I gotta say, I was skeptical of John's experience at first too. Then I read his last post above, about where he is located. This is Mexico people, not Vermont. The Mexican culture absolutely loves and insists on these types of gatherings, and I don't find it strange or out of line at all for this amount of people in the Mexican culture do have a gathering like this. That is Mexican culture. If this were taking place in the New England states, or Georgia, I'd be more reserved. However, if you recall, there was a yearly meet-up somewhere here in Pennsylvania, around Blue Mountain Retreat or something, that was for ex-JW, ex-JW groups, apostates, etc. The place burnt down, and I haven't heard anything about it in 3 or 4 years. They held it like every October. I'm fairly certain at least 100-200 ex-JWs would show up for that. It ran for probably 20 years? So this is not unheard of even here so close to WT HQ.