Theos-Talk Archives (May 2009 Message tt00815)

Membership Numbers in TSA Speak
.
Talk of leaders from the USA after last years' election in which the
candidate from the USA did not win, has centered on the need to change the
international rules and the ill fated attempt to change them to seize
control of the appointment of the president by the GC by secretly
disenfranchising the members world-wide. The GC members (especially from
small sections) are the ones who will benefit by making the international
president a puppet of a handful of GC members. Thanks for the good luck of
TS and its members, the plan was discovered in time and with the help of
Internet, members  became aware and enraged at what the leaders are upto.
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The real big elephant in the room is the poor member recruitment and
retention outside India. I just looked up the member statistics. Thanks to
Tillett's thesis, because the annual reports are hard to find, and no one
knows why.
.
Here are the figures for the USA in 1912 and 1913. They are 3368 and 4145.
The current count is around 4000. So, in spite of the increase in population
over nearly a century, the lack of growth says that something is seriously
wrong. We may have a number of retired professors, academics, scholars, and
daily meditators active in the TSA leadership, but the statistics speaks for
itself.
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TS is organized with full autonomy at lodge and section levels. So,
responsibility for the poor numbers falls squarely on the leaders in the TSA
in the recent decades. They may be talking the talk, but totally ineffective
on the bottom line.
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On the other hand, the membership in India is steadily growing and this
confirms the wise decision taken by the Inner Founders to move TS to India
from the USA at a time when travel and living conditions in India were very
difficult.
.
So the Indian section must be doing something right and the West can learn
some lessons from India. No one in the West seems to be interested. In the
circumstances, the Indians can legitimately view the rules change move by
leaders from the West as simply an end run trying to reduce the voting
influence of the Indian members and marginalize the importance of the
president.
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It is time that independent thinking members see the facts as they are and
understand what is going on and what is at stake for TS and its members. It
is the indifference of members that seems to have lead to the current state
of affairs after the ill fated attempt to defeat the sitting president by
alleging that she is sick, both mentally and physically, which seems to
continue even today.
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Let us all wake up and be vigilant. Let us talk about these issues when we
get together with our theosophical friends. Such discussions will result in
a change in priorities and only then we will see constructive results.
.
.
MKR

There is no religion higher than Truth


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