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Ideal Orgs - Booming or bust?

Vittorio

Patron Meritorious
OK- per inside data I was getting until not too long ago this is how the Ideal Orgs were doing.

Johannesburg- Booming and truly booming with very high production and a lot of staff. Universe Corps have gone in the handle Jo'Burg Day (though Foundation started to overtake day production wise).

Madrid- Booming and one of the biggest. Sometimes stays open until 3.00am and recently opened a bookstore in the town centre.

London- Bust despite Day having up to 60 staff. It is the same old Org in a different party outfit. Same old public, same old problems, same old SP's from Saint Hill turning up once in a while to comm ev the staff and trott all the tech terminals down to ethics. Scientology used to thrive in the UK until the early 80's. Missions shut their doors, London & Saint Hill witnessed some of their best staff and public be declared and walk out and the other Orgs have never been booming.

New York- Booming. Shifting tons of books and an average amount of everything else. The boom is mainly in the book sales and the staff numbers. Book sales frequently top 1,000 a week. Foriegn nationals must make up a considerable proportion of this.

Moscow & St.Petersburg- Yet to move into their new buildings, though both are booming. St.Petersburgs often have double the production of London. Moscow regularly shifts tons of books and the many of the purchasers end up in the Freezone.

Tampa- Bust. If you cannot afford Flag Services, go to Tampa. This is not expansion. If Scientology West Florida was a head of hair, then it would be a comb-over.

Taiwan- Booming. This place sold the most books on International bookselling day (over 3,000). Scientology is still relatively new to this part of the world, there is a great language barrier for Int management and is far away from uplines. I assume it resembles early day Scientology. When they move into that enormous building though and there is a full Sea Org movement in there, the expansion could reduce.

Berlin, Buffalo- I have no idea.

Stevens Creek and SFO. They are both allegedly doing very well though not quite Saint Hill size. I have read that Stevens Creek is doing poorly per cars in the car park, though I have managed to obtain staff and student data which contradicts this. Has anyone actually visited these Orgs and seen the Org board, Student progress board or test line and can give factual data?

Feel free to spread any Org stats, Birthday game points, staff leaves, staff recruits, Org closures, building data here.
 
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Romuva

Patron Meritorious
Great news ! We'll have more ex-members in 5-10 years.



We'll have a ex-scientology website in every language.Just like
Dianetics books.
 

Lulu Belle

Moonbat
I throught this would be relevant here.

http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?p=216452&highlight=empty+orgs#216452

I just remembered one of the final straws that got me to realize I had to leave. The jig was up.

Those of you who were at Int in the late 90's will remember a series of briefings from Jenny Devocht called "Wake up and smell the coffee." I believe she was acting CO CMOI at the time as Yager was on the RPF. Davey declared him an SP which was the subject of a whole other base briefing from Dave.

These briefings were literally a slide show to show us how empty the orgs were and during what should be peak production hours. We were shown hundreds of photos every night over a several day period of almost every class V org course room, HGCs, etc. All of which were completely empty. One or two students here and there.

I'm positive that the effect these briefings was supposed to have was to get us all worried about the state of Scientology internationally and to get us to work even harder. But for me and probably others, it had an opposite effect.

I thought how on Earth could we be working so hard and for so many years that the course rooms are freakin empty? And internationally? Are our marketing campaigns really that ineffective? All of our campaigns are COB approved which means that they should work right? I mean they're on Source, etc. Lots of thoughts racing through my mind over the state of things. I realized that the world was not buying Scientology. Something was terribly wrong and I couldn't see it for myself because I had no contact with the outside world. I had to find out for myself. I had to get out.

And another thing I realized was that although we were finally being shown some truth about the real state of things, we were seriously lying to the public. What about all these $cientology events where the public are briefed on international stats and how booming $cn is. What a load of crap! I remember at the next event being sick at my stomache as the stats were announced knowing it was a complete falsehood.

I even remember thinking that maybe the "Smell the coffee" briefings were a lie to the base crew to get us more productive or something. But after getting out and seeing for myself that orgs are empty, I realized it was the truth.

Getting out was quite a process and could be an entire novel or movie unto itself, but that story will be told at a later time.

Who else remembers these briefings?

Love,

BTs2Free
 

Vittorio

Patron Meritorious
Lulu_belle,

brilliant post. I feel tempted to put New York on the bust list, as expansion requires routing people up the Bridge and not a mere book sale on a stress test.

The UK scene it seems would be something like this;

1. Birmingham Org - Healthy, regularly top of the birthday game, used to frequently compete with London Foundation. Lots of activity in all divisions. This Org has been scraped off the floor.

