JWsurvey has been sent a scan of a letter, dated 17 February 2014, to be read out to all congregations this week. The subject line reads: “Adjustments in organizational terminology and assembly arrangements.”

For whatever reason, the Governing Body has deemed it pressingly urgent to tamper with various organizational terms, with changes effective immediately.

“Zone overseers” are now to be known as “headquarters representatives,” “zone visits” are now “branch visits,” “district conventions” are now “regional conventions” (special conventions and international conventions remain unchanged), and circuit assemblies have been slashed from two days to one day.

The latter change means that the term “special assembly day” is now obsolete. Rather than having a two-day circuit assembly and a special assembly day every year, Witnesses will now have two one-day circuit assemblies. One circuit assembly is to be hosted by a district overseer, with the other being hosted by a branch representative.

Readers of this website will doubtless find it baffling that, with all that is presently befalling the Governing Body, fiddling with organizational terminology has ended up being top of their list of priorities. It seems plugging the constant leak of confidential material and answering the media regarding the DA motion in the McAlester case may be of secondary importance to Morris, Splane and Co. when word games are on the agenda.