I'm glad to see that Stephen Fry the person has the same level-headed good sense that his famous character Jeeves displays in Jeeves and Wooster. I love this guy!
Socrateswannabe
JoinedPosts by Socrateswannabe
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Stephen Fry on God: What would you say to him if he did exist?
by Simon ingreat answer to a stupid question - what would you say if you're wrong, if god does exist and you go to meet him when you die?.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwnysqo.
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A few more random thoughts on the new Kingdom Hall design meeting
by sir82 inleft completely unsaid at the meeting: who is going to be the owner of the property & building when all of these new khs are built?
in the current arrangement, in most cases, a local trust is set up to hold ownership.
of course, the most likely answer is "the watchtower (or whatever shell corporations they set up) will own the land & building".
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Socrateswannabe
Sir82, there was no mention of ownership of the Halls and I doubt that there ever will be. It is the elephant in the room whose presence is felt but not discussed. It was certainly implied though. There was no question as to who will make all of the decisions from now on. Locals will no longer decide when to sell, when to remodel, when to build, or even which Hall their congregation is assigned to. That's all LDC now.
I agree with you about the hard sell on negative talk. These guys are builders so what should they care? Build a residential style building or build a commercial style building--it shouldn't matter. All I could read into this is that this is a complete shake up in personnel and that the negative talk might come from the old RBC powerbase complaining that they no longer have the chops they had under the former regime.
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Arrangement to Accelerate Building Kingdom Halls
by Socrateswannabe ini can't believe i'm the first one to admit going to this meeting.
it was a 3 hour video stream from patterson.
the first bit was used to set up the need.
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Socrateswannabe
@ MissFit: Did they show designs for double Kingdom halls?
No. Double Halls were not mentioned, just the three sizes of a single design. They did mention somewhere in the discussion that the average size would be 4600 SF, but I don't know how that compares to existing Hall size. I thought it was strange that they didn't mention double Halls.
@ Sir82: I agree. These new Halls will be much more marketable than the existing ones. Makes you wonder if most of the existing Halls will be teardowns by developers. I can't see much use for them as they currently exist.
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Ony J.W.'s could do this and not question what is going on
by Sour Grapes inat the meeting today several elders commented about the wonderful program that they attended yesterday on the new kingdom hall designs.
they said that the new halls are going to be so beautiful with lots of windows and glass panels and that the lights will be kept on in the lobby 24/7 so that you can see into the hall at night and that thousands of these halls must be built.
then five minutes later they are talking about how close the end is and that we will be meeting in basements in the near future.
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Socrateswannabe
Sour Grapes, my one disagreement with your opening post: "My bet is that the Org will get very one whipped up on the new design that everyone will vote on selling the existing residential halls and building the newer cheaper versions."
The meeting made it very clear that congregations will no longer have a say in any of this. The LDC will make the decision as to where a need exists for a new Hall, which property to buy for it, which congregations will attend, what Halls need to be sold, or whether an existing Hall should be remodeled. The locals are completely out of the loop now.
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Arrangement to Accelerate Building Kingdom Halls
by Socrateswannabe ini can't believe i'm the first one to admit going to this meeting.
it was a 3 hour video stream from patterson.
the first bit was used to set up the need.
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Socrateswannabe
I can't believe I'm the first one to admit going to this meeting. Or at least I don't see where anyone else has. It was a 3 hour video stream from Patterson. The first bit was used to set up the need. About 1000 Halls in the US that are severely overcrowded, many to the point of retarding growth in the area. The 3 metro areas with the most acute need are LA, Miami, and Dallas.
Then next bit was used to crack the whip and get the troops in line. Lots of the brothers who have been extensively used in RBC will no longer be used. Things aren't going to be done the way they used to be. Get over it. Work on whatever level you are allowed and don't moan about the good old days.
Creating standards to facilitate growth: Moving forward there will be a single design for Kingdom Halls in the U.S. They will come in small, standard, and large. That's it. The rendering looked not so bad, for a commercial building. It actually looks like a modern free-standing dentist's office. Improvements are: Lots of windows, flat roof with mechanicals on the roof to keep the bad guys from stealing them, monitors all around the interior, and the replacement of the literature and magazine desks with oversize literature trollys.