2. Plymouth Org - Healthy, sometimes top of the birthday game, used to be fairly dead, not quite busy. Another Org which has been picked up.

3. London Day - Headache. Used to be big in the 80's then it died throughout the 90's but was restored recently to 60 staff. However, the staff are mostly old ex-staff or Saint Hill kids. Not expansion really. Fairly active. No one ever thought London Day would be pulled out of the gutter.

4. London Celebrity Centre - Healthy. Dedicated team of middle class public. Does not yet have an 'ideal org' and does not have the pressure of filling a huge building.

5. London Foundation - Flu. Used to be the top Orgs despite staff only being around 22. Seems to struggle now it has to share it's staff between two buildings. Test Centre is never manned by more than two people (from what I have seen, may not always be true). Fallen into the gutter. One of the courserooms recently only had one public.

6. Manchester Org - Fever. Small Org which has raised a lot of money for it's Ideal Org. Busy in patches.

7. Edinburgh Centre - Chronic Fever. Busy in rare patches.

8. Brighton - Terminal illness. Something happens here occasionally.

9. Sunderland Org - HIV, Internal combustion, you name it this Org has had it. If something happens in this Org it is a miracle.
 

RolandRB

Rest in Peace
Lulu_belle,

brilliant post. I feel tempted to put New York on the bust list, as expansion requires routing people up the Bridge and not a mere book sale on a stress test.

The UK scene it seems would be something like this;

1. Birmingham Org - Healthy, regularly top of the birthday game, used to frequently compete with London Foundation. Lots of activity in all divisions. This Org has been scraped off the floor.

2. Plymouth Org - Healthy, sometimes top of the birthday game, used to be fairly dead, not quite busy. Another Org which has been picked up.

3. London Day - Headache. Used to be big in the 80's then it died throughout the 90's but was restored recently to 60 staff. However, the staff are mostly old ex-staff or Saint Hill kids. Not expansion really. Fairly active. No one ever thought London Day would be pulled out of the gutter.

4. London Celebrity Centre - Healthy. Dedicated team of middle class public. Does not yet have an 'ideal org' and does not have the pressure of filling a huge building.

5. London Foundation - Flu. Used to be the top Orgs despite staff only being around 22. Seems to struggle now it has to share it's staff between two buildings. Test Centre is never manned by more than two people (from what I have seen, may not always be true). Fallen into the gutter. One of the courserooms recently only had one public.

6. Manchester Org - Fever. Small Org which has raised a lot of money for it's Ideal Org. Busy in patches.

7. Edinburgh Centre - Chronic Fever. Busy in rare patches.

8. Brighton - Terminal illness. Something happens here occasionally.

9. Sunderland Org - HIV, Internal combustion, you name it this Org has had it. If something happens in this Org it is a miracle.

I hope the Panorama programmer on May 7th knocks them back a bit.
 

Vittorio

Patron Meritorious
What I have noticed is,

after years of shrinking or no expansion, a lot of these Orgs are actually picking up. An inability to recruit people who turn into Scientologists and a mass of old staff and public either drifting offlines or uplines to a more professional Org has left Orgs like graveyards.

Milan Org has always been huge. When I was listing out the Orgs above, I realised that either myself or non-Scientology snoops had witnessed these Orgs as being very busy (even the Birthday Game points confirm this). However what the birthday game points also confirm is that a lot of backwater Orgs (like poor Sunderland, UK) are doing very badly and fit the description that blownforgood gives. New York has a lot of staff, selling tons of books and delivery just enough courses and auditing to justify it's size.

Despite all the vast departures from Int Base, it seems that there is growth in new territory and even some older Orgs.
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
What I have noticed is,

after years of shrinking or no expansion, a lot of these Orgs are actually picking up. An inability to recruit people who turn into Scientologists and a mass of old staff and public either drifting offlines or uplines to a more professional Org has left Orgs like graveyards.

Milan Org has always been huge. When I was listing out the Orgs above, I realised that either myself or non-Scientology snoops had witnessed these Orgs as being very busy (even the Birthday Game points confirm this). However what the birthday game points also confirm is that a lot of backwater Orgs (like poor Sunderland, UK) are doing very badly and fit the description that blownforgood gives. New York has a lot of staff, selling tons of books and delivery just enough courses and auditing to justify it's size.

Despite all the vast departures from Int Base, it seems that there is growth in new territory and even some older Orgs.

Hi Vittorio,

Where do you get a PT feed of Birthday Game points from?

Paul
 

Vittorio

Patron Meritorious
Paul,

I was getting them from a staff member= seems said person has been declared which is why I have not received any now for over a year (all my judgements are based on the time until that point. I could also see what production was getting what points and get a general idea of the scene). I may have a new source. I will have to wait and see.

