Memorial attendance up or down on last year?

by freddo 35 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Magnum

  Slidin Fast, I care because the religion so profoundly affected my life. I'm curious to see where it's going and what's going to happen to it, and I think that's normal since it so profoundly affected me. My whole life revolved around JWdom for three or four decades.

  Also, it still affects millions. I have family members who are in and who think something's wrong with me. In addition, it's an interesting study in psychology/sociology/etc. Some people are interested in following certain sports teams. To me, following the goings-on in JWdom is far more interesting, and it's even enlightening and educational.
• 

  millie210

  Gaylean hour agofor Millie
  WT report:
  2011 19,374,737 (worldwide) 2,563,518 (U.S.)
  2012 19,013,243 - 2,502,055
  2013 19,241,152 - 2,504,114
  2014 19,950,019 - 2,505,825
  So, 2012 showed a big drop on WW and US. 2013 showed slight increase from 2012 but still not as high as 2011. 2014 had a big increase for WW, but not much in U.S.

  Thank you Gayle, I learned something by reading your post.
  

  I was assuming that it went up incrementally each year.

  Now I am actually hopeful it didnt do that this year!
• 

  Village Idiot

  What I don't understand is why the Watchtower does not simply fake their numbers. It would not be beneath their dignity to do so and no one would catch them doing it.
• 

  sir82

  Attendance has a lot to do with what day of the week the Memorial falls on. Typically, I think the pattern is that the Memorials on the weekends are better attended than those on weekdays. So it may top 20 million this year.

  Interesting that US attendance is virtually flat for the past 3 years, and actually down more than 2% down from 2011.

  Despite 10's of millions of invitations being distributed.

  Poor trees - dying for nothing.
  
• 

  label licker

  One partook in Elmira, On. He use to be old order mennonite and was called on and studied with for almost thirty years. Once his last kid left the farm, he then left the mennonite religion. He was excommunicated by the mennonite community. Sad thing is he and his wife are in their eighties and were hauled in to the woodshed for partaking two years in a row. They were sent home with a stack of the org's propaganda. She stopped partaking but he still does it. This time he sat third row from the front and didn't care what the goons thought. No doubt they didn't count him. Why would they? He refuses to use their bible and tries to plant seeds to the point that the elders don't even pick his hand. He hasn't done a talk in the ministry school for over a year. He says the org needs him and his wife as their mascot for this area more than he needs them.
• 

  _Morpheus

  Lol slidin, dont be a kill joy. I dont think most hang their hat on the number one way or another, its just water cooler chat here on the board. Its something to talk about since the org makes a big a show it on their end. I apprecite that the facination with all things jw gets old but this seems to be harmless speculation and mild fooder for debate compared to other topics
• 

  Oubliette

  Magnum: Also, it still affects millions. I have family members who are in and who think something's wrong with me. In addition, it's an interesting study in psychology/sociology/etc. Some people are interested in following certain sports teams. To me, following the goings-on in JWdom is far more interesting, and it's even enlightening and educational.

  Exactly!
• 

  the comet

  I posted this in another thread... my hall had 198 in attendance. Congregation is 101 publishers. Slightly down from last year we had the prime time spot, not the late one. No one from the memorial invite campaign came per usual. No partakers, was told in the talk if you haven't partaken before you're not one of the anointed. Hall wasn't full, looked like what it does for c.o. Sunday talk.
• 

  Da.Furious

  Our attendance was the same as last year, no change for us - (UK) London non english speaking congregation.

  As others mentioned, having the memorial on the same day as good friday may be a big contributor to the low numbers.
• 

  88JM

  Same here (also UK) - same number (and the same people!) as last year. I was expecting it to be more with it being an evening before the weekend (though as you say it was also Good Friday), but it seems to not have made any difference.