My District Convention Is Being Held At An Assembly Hall

by enlightenedcynic 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  AuldSoul

  On the count of three, everyone sneeze on EC...one...two...ah-aH- AHCHOO!

  (sorry about that, here's a tissue for the bit that got away from me)
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  blondie

  I can see conventions being held at Assembly Halls because of financial reasons, either not being able to afford "worldly" sites any more or not being able to get bookings. In this area the convention site was moved to an older site that is on the verge of remodeling...who was desperate for bookings. Also, the WTS had dropped the conventions from 3 to 2 and even then there was a great deal of empty space, dropping attendance. Plus if people aren't attending, they aren't donating.

  I think it also hides the fact that fewer people are coming. The same thing was done with the circuit which once had 3 segments but is now back down to only 2...is 1 far away?

  Blondie
• 

  Jourles

  This year in MI, they are having the DC's up in Saginaw. Good lord, they are really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. I think for the past 4 or 5 years, the DC's for MI have been in a different place each time. They must be searching for the best priced venue...
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  jstalin

  It seems as though this would have a psychological effect on members. Smaller DC's will cause people to remember the "good ole days" when they would hang out with 20,000 other witnesses. If they shrink to 4-5,000 at each convention, the perception will start hitting home that membership is dropping.

  The Watchtower appears to be managing decline rather than growth.
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  Jourles

  Using the assembly halls is another sign of cost-cutting going on(were they ever used before? I never heard of CA halls being used for DA's). This probably only works in the small to midsize areas of core publishers, but still, if it saves them several thousand dollars...
• 

  enlightenedcynic

  Thanks everyone for the responses. Maybe I'll catch the bird flu or something! ec
• 

  itsallgoodnow

  In my area they are meeting in high school auditoriums for the DC this year.

  But since they are still building kingdom halls, even if they are in fact selling off other halls at the same time, I don't think anyone around my area thinks they are going through a decline in numbers.
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  headmath

  I noticed the same thing in the greater Vancouver BC area. For the last 4 years the big assemblies (an assembly of asses) are hald in a differnet place each year. The Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. (where you see hockey games of the canucks) was the usual dist assembly place for at least 25 years. I remember those days going into Vancouver and going the the big A. It was quite exciting to see some 30,000 other dubies. I remember disliking the apostates that had signs at the big A. But now I think they were cool.

  The acoustics in the Pacific Coliseum are not that great . The brothers giving talks had to speak fairly slowly do avoid being drowned out by there own echo. "WE WE SEE SEE HOOWOOHOOW JEEHOOVJEHOOVER blah blah
• 

  Dune

  around my area, they've been putting different districts together. I remember around 1996 there be about 8,000 in attendance, then that number dropping to 4,000 and two years ago they added another district to our own to bring the number back to 8,000.
• 

  Lady Lee

  Ok I had to read this through to make sure I didn't miss something - I didn't soi you get to read me as I blather on

  Most large stadiums have contracts with the companies that run the food counters. The WTS doesn't want to "buy" the service of the food vendors. So a while back they were able to wrestle some contacts staing they would not bring in food to sell themselves nor would they pay for a service they weren't going to use (the food vendors). So they got their little contracts and the JWs were expected to bring their own food (not easy if you are traveling with a family) So many JWs started leaving the site and buying food from street vendors or went to local restaurants.

  The food vendors in the stadium got royally miffed and saw JWs going outside to buy food as a breach of contract. The WTS was out of luck the next time around.

  In some places they have been able to find smaller arenas so if there is no Assembly hall they will split the district and use the smaller sites.

  Someone mentioned decreasing numbers - that wouldn't surprise me one bit. Better the place looked packed than have an arena that is half empty