searcher

Thank you so much Raf, you Sir, are a gentleman.

One scoop please, I would not want to appear piggish :)-->

Mark, I take my tea hot with a little milk, no sugar, although lots of English people like Lemon tea, in the (if we ever get any) hot weather :D--> krisikis, Cherry Pie!!! I think I am in love !!! :D--> Vanilla ice cream on that please. And yes, I would like to stick around, I like it here.

Mark Fights I can handle, I just did not want to be seen as part of some sort of conspiricy, and that is how I took things at the time. As I posted to Raf, my perception may have been 'off' about that.

Raf Thank you for the coffee, I would LOVE to stick around, I find this site fascinating and the study if TWI so interesting. Posting ‘goodbye was the only way I could see of distancing myself on this board from a situation as I perceived it, I am however, willing to concede that my perception could have been ‘off’. Now I have a HUGE confession to make to you Raf I ………….erm…………… Don’t like coffee, probably because I am English, I drink LOTS of tea,

WhiteDove My reading comprehension is quite good and there was a strong suggestion of a ‘conspiracy’ in the posts of some here. I thought the best way of showing that I was not part of some perceived conspiracy was to ‘leave’, stop posting here. I carried on reading here because I am still interested in learning about TWI, and so I saw that the discussion of the situation was still going on, so I posted my feelings about it (over there) where anyone from there or here could ‘challenge’ those feelings should they so wish. I am sorry people to have posted on a ‘goodbye’ thread, not good form I know, but I felt that WhiteDove deserved an explanation and answer to his question.

There have been many references made, across several threads, that something has changed on the board due to the influx of new posters,(I believe the phrase used was 'Jumping the Shark'), I am one of the new posters, here out of curiosity because Refiner posted about this place on another board, I did a search for GreaseSpot Caf?nd found this place and signed up. However, I feel quite guilty now about being part of the ‘issue’ discussed in a thread here so I will leave the board, I do not wish to be part of an issue that is causing many to be uncomfortable, I say ‘many’ because there has been a lot of talk about PT’s and emails, so obviously there is more unrest than is actually discussed in the forums. I don’t usually post ‘goodbye’ threads but in this instance I wanted to apologise for being part of the issue. So please accept my apology. Thank you to the ones who posted to answer the questions I asked while I was here.

oops Sorry about the mix up here, I posted, realised I was responding to something on page one and edited. The essence has been quoted by pjroberge so no harm done I hope

Thank You, JustThinking.

So would one teach (spread the word) according to ones own personality or would one be expected to follow the example of the current 'leader'?

Interesting, here is a sample of 2 of the contents pages of one of the JW books ‘Qualified to be Ministers’, there are 4 contents pages. CONTENTS 5 STUDY PAGE QUALIFIED TO BE MINISTERS 9 SPEECH PREPARATION 16 SEARCHING OUT GOOD MATERIAL 1 16 PLANNING AN OUTLINE 2 20 THE INTRODUCTION 3 23 THE BODY OF A TALK 4 26 THE CONCLUSION 5 30 DELIVERY 33 No AUDIENCE FEAR 6 33 THE BEST MANNER OF PUBLIC SPEAKING . . . 7 37 ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF EFFECTIVE SPEECH . . 8 40 PUBLIC READING 9 44 BODILY EXPRESSIONS 10 48 SENSE STRESS 11 50 MODULATION 12 53 SPEAKING EXTEMPORANEOUSLY 13 57 SPEAKING IMPROMPTU AND OTHERWISE . . . 14 61 MICROPHONE SPEAKING 15 65 VOICE IMPROVEMENT 16 67 CONDUCT BEFORE AN AUDIENCE 17 70 A POISED AND CONFIDENT SPEAKER 18 75 OVERCOMING DISTURBANCES 19 78 GOOD EVERYDAY SPEECH 20 82 6 CONTENTS STUDY PACE MEETINGS 86 HOW To BE A CHAIRMAN 21 86 PUBLIC MEETINGS 22 89 INSTRUCTIVE SERVICE MEETINGS 23 93 "WATCHTOWER" STUDY MEETINGS 24 97 CONGREGATION BOOK STUDIES 25 100 THE THEOCRATIC MINISTRY SCHOOL 26 104 RADIO AND TELEVISION PRESENTATIONS . . . 27 108 COMPOSITION 113 CONDENSING 28 113 THE ART OF WRITING 29 116 BUILDING YOUR COMPOSITION 30 121 WRITING BEFORE THE FLOOD 31 125 WRITING AFTER THE FLOOD 32 128 HEBREW BIBLE COMPOSITION 33 133 GREEK BIBLE COMPOSITION 34 137 GOOD WORD CHOICE 35 140 LETTERS 36 144 PRIVATE STUDY 148 READING 37 148 How TO STUDY 38 151 STUDYING "THE WATCHTOWER" 39 155 USE OF WATCH TOWER BIBLE HELPS 40 158 USE OF CONCORDANCES 41 162 BIBLE DICTIONARIES 42 166 OTHER STUDY HELPS 43 170

How is one taught to 'preach' in TWI? Example, a JW is taught to be meek and mild, never to show loss of temper, do the presentation and walk away if the other person shows no interest or gets abusive,(basically).

Jim, If a person is not a JW then the JW's have only two ways of looking at them. They are either potential converts, or they are 'birdfood'. 'birdfood' is an 'in' reference to where it says in the bible that at Armaggeddon, all except gods people will be killed and the birds will eat the dead (paraphrased), and the JW's believe that only THEY are gods people, spiritual Isreal. A JW who leaves 'Gods Visible Organisation' (JW's name for their org) will be treated as 'dead' by all JW's friends, and family alike. It is (along with the fear of dying at Armageddon which the JW's believe is soon) one of the things that prevent people from leaving the organisation. Many have actually commited suicide because of JW shunning practices.

Thanks everyone for the replies. WordWolf, sorry about the wrong forum thing, noted. Can the thread be moved to the correct forum to preserve the contiuity? I am admin on one of the forums I frequent and moving threads is possible there.

Oh My! WAY too expensive! :D--> It would have been nice to read what they actually offer/expect. I guess I will have to miss out on that, no worries.

I read the TWI official site (twice) first thing I noticed was that they dont really say what they expect a person to actually do when they have joined, much like the JW official site. You have to join to learn. Can someone let me know where I can by way books please?

A multi level preaching organisiation seemingly based on the multi level/pyramid scams. Akin to Amway (purchase and study of monthly tapes expected, for example) Still Reading :)-->

I dont understand. Who or what is it that says anyone has to 'fit in' anywhere? Surely all a person can do is be themself, after that, as I see it, its just addaption to circumstances. 'Fitting in' surely means some kind of change in oneself to become one with the prevailing conditions/attitude of a certain group, this, IMO, is being untrue to ones own nature, also maybe, in certain circumstances, dishonest, as in one might be tempted to pretend to be something that one is not. This is how I have always seen 'fitting in' and I ask myself, if the person asking me to fit in is SO convinced that fitting in is the right thing to do, then whose mould is everyone expected to fit in to?