Bullet list of major (recent) changes

It is with great interest that I recently read Ceders article on the decline of the WTS. His article along with many of the comments really drives home just how many major changes there have been in a fairly short peroid of time.

Somewhere in the recent past I could swear that someone had posted a bullet list of major changes with the corresponding year.  When I saw this (or something like it)  my first thought was that this simple list made it all the more shocking; and since I have searched and cannot find anything like it.

So I dug around and started one of my own, please feel free to add/corrects events.  It may prove useful to demonstrate just how UN-progressive the WTS has become!

*  1980's:  Simplification program

*  1990:   Voluntary donation arrangement for literature

*  1995/6:  Generation change

*  2005:  first reduction in magazine production; monthy Awake/WT & monthy in-house WT

*  2006:  Bethel layoffs begin

*  2007:  change to 30 minute Public Talk

*  2008:  Overlapping generations

*  2009:  Elimination of Book Study as separate meeting

*  2010:  WTS begins closing/merging Branch facilities and selling branch properties

*  2011:  Credit card machines at assembly halls and conventions

*  2012:  begin selling Brooklyn properties

*  2013:  reduction in size of magazines

Disturbing, but in a good way! --RN

Loss of subscriptions

Loss of food service at assemblies

Selling off printing presses and equipment

huge loss of congregations in Japan

Paperback books to save pennies per book (calculated in pressroom)

metatron

Recent Possibly 2010:   Change from PO to COBE

Recent Possibly 2011:   Drop to 30 hours in required auxiliary hours

Recent Possibly 2011:   Drop the inactive publisher assist program 

1999 : Regular pioneer hours decrease from 90 avg/month to 70

2011: Gilead stops accepting missionaries

The Overlapping Generation change came in 2010, not 2008: In the Watchtower 2010 April 15 issue, the generation doctrine was changed in an attempt to reintroduce urgency. 

1992 Nethinim to the Governing Body

When you put all that reduction together in one place, it actually undermines the Watchtower Society's claim of being God's spokesmen: If they were truly chosen of God, why all this dwindling over the years?

....of course, I don't believe their claim, I'm just wondering what THEIR idea is to quell such thoughts....

What year was it in the 90's that the Awake magazines masthead was changed to eliminate the year 1914 ?

If they were truly chosen of God, why all this dwindling over the years?

You're not looking at it right.  Here's how it works.

When there is a growth in numbers, an increase in pioneers and publishers, more KHs being built, more printing presses being bought, and more literature being printed for distrubution to the public, and expansion everywhere, what does it prove?

That Jehovah is moving his organization forward!

But when there is a decline in rate of growth, KHs being sold and congregations merged, Branch property being sold off, a reduction in printed literature, and cost cutting moves being made everywhere, what does it prove?

That Jehovah is moving his organization forward!

Does it make sense now? 

They changed the Awake magazine starting with the issue released after the November 1995 generation change.

Awesome list.  I faded in 2006 ... I missed so much new light ... 

00DAD: The Overlapping Generation change came in 2010, not 2008: In the Watchtower 2010 April 15 issue, the generation doctrine was changed in an attempt to reintroduce urgency.

Actually the "overlapping generations" idea did first surface in 2008.

*** w08 2/15 p. 25 Christ’s Presence—What Does It Mean to You? ***
The word “generation” usually refers to people of various ages whose lives overlap during a particular time period or event. For example, Exodus 1:6 tells us: “Eventually Joseph died, and also all his brothers and all that generation.” Joseph and his brothers varied in age, but they shared a common experience during the same time period. Included in “that generation” were some of Joseph’s brothers who were born before him. Some of these outlived Joseph. (Gen. 50:24) Others of “that generation,” such as Benjamin, were born after Joseph was born and may have lived on after he died.
  So when the term “generation” is used with reference to people living at a particular time, the exact length of that time cannot be stated except that it does have an end and would not be excessively long. Therefore, by using the term “this generation,” as recorded at Matthew 24:34, Jesus did not give his disciples a formula to enable them to determine when “the last days” would end. Rather, Jesus went on to emphasize that they would not know “that day and hour.”—2 Tim. 3:1; Matt. 24:36.

If you have the most recent WT-CD, look in the index under "refinements" "clarifications" "adjustments"

The list of blood products that they will accept has been changed quite a number of times.

Has anyone got a reference to where the recent downgrade in Gilead was announced/discussed. This development totally passed me by. 

Before 2007, the wt taught that the 144,000 had been "sealed" in 1935. If this had been the case, then the number of anointed left on earth would have continually declined. But that hasn't happened. So:

• 2007 - we can not know when the calling of the 144,000 ends.

*** w07 5/1 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***
"it appears that we cannot set a specific date for when the calling of Christians to the heavenly hope ends."

(This change was clearly a reaction by the wtbts to the highly inconvenient increase in the number of partakers.)

A further "refinement in understanding" came in 2011.

• 2011 - it's not important to know how many anointed are left on earth;

and, a related refinement from the same article:

• 2011 - some memorial partakers have a "mental or emotional imbalance" and thus are mistaken

*** w11 8/15 p. 22 Questions From Readers ***
A number of factors—including past religious beliefs or even mental or emotional imbalance—might cause some to assume mistakenly that they have the heavenly calling. We thus have no way of knowing the exact number of anointed ones on earth; nor do we need to know.

Shutting down Branch offices?

Could someone remind us again what the "generation change" of teaching was in 1995/1996, and how it was different than the "overlapping" generation change of 2008-2011?