread on Reddit about this a few days ago and someone commented and gave a very plausible reason for all of the congregation changes going on in Canada: the pending Canadian class action law suit. This could be still the case, but now that you found out that Aylmer Assembly Hall and Long Island are planning to be sold, the congregation merging makes more sense.
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  48

  Changes In Canada

  by LetTheTruthBeKnown in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am surprised no one has mentioned what is going on in canada.. maybe they have but i missed it.

  so here are some of the facts as i know them.

  ontario only.. sault st. marie had their six congregations whittled down to two.

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  The Big Machine

  I learned some more details about the deletions in Ottawa over the weekend.

  I don't know everything happening in Ottawa as each congregation only knows what effects them (information control), but here is what I learned.

  Confirmed to be deleted:

  Meadowlands, Ingleside, Blossom Park

  Probably deleted:

  Carleton, Alta Vista

  All of the territories have been re-drawn so I assume every congregation in Ottawa is affected and there are probably more deletions that I have not heard about.

  The congregation of Long Island has been split up completely. Some people going to Cedarhill, others going to Kemptville East, and some others to Rideau. Long Island now consists of a little piece of Barrhaven and what used to be Meadowlands. For some reason they kept the name Long Island even though the island itself is no longer in the territory but Meadowlands still is.

  Blossom Park was completely broken up and now is part of Hunt Club, Rideau, and Kemptville West.

  Part of Rideau is now part of Kemptville East.

  I believe Ingleside is now going to Kemptville West.

  I'm pretty sure Carleton is now part of Centrepointe and Island Park.

  Alta Vista has been broken up as well (a portion is now part of Hunt Club.)

  Cedarhill possibly has part of a Kanata congregation.

  That's as much as I know for now. There are many people who now have to drive at least 40 minutes to get to their congregation. Needless to say, most people are very unhappy with the changes.

  All of the changes come into effect in March.

  Supposedly there are no Kingdom Halls to be sold at the moment. However, I don't see the purpose in re-drawing all of the territories and making all of the congregations upwards of 150-200 publishers unless Kingdom Halls are being sold. Maybe in a year or so they'll be put up for sale or they'll start being put up for sale in March and they haven't told everyone (information control wouldn't surprise me).

  At this website (Canada Revenue Agency), you can see all of the congregations that have been deleted in Canada since January 1, 2019: https://apps.cra-arc.gc.ca/ebci/hacc/srch/pub/advncdSrch?q.srchNm=jehovah&q.bnNine=&q.accountType=RR&q.accountNumber=&q.stts=0014&q.sttsEffctvDt=2019-01-01&q.snctnTypCd=&q.cty=&q.prvncSttCd=&q.pstlZpCd=&q.dsgntnTyp=&q.chrtyTyp=&q.chrtyCtgry=&p=1

  Right now it sits at 77. It will be interesting to see how high this number gets over the next few months once all these changes are implemented.
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  48

  Changes In Canada

  by LetTheTruthBeKnown in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am surprised no one has mentioned what is going on in canada.. maybe they have but i missed it.

  so here are some of the facts as i know them.

  ontario only.. sault st. marie had their six congregations whittled down to two.

  1. 
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  3. 
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  The Big Machine

  They don’t necessarily have to build a couple of Kingdom Halls if they sell Aylmer. If they get rid of a few congregations that go there, plus Meadowlands and Blossom Park, then the remaining congregations can combine and meet in the existing Kingdom Halls. IMO, they wouldn’t delete congregations if they weren’t going to sell at least one Kingdom Hall. Based on what congregations you hear are being deleted, that Kingdom Hall could be the Long Island one, the Quinn Road/Albion one, or the Aylmer assembly hall. They would obviously make the most money from Aylmer.
• 
  48

  Changes In Canada

  by LetTheTruthBeKnown in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am surprised no one has mentioned what is going on in canada.. maybe they have but i missed it.

  so here are some of the facts as i know them.

  ontario only.. sault st. marie had their six congregations whittled down to two.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  The Big Machine

  “There are really no Kingdom Halls to sell in Ottawa as they were sold years back to build the Assembly/Kingdom Hall building. They were offered 25 million for it years back. Not sure how much they can get for it now, as there is a lot of mold.”

