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PASTOR'S REPORT, June 25, 1979
PAY RAISES PUT ON HOLD
Page 10
(Editor's Note: From time to time management and employee memcs from various
departments are circulated throughout all the offices here in Pasadena, but
never reach the field ministry. It is the desire of Ministerial Services
to begin reproducing in the Pastor's Report those memos with special rele
vance to the ministry. Below is a memo to all department managers from
Personnel.
It was dated May 30 and concerns the subject of pay raises.)
We have been advised that no merit increases, cost of living increases,
and/or bonuses can be allowed at this time because of present budget
ary constraints.
We realize that inflation and the accompanying escalating cost of liv
ing is causing concern for you and your employees, and we hope that
the present situation will not last too long.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
United Kingdom
On June 5, 6 and 7 all the full-time ministers in the U.K., plus two non
employed local elders, gathered at the Heathrow Hotel near London for a
conference to update them on the prospects for the Work in this part of
the world. Mr. Harold Jackson, the minister in Lagos, Nigerj_a, was also
able to attend. The conference proved highly profitable, with ministers
appreciating the chance to have explained to them how we are taking advan
tage of the avenues that are open to the Work in this area.
.::'he financial picture again looks bright. Mail income for the month of
May was up 21% over May 1978. The increase for the calendar year to date
is 20% and continues to hold steady. The Pentecost offering was up a
healthy 24% over last year although attendance remained about the same.
Mail flow generally was well up due mainly to the advertising program.
Total responses from our current advertising campaign have reached 9,231
as of June 15th, most popular booklets being Why Were You Born? and The
Seven Laws of Success. We were able to obtain a cut-price half-page space
in a popular tabloid, "The Daily Star," to advertise the Plain Truth.
Cost per response has been quite encouraging.
From the exhibitions we have appeared at so far, over 1,000 Plain Truth
request cards have been returned. We remain confident that renewal rates
for this group of trial subscribers will be relatively high in view of the
direct exposure to the magazine people have received at the stand. The
exhibition series continues next month when the Plain Truth display will
be featured at the Devon County Festival in Exeter (July 20-28) and the
Royal Welsh Show in Llanelwedd, Powys (24-26).
The Spring edition of our local "Newsletter" (a quarterly publication for
Co-Workers, donors and members) drew some interesting reaction. As an
experiment we included the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all
full-time ministers in the British Isles and invited readers to contact
their local minister if they wished to attend a Sabbath service. Reports
from the recent conference indicate that in almost every case a steady number
of phone calls and letters were received. A small number of baptisms were
triggered off by the announcement (one man had been in contact with the
Work for 14 years) and many are now attending Sabbath services as a direct