Last night, during our "Christian Life and Ministry" meeting, we had a session on local needs. Elder opened the talk with a disclaimer saying that this was a reminder (cited Psalms about how David loved Jehovahs reminders). He reminded us of how bless we are of having our own local assembly hall. Reminded us on how excited we were in participating on the construction. Reminded us how many of us made donations to pay for the construction. He then proceeded to remind us that building of that size require a lot of maintenance and cost a lot of money to operate. He informed us that there has been a reduction on the amount of money received at each assembly. He then dropped the bomb... The assembly comitee has estimated that in order to cover the cost of maintenance, we would need to contribute $10 per publisher. I had never witnessed such a direct and specific request for an amount. He did not say about, he did not say close to, he said exactly $10. Off course, obligated he was to also add that we don't all have the same resources and some would contribute more while other would contribute less. He also reminded us that is not just the AH that needs resources, there is an apartment in the back where the CO lives. He said that $2 of those $10 goes to maintain the apartment for the CO.
At the end of the meeting, the elder doing the closing remarks clarified. Brothers, the said amount is nor per assembly, but per day of assembly. The sister seating in front of us had a confused look in her face.