Vit
 
S

Steven James

Guest
OK- unless you are in the Org you can never really grasp whats happening.

When I was a staff member for London Foundation, we used to compete with New York Org in the book sales, but would always fail miserably.

New York were shifting as many as 1,000 books per week using the stress test (which they first came up with). One week we were determined to do it. We shifted almost 900, with Day pushing out 400 plus. New York that week sold 3,000 plus copies. Are they getting people in for service? Per their glossy promo they have a busy Communications Course. I can't say if this is true or not. The HGC will have at least 15 auditing rooms. London Org had 22 on the plans drawn up and displayed in the expansion building in Whitfield Street.

One of our Division 6 public was a South African. His 2-D was from Johannesburg. I met her by accident once and she said she had once gone into Jo'Burgs Org out of curiosity and stated that not only was it beautiful, but very busy.

There is that quote that the Ideal Orgs in 2005 got more people in than all the other Orgs put together. There is a LOT of other Orgs (and that includes London), so yes, the other Orgs were either doing OK, or were still relatively small.

Teril Parks (who I know in person) has posted that London only had 1 student in one of the course rooms recently. That would not suprise me, there may be a reason for this. When I left London Foundation HCO had dismissed about 9 staff who were unable to make it on post. The Org was left with roughly 23/25 staff and very admin heavy and two TTC'ers. It is real to me that London Org is doing miserably, but it might not be true.
 

Mick Wenlock

Admin Emeritus (retired)
What I have noticed is,

after years of shrinking or no expansion, a lot of these Orgs are actually picking up. An inability to recruit people who turn into Scientologists and a mass of old staff and public either drifting offlines or uplines to a more professional Org has left Orgs like graveyards.

Milan Org has always been huge. When I was listing out the Orgs above, I realised that either myself or non-Scientology snoops had witnessed these Orgs as being very busy (even the Birthday Game points confirm this). However what the birthday game points also confirm is that a lot of backwater Orgs (like poor Sunderland, UK) are doing very badly and fit the description that blownforgood gives. New York has a lot of staff, selling tons of books and delivery just enough courses and auditing to justify it's size.

Despite all the vast departures from Int Base, it seems that there is growth in new territory and even some older Orgs.

Good set of posts Vittorio

Milano is one of my favorite examples of a glaring "outpoint". One which I have never managed to get an adequate explanation for.

When I arrived in FOLO EU in 1978 Milano was a big org. At that time it was slightly behind Paris and Munich in the stats - but not by much. There were a lot of div 6 programs, groups, public lectures, TV programs. In about 2 years it had become the biggest class IV org in Europe. I went down there New Years Eve 1980/81 and there were a lot of people in the org, it was busy. IIRC the NPI used to run around 1,000 per week.

Since that time Milano Org has won the Birthday Game, what six times? It has, supposedly 5.4 Xed its stats, it is SH sized.

So what is the glaring "outpoint"?

According to it's 20 years of stats - almost the entire population of Milan has been through the org. A very sizeable percentage of the population of Milan has, according to those stats, done a major course or auditing. After 20 years of spectacular expansion the org should have, according to those stats, around 1,500 to 2,000 staff. If it holds a major event it would have to be held in the San Siro Stadium with 75,000 people - and hundreds of thousands outside.

The city council should be, according to the figures, at least 35 % Scientologist.

None of that is true.

Why not?
 

Vittorio

Patron Meritorious
In response to Mick Wenlock; The data you procude on Milan Org is based on stats in what department? If that is based on Div 6 stats then you would be correct. Milan, I assume, has quite a lot of old timers around, have very few people blowing and get a reasonable amount of people each year onto Division 4 services.

VIt
 

freet43

Patron with Honors
In response to Mick Wenlock; The data you procude on Milan Org is based on stats in what department? If that is based on Div 6 stats then you would be correct. Milan, I assume, has quite a lot of old timers around, have very few people blowing and get a reasonable amount of people each year onto Division 4 services.

VIt

Source mag yesterday had an article that Sac Org is booming,has 10 missions feeding into it, is building a new building, and has over 95 affiliates on Solo NOTs. Anyone know?
 
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Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
Source mag yesterday had an article that Sac Org is booming,has 10 missions feeding into it, is building a new building, and has over 200 affiliates on Solo NOTs. Anyone know?

The SMI mission locator page names four missions within 16 miles of Sacramento, but I can't really tell as the map has two more symbols on it than names. Of course, maybe some mission in New York referred one of their public once to Sac Org as they were moving to the West Coast and so that mission is now being counted as a "feeder" too. The article didn't say "unique feeder", right? So if a mission feeds four orgs, does it count as a mission for each of the orgs? :)

Paul
 

Mick Wenlock

Admin Emeritus (retired)
In response to Mick Wenlock; The data you procude on Milan Org is based on stats in what department? If that is based on Div 6 stats then you would be correct. Milan, I assume, has quite a lot of old timers around, have very few people blowing and get a reasonable amount of people each year onto Division 4 services.