They expect this standardization to save them 20% of the cost of the building. They spent a lot of time talking about the heirarchy of the various design and build entities, and explained the 5 levels of volunteering available. There was also a lot of information regarding the maintenance of Halls, and how that they would soon send out trainers to teach the congregations how to properly upkeep the property.
The subtext throughout the whole thing was, this is no longer in your hands. You have virtually zero say now, it's all up to the LDC. That's all I can write about this, maybe someone else who was there can pick up the ball.
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GB says, "Our way of worship will soon be altered."
by Separation of Powers inmy mom called me yesterday to ask how i was doing.
i hadn't seen her in a while, so it was nice to hear her voice.
we went through the motions of jw small talk and then she started telling me about her co visit from last week.
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Socrateswannabe
The brother said that the GB want us all to know that soon, very soon our way of worship will be altered by this wicked world."
In my experience the COs are a bunch of "buckaroos". They get some direction from Mama but once they are out there in the field, they quickly get drunk on power. They know the naive sheep will eat stuff like this up and they can't resist. According to this CO, it is not the GB who will alter our way of worship, it is the wicked world that will do so. That presupposes that the GB have the ability to divine the future, which they obviously do not. It's completely nonsensical.
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Kingdom Consolidation and Sales are coming – Reliable Source
by thedepressedsoul ini heard form a reliable source that a kingdom hall consolidation is going to be happening in the us.
currently they are looking at every kingdom hall to see if they could and should sell it.
any kingdom hall that has not been updated and is in a bad location (long driveway, not in a visible location etc...) will be sold.
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Socrateswannabe
The January 31 meeting that will be streamed to U.S. elders should prove interesting. Maybe this is the bomb that everyone has been expecting.
When I was growing up, the emphasis was on getting a high school education, pioneering, and applying for Bethel service. You knew that once you got to Bethel, it wouldn't matter if you had a PhD, they were going to put you where they needed you, maybe scrubbing toilets. Now, the emphasis is on building trades and they make no bones about it. Forget liberal arts, just learn carpentry or plumbing. That's their overarching message and I guess that's how they're going to get all of the free labor to build these new facilities.
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Tight Pants Tony goes to see the psychiatrist
by Half banana inpsychiatrist: so what position do you hold tony?.
tight pants tony: strictly only the missionary position, any other position is the work of satan........ oh!
sorry, i thought you meant... never mind, its the way yous guys speak, it cracks me up!
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Socrateswannabe
Good stuff. Thank you. -
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Will the WTS follow the McDonald's corporate model?
by sir82 inas most people know, mcdonald's derives the principal part of its earnings, not from greasy food, but from real estate.. they buy property, then, in addition to charging franchisees for the right to use their name, they charge them rent for the building sitting on corporately-owned real estate.. this business model yields well over $20 billion per year in gross revenue.. could this be the idea behind the soon-to-come revamp of the rbcs into ldcs?
the wts will purchase property and charge its "franchisees" (the congregations) a fee to use the building on the site?.
of course, it wouldn't be called a "franchise fee" or even "rent", it would be named something like a "voluntary contribution to support kingdom interests" or some such folderol.. any "non-performing" congregations would get shut down and/or merged, and the property sold.
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Socrateswannabe
Sir, I am not well versed on real estate but I can imagine all that you say coming true. They already use this model in their management of the assembly halls. The locals pay for the facility in the first place, and then pay inflated rent in the form of expenses for their one day gatherings. I have heard a range of $8-15,000 a day, depending upon the location. With no debt service on the building and all volunteer labor for its maintenance, it's doubtful that it costs a million bucks a year or more to upkeep one of those places. So yes, I think it would be very enticing for them to adopt that model in relation to their kingdom halls. -
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WTS leader rants against higher education
by hoser inon jw tv.
anthony morris is ranting against higher education.
he is blaming parents for enrolling their kids in college.
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Socrateswannabe
"We will NOT need doctors and lawyers after Armageddon......but we WILL need carpenters, plumbers, and similar construction trades."
So I guess that means they will need plenty of refinery workers in the new world to make the polyvinyl chlorate that goes into PVC plumbing pipe. And foundry workers to pour castings for faucets. Oh, then workers for the steel mills that will produce the steel for that. How will all this be transported around in their new world? By big trucks and trains I suppose. So it looks like they'll need to have auto assembly line workers, mechanics, etc.
Have these guys ever thought this stuff through?