  I think that the Long Island hall in Barrhaven could be sold. Especially now that Meadowlands has been deleted. Long Island would be the only English congregation left in it. The Kingdom Hall isn’t that big and would be incapable of holding a congregation of 150 publishers. Also it’s in a pretty prime spot along Prince of Wales near the bridge connecting Barrhaven to Riverside South. They’d probably be able to sell it pretty quickly
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  42

  Watchtower Corp of New York worth over$ 2 billion

  by Diogenesister in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  in the montana sex abuse court case for the first time watchtower has been required by the courts to give a financial statement to the court to assess awards of punitive damages for negligence and (for the first time)malice in non compliance of mandatory reporting laws.. watchtower corp of new york has finances in excess of $2 billion while cc of jw is worth $49 million.

  this doesn't include the pensylvania corp or what overseas branches may have.. pretty healthy bank balance by any standards..

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  The Big Machine

  Didn't Watchtower in the past couple of years make 1 billion dollars from selling their Brooklyn properties? That could be how they're worth 1.6 billion dollars. But with all the cutbacks they've been doing, they're probably shedding money and the 1 billion dollars just bought them time.
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  30

  WARWICK

  by Phoebe in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as it's highly unlikely i'll ever go to warwick, i found lloyd evans latest video fascinating.

  i had no idea that the whole 'museum' (if you can call it that) was so big.

  notice the credit card machines by the entrance.

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  The Big Machine

  I was surprised to see them turn up without a pre organized tour booking and they were accommodated. He gave them his real name and they held them up for a short while to see if they could organize it.
  Not only has he announced a number of leaks and is an activist but he also managed to get AMII's direct phone number and prank called him.
  They might want to put more effort into their security.

  The security guard was probably just checking if they had enough space to accommodate 4 more people rather than doing a background check on Lloyd.
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  19

  2018 Memorial and Special Talk Speculation

  by SplaneThisToMe in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so we all know that the special talk titled "who really is jesus christ?

  " will be given before the memorial next year which is very new.

  also new this year is that the special talk will be prerecorded and given by a branch committee member rather than a brother from the local congregation.

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  The Big Machine

  It is strange that this year it's before the Memorial rather than after like it always has been in the past. They usually invite everyone to the Special Talk at the end of the Memorial.
  
  It's probably nothing, but it's still strange that they're having it before the Memorial.
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  32

  2017 Special Conventions.

  by ToesUp in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  jw special conventions.

  who's going?.

  are you "special" enough to be chosen?.

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  The Big Machine

  For those confused as to what a special convention is, it's just an international convention with a new name. Similar to how regional conventions used to be district conventions. One extra day of boring talks and experiences
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  106

  So what caused you to have doubts in the first place?

  by nicolaou in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i had no doubts at all about the 'truth' untill a friend of mine in the cong' began falling away.

  in trying to help him i had to ask questions and do research and that of course cracked the doors of my mind open for the first time in over thirty years.. years ago, when jwd allowed members to have signatures, i used the following quote from voltaire as mine.

  i still love it.. doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous..

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  The Big Machine

  There were a bunch of things I always didn't agree with: no beards, what music you should listen to.. basically any rule that existed that was not in the Bible. Then in my 20s I became more interested in history and science saw for myself that the Bible does not support science (like the org says it does). How can you believe in dinosaurs based on bones uncovered by paleontologists but refuse to believe human remains found by archaeologists that are much older than Adam and Eve? By then I was becoming an atheist and ready to start figuring out how I should leave.

  Around this time, Canada had a zone meeting that my congregation was invited to and Tony Morris was the guest speaker. It was the first talk I had ever seen a Governing Body member give. It served to open my eyes fully that JWs were a cult. I can't remember anything specifically he said, but he basically implied that no one was going to make it through Armageddon unless you were spending all of your waking hours in field service. Truly putting God first. I couldn't believe everyone around me didn't realize he was implying that no one in this auditorium was going to make it through Armageddon. This is a Governing Body member who supposedly is inspired by God and you are supposed to take what they say as seriously as anything in the bible. I realized at that moment that I had to get out.

  I ended up still attending until shortly after the new bibles came out. At this point I was a full-blown apostate still attending the meetings and putting on a good show. I was in charge of the literature counter and we had run out of bibles. There were rumours about this on the exjw forums possibly meaning that a new bible was coming out so I started "jokingly" saying it to people who wanted a new bible that they're all back ordered because a new one is coming out. Of course, no one believed me. How can there possibly be a need for a new bible? A year later, at the assembly hall watching the live-streamed annual meeting, I was the most smug person in the room.