Posts by dozy

27

Hotels Deny Watchtower Discount Rates For 2020 Regional Conventions

by JW GoneBad in

the wtbts is not being given special room rates by 2 major hotels at the long beach convention center area for the upcoming 2020 regional conventions & wt is t'd off.

letters are being read in surrounding circuits and congregations.

apparently wt is afraid that other hotels are going to blackball them as well.. has anyone else heard this?

dozy

Interesting thread here https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/7cybbg/watchtower_making_money_off_hotel_deals/

I remember talking once to a manager of a hotel that many JWs stayed in for circuit assemblies ( this was before the Society started their own bookings system ) and I asked him how beneficial it was to have lots of JWs staying there.

He said that while he was pleased to have the hotel fully booked which helped his overall occupancy figures , the hotel didn't really find JWs very profitable at all. Hardly any JWs went back for dinner, few took breakfast ( unless it was included in the rate ) , zero lunches of course and very few bought drinks at the bar , so the total revenue per hotel guest ("Trevpar" ) was really low - a fraction of their usual yield. I wonder whether the hoteliers in Long Beach and other areas are starting to do their sums based on previous conventions and coming to the same conclusions.

49

What happens to Bethelites?

by rickroll in

so if someone puts their life into serving the cult for free at bethel, then say after 25 or 30 years they are not able to for one reason or another such as illness, or family issue or old age, does the cult have any safety net for these people or is it you serve until you can't and when you can't you just go away?

.

dozy

Barbara Anderson relates that when she decided to leave Bethel she gave an excuse that she needed to care for elderly parents back home. The Society were so keen to keep her & Joe that they offered to move her parents to New York and they would be looked after.

This shows that those with important skills or those high up in the Org ( or their families ) are looked after, Everyone else basically gets kicked to the curb when they are no longer needed or become ill.

Our congregation inherited an older ( 60 ish ) couple from Bethel who had been kicked out in a period of redundancies. There was only a tenuous connection to our area ( a distant relative ) but the congregation basically got a letter from the branch telling us that this was a faithful elderly couple and it was up to us to find them accommodation etc. A kind of "keep warm & be well fed - not our problem any more" kind of letter. There was no follow up of any sort. It all seemed a bit heartless.

30

Good memories of full-time service?

by fulano in

perhaps not a topic for everybody... mine.. in both sp service in a foreign field in europe , the freedom and helping people to read and write in spanish .

doing a lot of work in the congregations.. in missionary-service.. helping congregations in a third-world country and see good results in family relations.

and the siestas from 13:00 to 15:00..... who has good memories of bethel?

dozy

I always hated the ministry but at a "in-between jobs" time of my life decided to sign up , initially as a auxiliary pioneer for a few months and then a regular pioneer for 18 months or so. It was at a time when there was a really buzzing "pioneer spirit" in the congregation so from that point of view it was OK from a social standpoint as there were a few other young ones.

The best times were just travelling around in a car with other pioneers doing "route calls" - you could get many hours in this way and it was good fun , especially as we took long breaks. The worst was "first call" , especially if you were paired with one of the more nutjob types in the congregation.

I hated the constant hour demands - it was 90 hours a month back then , so if you were working ( secularly ) one day , you basically needed to do 6 hours ministry the next day to catch up. Even with all the typical pioneer tricks to pad out my report , I always struggled to get the time in.

Eventually , just after going to the pioneer school ironically , I found a full time job - to be honest it was a huge relief to come off the pioneer list. Looking back - it was a huge waste of time , effort and expense.

44

PIMO Elder with a Dilemma

by xjwsrock in

i haven’t been on here in awhile and this is my second user name because i was busted by my pimi wife on the first one.

i have been basically awake since 2013. i have a super dub wife that i love and don’t want to lose and my sick mom in the hall that is a true believer.

stupid religion has gotten between my wife and i (of course).

dozy

As an ex-elder myself , I know what you are going through.

My last couple of years as an elder when I was PIMO were painful - my ministry dropped virtually to zero , I was missing every meeting I possibly could , my public talk that I would give list dropped from 20 to about half a dozen that I felt comfortable to give. It is a very difficult transition & I was probably lucky that only one elder ( one of the uber self righteous JW types ) attacked me in elders meetings - the rest cut me some slack ( maybe because a few of them were slackers as well ). Eventually I just resigned - the whole situation was impossible to manage.

You are better just resigning as an elder on your own terms rather than being kicked out which will happen eventually - as an elder , you are expected to "take the lead" and it is very difficult to go through the motions when you know it is all false. Just my 2C,

Good luck with the marriage - once a wife loses intimacy , it is very difficult for you to rebuild that. Lots of marriages don't survive this process.

