Public Speaker-No call no show

by gringojj 22 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  GoingGoingGone

  In my area 3 months was the limit because things tended to be forgotten otherwise

  I don't know how far in advance they are scheduled here, but they actually have someone assigned to call the public speaker about a week before he is assigned to come to the congretation. Otherwise, they forget. Today, my kids told me that there was no public speaker, and it was because the brother who was supposed to call, forgot. (Soon they're gonna have to have someone remind the guy who is supposed to call to remind the guy who is supposed to give the talk... good grief!!)

  Anyway, one of the elders zipped into the library and threw together a talk. He's a good speaker, so it was a good talk, they said. But they would have preferred getting out an hour early.

  GGG
• 

  blondie

  The brother doing the scheduling is supposed to call the speaker during the week of the talk to make sure that there isn't a miscommunication (at least that is how they do it around here).

  They do the same in this area. I guess they need a brother to remind the brother to remind the speaker.
• 

  GoingGoingGone

  They do the same in this area.

  Oops... missed that post, Blondie!

  I just always wondered how important holding a public talk could be to a person when they habitually 'forget' that they have one?? How do they keep track of their other comittments? Sheesh...!

  GGG
• 

  proandcon

  If I remember correctly, WT protocol says that that day's chairman should be prepared to give the PT if there's a no show...I was the PT coordinator in our cong...not the easiest job...lots of incompentent and unorganized PT coordinators around...we would call the brother who was to give the talk the week he was to give it...if we couldn't contact him for some reason, we were prepared to have someone cover...either I or two other brothers were prepared to give the talks at the last minute as we would have talk outlines and notes with us just in case...we were kinda organized in that way...nonetheless...I and most everyone in the cong would much have preferred to leave an hour early...
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  blondie

  I have to admit that some elders are very busy.

  Most are husbands and fathers.

  Most have full-time jobs.

  Most conduct a book study and a meeting for field service on Saturday.

  Many have at least one part on the school and one on the service meeting almost every week.

  Many also may have a judicial meeting every so often, some once a month in congregations with many problems.

  Others are on the Regional Building Committee or participate in the builds.

  Some elders are sluggards and are always cancelling out on their assignments and some poor schnook elder gets stuck with covering.

  Add a public talk here and there and they can forget.

  I speak from the vantage point of having been an elder's wife.

  Some are just disorganized.
• 

  ithinkisee

  I used to love those meetings! Woohoo! We get out early!

  -ithinkisee
• 

  buffalosrfree

  Maybe your congregation is on a diet and can only take so much spiritual b.s.(er) I mean food. Count your blessings. In most congregations I was in, there was at least one to two elders in a standby mode for cases like this, Guess the elders at your congregation weren't prepared or they couldn't guilt trip any of them into taking the b.s. by the horns so to speak and give the public offal course.
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  coolhandluke

  Kinda makes you go hmmmm when all members of the congregation are happy that the meetings let out early. I was always happy for conventions because there would be no TMS. Then, I'd find some "privelege" to occupy my time on the weekend. Overnight security was the best job ever. We just played football in the corridors all night and ate Chicago style pizza. Then I'd sleep in my hotel room until noon.
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  willyloman

  No need to repeat daniel-p's comments, above, but he well summarizes the process ... or at least the way it's supposed to work according to WTS instructions.

  It's doesn't always, of course, because of the difference in congregational personalities and human resources.

  Our old congo went through three distinct personalities in a decade:

  1. We had an young, energetic elder who had been at Bethel before he got married and had kids, so whenever a speaker did not show up (it was a rural area and it snowed in winter, so this happened frequently during the cold weather months) we started the WT study while he went into the library and "whipped something up." He told me once that the easiest way to do this was to pull a bound volume of the WT down from the shelf and skim through the study articles. It was his theory that the study articles were basically manuscript talks and that by highlighting the key points and using the highlighted material as an outline, one could produce a public talk in no time. It helped that he was bright, glib and personable and a hell of a speaker.

  2. After he and some other servants left for greener pastures, we were left with only three elders all of whom were under 40 and none of whom was much of a speaker. So for the next couple of years, whenever there was a PT no-show, we held the WT study and called it a day. And y'all are right; Everyone loved this! It was like a snow day at school when we were kids!

  3. Some years went by, the congo grew by leaps and bounds (this was back in the 70's and early 80's when there was actual growth) and our elder body swelleld to 10 or 12, including a couple of ex-Bethelites, one of whom had been a missionary. These guys were really organized and handled the PT schedule in the exemplary fashion outlined by the WTS. They only brought in the very best speakers, and they called them in advance to remind them. As a result we seldom had no-shows, and if the weather was bad they assigned somebody in advance to be prepared to go on, just in case. Looking back, our public talks in those days were almost always really good. These two guys were prominent in the circuit affairs and pretty much ran the circuit and district assemblies in our area, and they were the gatekeepers to who got to appear on the assembly and convention programs, so they when they called other congos to get speakers they got VIP treatment.
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  Finally-Free

  It happened in my hall quite a few times. A couple of times a local elder would get up there and regurgitate a talk he gave a few weeks earlier, but mostly we'd get out of the meeting early. Sometimes I actually prayed to Jehovah so the visiting speaker wouldn't show up.

  Really, how much spiritual pablum can a guy take before he finally pukes all over himself?

  W