VIt

The NPI in 1980 was around 1,000 per week and had been for the two years I had been in FOLO EU. I know the Div 6 figures because I was A/CS6 EU during that time. If that figure had never gone up in the intervening 27 years (which is clearly impossible because of all the expansion that has happened there) then the MINIMUM amount of people through the org is over 1.4 MILLION.

Vittorio - I'm not assuming anything. All I am trying to do is illustrate something.

If Milano Org has won the birthday game 6 times that means that in the last 27 years, in at least 6 of those years, Milano Org has EXPANDED faster than any other organization on the planet. Agreed?.

So let's go back to a baseline - 1981. The level of the stats was: 1,000 NPI WDAHS (and that only included HGC hours) 400, GI : $40,000. There were around 120 staff.

5.4X those stats - 5,400 NPI per week 2,100 WDAHs, GI $210,000 number of staff 640.

And that's only the first iteration. That was, to be charitable, upposed to be the level when it achieved SH status.

But it has, according to the game - expanded every year since then. It has won the Birthday game at least 4 times since becoming SH Size - which means that it not only expanded - it expanded faster than any other org on the planet. Think about that.

By now - extrapolating the figures - if the expansion was true then Milano would have, at the very least:

25,000 new people in per week. Its GI should be running at about 1 million dollars per week and it should be delivering 10,000 HGC WDAHs and it should have at least 3,000 staff. At least three hundred of them would have to be HGC auditors. Note that this would now mean that the org would be running the population of Milan through the org in a year. it should be producing approximately 50 "finished with their lower bridge" completions per week it should be producing around 50 to 100 class IV auditors - per week. That means its field of active, committed Scientologists should be increasing by at least 8,000 per year.

Where are the results of 27 years of expansion?

If that situation is not the case - then the intervening years and birthday game "wins" have been a lie.

And if that as been a lie - then what else is?
 
S

Steven James

Guest
Mick- I think with Milan, that is hasn't expanded. That it is big; yes, but it is not much larger than it was in the 80's.

I attended a workshop held by Piere Paderni once and he recalled how he was able (following the police busting Rome Org) to get 80 people into a group processing session. In recent years he has held workshops with over 100 attendees (including tons of raw public). He stated that he plays live music in his house sometimes and that people que to hear it. Memberships and OT7's are high in this piece of Europe. Expanding? I personally could not say so with certainty.

People like Piere carry that country Scientologically on their back.
 

freet43

Patron with Honors
But it has, according to the game - expanded every year since then. It has won the Birthday game at least 4 times since becoming SH Size - which means that it not only expanded - it expanded faster than any other org on the planet. Think about that.

QUOTE]


What is the def of "St. Hill Size" ?
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
Hang on guys....

Here's a simple example. Let's just use one stat, which we'll say is representative of an org's production. At the start of the year, we'll say it's at 100.

One year later, at the end of the birthday game, say it's 500. Wowser, 5x expansion! (we'll assume it's genuine and not a false report). But over the next year, the stat crashes down to 120. Yuckypoo, no birthday game points this year.

Next year, 4x expansion--the stat goes up to 480!!!!! But the following year it slumps a bit to 250. And the following year it slumps to 25.

Next year, woohoo!!! 6x expansion!!! The stat shoots up to 150!!!! But alas, next year it settles down a bit to 100.

In the space of seven years, the org might have won the birthday game in three of those years, with 5x, 4x, and 6x "expansion", but at the end of the seven years the stats are in the exact same range as when they started.

I don't have any specific data about Milano in addition to that given on this thread, but maybe something like that has been going on.

Paul
 
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Mick Wenlock

Admin Emeritus (retired)
Mick- I think with Milan, that is hasn't expanded. That it is big; yes, but it is not much larger than it was in the 80's.

I attended a workshop held by Piere Paderni once and he recalled how he was able (following the police busting Rome Org) to get 80 people into a group processing session. In recent years he has held workshops with over 100 attendees (including tons of raw public). He stated that he plays live music in his house sometimes and that people que to hear it. Memberships and OT7's are high in this piece of Europe. Expanding? I personally could not say so with certainty.

People like Piere carry that country Scientologically on their back.

Yeah - I would agree, he has done amazing work for a very. very long time. Added to that he is one helluva nice guy.

A lot of the guys around Milano in the early days were fun t be around - Pippo Polara was another one
 
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