Kingdom halls without AC in Europe

[Barbllm]

Our Kingdom Hall was built in 2016 and we have AC (central air). Oddly enough, the temperature is fine when you first walk in, but by the end of the meeting it feels noticeably colder.

 

[Parale]

11 hours ago, Abigail said:

Last week in our monthly Announcements from branch we got a reminder to check our go bags because of the risk of wildfires in the UK. Yesterday we got the fulfilment ...

 

From BBC news.

 

I'm in London... and just got a UK Emergency Alert, just past 7pm local time, on my mobile/cell phone :-0 .... I wondered what the noise was, it was the alert sounding!

 

[Parale]

38 minutes ago, Parale said:

I'm in London... and just got a UK Emergency Alert, just past 7pm local time, on my mobile/cell phone :-0 .... I wondered what the noise was, it was the alert sounding!

 

FWIW:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/emergency-alert-to-be-sent-to-england-and-wales-as-government-steps-up-wildfire-response-with-funding-military-support-and-bbq-ban

 

[feebee]

22 hours ago, rocket said:

Might we all be getting a bit soft. Oh I enjoy air-conditioning but I reflect back on the first 40 years going to the KH with no air C. 

Climate change has increased the frequency, duration and intensity of heatwaves, significantly elevating the risk of heat stroke. The old days are gone. 

[rocket]

5 minutes ago, feebee said:

Climate change has increased the frequency, duration and intensity of heatwaves, significantly elevating the risk of heat stroke. The old days are gone. 

 

Yes the Branch makes it more comfortable for everyone and I appreciate it as much as the next person.  I remember many of days with the temp in excess of 100° F and many of personal hand fans a going during a meeting. You didn't see the elderly or families missing meeting less they be in the hospital or severely sick. Missing meetings because of the heat was unheard of. People were tougher back then and used to really hard times.  I'm not saying people are weaker today maybe just a bit softer and that includes myself.

[Hope]

It probably wasn't much cooler at home, to be fair. Especially in Oregon, it doesn't (didn't) get so hot; many don't have (or really need) air conditioning. 

 

Back in the day, congregations were sort of on their own with their Kingdom Halls, weren't they? Much depended upon the individual finances of the congregations. Some had style and luxuries- others did not. The congregation I mentioned above was definitely a low-income area and built by whatever brothers with trades could be recruited. 

 

Thankfully now, congregations get ample assistance from the Branch, building standards which include HVAC, and dedicated LDC professionals to sort it out. Likely any new build or remodel will include air con these days..

[Indapipe]

9 hours ago, Hope said:

Yay for air con

I love the heat! My rule of thumb when driving is to put on the AC in the car once the temp hits 30C outside. I generally much prefer the fresh air.

 

Having said that, I believe AC is one of man's all-time greatest inventions... probably top 10! 😀

[Abigail]

14 hours ago, Parale said:

 

I'm in London... and just got a UK Emergency Alert, just past 7pm local time, on my mobile/cell phone :-0 .... I wondered what the noise was, it was the alert sounding!

 

 

Jehovah gave us the warning a week early ... just like during Covid.

[Dolce vita]

1 hour ago, Abigail said:

 

Jehovah gave us the warning a week early ... just like during Covid.

Please take care of yourself!❤️

[bvr]

Speaking of heat and no AC, I remember when I was a kid, our very old Kingdom Hall, which I think was built sometime in the 1960s or 1970s if I’m not mistaken, actually had a water fountain on the stage. I was always mesmerized by it, especially when the colorful, almost garden-like lights were turned on.
 

The stage in that old Kingdom Hall was very long, probably twice as long as the stage they have now. Typically, the reader on the left and the table and chairs used for presentations on the right were quite far from the center podium, and to the left of the reader was the fountain.
 

I think the hall was actually capable of having four seating sections, but they arranged it into three to make things easier for the mic rovers. We couldn’t really use those long mic stick handles either because the middle section alone was about 10 seats across, while the other two sections were about five seats across. 😅
 

The hall itself was really nice. In fact, you had two options for where you wanted to sit. You could sit inside the main hall, or at the back of the hall there was a door that led to an open outdoor section. You could sit there and enjoy the breeze during the meeting. The people who sat there were usually those who just wanted to enjoy the fresh air, but they could still see the stage through a huge window and there is a speaker outside.
 

Even the pathway leading to the hall was quite unusual. There were two huge metal gates that I couldn’t even move by myself, although that was probably because I was just a kid. Each gate had a huge Watchtower sign, one on the left and one on the right.
 

Then, when you reached the first set of stairs, you would see a huge Kingdom Hall sign directly in front of you that could also be seen from the street, with a Watchtower sign above it. For some reason, I always looked at that sign whenever I arrived. It was probably just a childhood habit. From there, the stairs on the right led to the main hall, while the stairs on the left led toward the back rooms.
 

That old Kingdom Hall has since been sold to another religion and there are a lot of houses around it now so no more trees, just city pollution. The congregation that I grew up in now has a completely different Kingdom Hall, a brand-new two-story building that was constructed around 2013.

 

Optional read:

Spoiler

That old hall was also surrounded by some scary stories, although I can’t confirm any of them because my friends and I were just kids at the time. I remember seeing doors seemingly opening on their own and chairs moving, although realistically it could have just been the wind. We also wondered why the hall was built unusually high above the ground.
 

The main Kingdom Hall was on the second floor, there is no first floor. I always remember having to go up a split set of stairs, but strangely, there didn’t seem to be a normal first floor underneath it. One staircase led to the main hall, while the other led to the back rooms and there were two rooms there. 
 

Those rooms used to be used as a second and third meeting area for midweek meetings, and I believe they were also used to accommodate visiting circuit overseers and district overseers. At some point, though, they stopped using those rooms for some reason.
 

The strange thing about that pathway was that if you jumped on the floor, you could hear a very hollow, high-pitched sound underneath. You know how, when you knock on a wall, a lower sound usually means there is something solid behind it, while a higher-pitched sound suggests that it is hollow? That is basically what the floor sounded like.

Of course, as kids, my friends and I never got a proper answer about why that entire area sounded so hollow, so naturally we had all kinds of theories about it. 😂

Edited 1 hour ago by bvr