2002 Service Year Report

ignored_one

Not sure how well these come out.

Ignored One

JH

thanks alot for the info! It was very clear. I didn't think that things were going that good for them. But seeing the numbers, they must be proud as a peacock!

metatron

Isn't it amazing that France and Canada - nations reported to have Witness malaise -
showed increases - WHILE LOSING A NET NUMBER OF CONGREGATIONS?

(France from 1520 to 1512 and Canada from 1343 to 1340)

kinda makes you wonder about phantom publishers, doesn't it?

metatron

That's really striking me too Met, from all reports, and from people's experiance in local halls, meeting attendance is at an all time low. Halls that previously split into 2 congos are rejoining, splits that were planned are now put off, yet they still countinue to build new halls at a constant rate in the USA - sell the old, build a new. Repeat every few years. Good cash flow.

It's funny they don't publish meeting attendance figures

RunningMan

As I have explained on numerous occasions, the change to the 15 minute rule and the new method of collecting reports has artificially inflated the numbers in many countries.

Take Canada for example. The average pubs were up by 999, yet only 2144 were baptized. If 1% leave and 1.3% die, then there should be a small net decrease, yet they show an increase.

By lowering the threshhold for counting publishers, they have taken a one-year improvement in their numbers (kind of like a prior period adjustment in financial statements). Next year, the developed world will again dip into the red, unless they find some other statistical slight of hand.

JH

I don't want to be a bad loser, but why would they say the truth about the figures. They had so much bad publicity lately that maybe they want to show the world that they are blessed by Jah. I noticed a huge decrease in witnesses going door to door in my city. Each year it is droping, but the numbers say otherwise. Weird (Canada)

RunningMan

As I have explained on numerous occasions, the change to the 15 minute rule and the new method of collecting reports has artificially inflated the numbers in many countries.

Take Canada for example. The average pubs were up by 999, yet only 2144 were baptized. If 1% leave and 1.3% die, then there should be a small net decrease, yet they show an increase.

By lowering the threshhold for counting publishers, they have taken a one-year improvement in their numbers (kind of like a prior period adjustment in financial statements). Next year, the developed world will again dip into the red, unless they find some other statistical slight of hand.

NameWithheld

Each year it is droping, but the numbers say otherwise

Yep, they're using the Enron auditors on their service stats

Surreptitious

It seems to me from looking at the report, that all of the substantial increases are in areas where the insertion of a missionary or two would represent the majority of the increase. Of course this has always been the case historically. Furthermore, thousands who previously did not report time due to circumstances (age, health, etc.) are now able to report even as little as 15 minutes in a month. The previous minimum was an hour. With more now qualifying as active publishers, this quite naturally would have the effect of instantly swelling the ranks. Without this "lowering of the bar" I wonder how the report would look???

jws

Has anyone taken the time to sum up the population figures vs. publisher figures? They provide a ratio for each country, but not a grand total, as this may be a bottom-line indicator of increase/decrease tracking to normal population increase/decrease.

I noticed for the US, it went from (1 pub for every x people) 277in 2000, 285 in 2001, and now 280 in 2002.

When that number goes up, JWs are decreasing as a percentage of population in that country. Going down means they're gaining "market share". So we saw a great decrease from 277 to 285 from 2000 to 2001, but then it went from 285 to 280 (an increase). Maybe a lot of people were giving it until the year 2000 and quit when nothing happened.

This figure is calculated as a ratio of peak publishers to population. As was said, they now collect time differently to where it's easier to make sure it's turned in (increasing publishers) and by now allowing up to 15 minutes to be reported, those that may not have ever had enough time can now turn in time and add into that figure. This all makes publishers go up and peak publishers rise even more. Which I think was estimated months ago that it would boost publishers by about 3%.

What might also be taken into consideration is that this is a peak. You've gotta remember that one of the biggest scandals (child molestation) hit about when? May? That was after the memorial. Prior to the memorial, they really push field service so as to get that memorial attenders figure up. Since May, people could be leaving in droves over the scandal, but they've already counted to boost the peak. That will bring total hours down and average publishers, but with only the summer months affected, those declines may not affect the whole very much. I think next year's figures will make me a lot happier.

A whole year to wait for the "good news" though.

And you've also got to wonder whether JWs themselves are falsifying time. If I was constantly badgered and starting to get a little tired of waiting until the end, I might start adding an hour or two a month to my time sheet to keep from getting hounded about it.

Wow, overall, a 17 hour/month average (total hours / avg pub / 12 months). I remember the goal our congergation had was to get 10 hours/month in. 17 hours/month is like 2 hours Saturday AND Sunday. And the worst part of that is I know the people turning in only 15 minutes/month are now part of that. If they only turn in 15 minutes, somebody else has to turn in the other 16.75 hours to keep the average up. In that sense, does it mean others ARE putting in more effort?

Anybody got a scan of last year's figures? The website still has last year's up, but it doesn't have a lot of details to analyze things. They omit avg. publishers and pioneers and don't compare to last year. I'd also be interested in seeing whether they've fudged them since the paper copy.

2002 Service Year Report

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