17

Amber Scorah on TedEX

by wannaexit in

jw
friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7wfpaqcqcw.

dozy

A hugely impressive young woman..what a super speech......

13

#Persecution selfies: what do you think?

by Diogenesister in

so apparently the new watchtower russia exhibition features a pretend cell for jws to take pretend "persecution selfies' and wallow in the glorious suffering that is essential for watchtower theology to work - yet is strikingly missing from the lives of 99% of witnesses.. in fact most governments go to great lengths to protect the rights of witnesses, spending millions in public funds either directly to watchtower - in the form of grants ( norway, germany etc) - in various types of tax relief, or in the money spent in court cases establishing watchtowers rights and freedoms (& protecting their kids, whether they know it or not).. i'm interested to know how everyone feels about this...particularly terry walstrom and other guys who have spent time in jail in the name of watchtower's freedom of conscience.

personally i think it reeks of desperation by watchtower and is another example of the type of fantasizing that witnesses regularly indulge in.. also....funny how the end is soooo close that they've had time to build a museum of watchtower history!!

anyone else see the irony in that?!

dozy

It's an odd one - just seems to be in bad taste. I think I would be a bit hacked off if I was a JW in South Korea , for example , imprisoned for refusing military service and seeing instagram shots of JWs pretending to be in prison and having a good laugh.

It just feeds into the same narrative including garish videos of SWAT squads and JWs huddled in bunkers that the Society tries to promote which is that JWs are hated by the world and under imminent threat of severe persecution etc.

15

2019-October 8, BOE!

by Atlantis in

jw
friends

2019-10-08 boe.

supporting the congregation as a pioneer.

https://docdro.id/sf2rkwx.

dozy

Thanks Atlantis. This brings back a few memories! I remember ( as a service overseer ) having to implement the "Pioneer Assistance Program". It was a total nightmare.

Pioneers hated it because they were very much into their routines and their cliques with the other pioneers and hated having a "tag along" that they were supposed to train. Most pioneers are pretty selfish as far as their ministry is concerned - the last thing they want is to be under an obligation to train somebody else.

Most of those being assisted hated it as well as they saw it as patronising and being singled out as "weak" etc. I remember that we had a few publishers who simply refused to go onto the program.

The whole scheme was a disaster and usually pairing arrangements broke down very quickly. Unfortunately the Society tried to keep the scheme going with occasional meeting items and COs had references in their outlines and in the pioneer meeting outline and would ask questions about how the program was going. It was a huge relief when the Society eventually stopped the whole program.

9

1934 Yearbook hard to find

by rickroll in

i have been looking for one and they go for a lot when i do find them.

to the tune of 200 bucks.

are they that rare?.

dozy

There are collectors , particularly in the USA , who pay big money for older Watchtower publications. I guess with Yearbooks - people are filling empty spots in their libraries.

51

Annual Mtg Points

by ZindagiNaMilegiDobaara in

jw
friends

matt 28: 19 is the year text.

new understanding on joel ch 2 who are the locusts?.

there is a new building addition to warwick in the works.

dozy

The building will house 1000 audiovisual and art production volunteers.

1000 - that just seems a huge number of "volunteers". Does it really take that many people , in addition to whom they already have , to produce the Societies videos? To what degree are they scaling up? A 24 hour JW TV station , or something?

I googled to see how many employees it takes to produce a Hollywood movie , which is vastly more sophisticated than JW dot org video output , and it seems to be approx 2,000 - 3,000 https://stephenfollows.com/how-many-people-work-on-a-hollywood-film/

18

New KHs Still Being Built!

by blondie in

jw
friends

https://www.thereminder.ca/news/local-news/new-home-under-construction-for-jehovah-s-witnesses-1.23964617.

flin flon, ca.

according to statistics supplied by jehovah’s witnesses canada, about 85 jehovah’s witnesses live in flin flon, with around 100 people coming to each of the group’s biweekly meetings.. “we needed a new hall because the congregation has outgrown the old hall,” said congregation elder kelly flodell in a press release..

dozy

About 85 Jehovah’s Witnesses live in Flin Flon, with around 100 people coming to each of the group’s biweekly meetings.

Is it just me , or does that figure sound suspiciously high. Usually attendances are about 70% - 80% of publishers , so a congregation that has 85 publishers would normally have perhaps 70 or so in attendance.

Are they talking about 85 baptised JWs ( ie excluding kids who are publishers but not baptised , the (very few ) unbaptised publishers who are studying etc )?