1999 Service year report of JWs worldwide

by Dan B 4 Replies latest jw friends

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  Dan B

  I have, in my hands, a copy of the service report from the 2000 WT bound volume. It's very interesting to note that, although there was an average of a 2% increase worldwide, the majority of developed countries actually had a decrease. The USA gained 432 publishers after devoting 174,594,349 hours to recruiting, I mean preaching. That's 404,153.5 hours per new recruit. If you figure half of those were children who were born into the JW's who became active, that's 808,307 hours required to bring in one new member off of the street. Not very efficient, in my opinion.

  The big gainers: Cambodia with a 32% increase (from 25 to 33 publishers), Gambia with a 25% increase (from 88 to 110 publishers), Mongolia with a staggering 88% increase (from 8 to 15 publishers), and Norfolk Island with a 23% increase (form 13 to 16 publishers).

  Although the USA remained stagnent as far as growth is concerned, Canada, Australia, Britain, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland all reported decreases.

  Interesting!

  Dan
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  NotBlind

  Very interesting indeed!

  And all the while, the Society continues to extol the 'benefits' of the door-to-door work, calling it the 'most effective preaching tool' ever. Give me a break! I think even the rank-and-file know better than to believe that!

  If their aim truly WAS to reach out to the whole world, they would use more efficient means to get people to the Kingdom Hell.
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  Dan B

  The problem is that other methods of spreading their message might cost THEM money. The millions of hours spent is done at the expense of the rank and file. They claim that they spent $64.5 million in 1999, but there is no way of auditing how this was spent. In my 30 years as a JW, I don't remember ever seeing any money flow back into the congregation.

  Consider this: There are about 90,000 congregations worldwide. If each one contributed on average $100 a month ( this was what our congregations always seemed to do), on top of the "donations" for literature, and the KH building fraud (I mean fund), that's $108 million a year extra. And what about the money that comes in from assembly halls. In my area it would cost $5000 a weekend to use the Assembly hall. Where did this money go? It wasn't being used to pay the mortgage, the local congs. that used it were doing that monthly. It wasn't to cover the cost of property tax, since they are exempt. To pay the utilities maybe? Subtract $100. And these halls are used almost every weekend. That's a lot of cash flow.

  But like I mentioned, it's up to the average JW to pay out of his own pocket. (Remember when magazine subscriptions actually came in the mail?

  Dan
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  NotBlind

  The part about Assembly Hall fees probably makes the least sense. It's a building the Society owns, usually paid off, and they charge their own members exorbitant fees to use it. It's often even cheaper to use an outside venue than one of the JW's Assembly Halls.

  In my own experience, the assembly hall rental was closer to $9000 a weekend, but I believe that has to do with the number of publishers using the hall. If I recall correctly, the Society charged $3.25 per publisher per day for Assembly Hall rental, as of the early 90's (probably higher now). So, the fee would be much higher for larger circuits.
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  Dan B

  I think you're right about the circuit size. I was at an assembly in Toronto about 15 years ago, and it was about $15,000 for the weekend.

  Dan