From Dr. Roy McCarthy We have just passed the halfway mark of 1985 and it is good to look at what has been accomplished in Southern Africa so far this year, and to look at the prospects for the future.
The PLAIN TRUTH continues to be our main tool for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this region. To date, we have added 78,948 new subscribers. Circulation is presently 219,553, with an additional 82,000 magazines distributed on newsstands. GOOD NEWS circulation is 14,500 and growing.
This year has been designated the Year of Youth in South Africa. We have taken this opportunity to offer YOUTH 85 to libraries throughout the country. We are presently sending YOUTH 85 subscriptions to 1,750 high school libraries and 800 public libraries. Total circulation is 4,585.
At the end of the first half of the year, our income reflects the present recession in the country. Our operating account stands at a 5.5% increase over the first half of 1984.
With the regional office now in Cape Town, we recently began dealing with the Cape Town office of BBDO, our advertising agency. They are presently working on proposals for national magazine advertising in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mauritius.
The latest response figures to our advertisements in READER'S DIGEST are as follows: February, 19,055; April, 12,343; June, 6,794.
Recently, I visited a number of prospective members in South West Africa (Namibia), and was able to baptize three people, thus doubling our membership in this area.
There also have been three ordinations recently. On Pentecost, Mr. Malcolm Lee was ordained a local church elder in the Johannesburg central church. On June 15 Mr. Colin Curtis of the Durban church was ordained a local church elder, and Mr. Wally Young was ordained a deacon in the Durban church. Our full-time ministry now totals 14, four of whom are in the Cape Town office and 10 in the field. There are also eight local church elders.
There is continuing unrest in several areas of the country, including the occasional stone throwing incident, cars being set afire and clashes with the authorities. Many of these occurrences are politically motivated, with people of the same racial group clashing over their political differences. So far, no members have been affected by these disturbances and we give God thanks for His continued protection.
A computer system has been installed in our office. The system is based on the IBM AT, personal computers and a local area network system called Novell — Sharenet G. The objectives of our system are to streamline general administration functions, general word processing and correspondence, financial reports and forecasting and subscriber services.
The advantages of this system are many. Each personal computer is on-line to the AT computer, which acts as the central processor where all programmes and variable data are stored. The central processor holds the following programmes, or software: 1. dBase III for administration and subscriber services; 2. Multimate for word processing; and 3. Lotus 123 for financial modeling.
Each personal computer acts independently; that is, one operator could be inputting a letter via the word processing package, while another operator could be inputting financial statistics via the Lotus 123 package. The procedures take place simultaneously. This is called a multi-user environment and is made possible by utilising the local area network, better known in the computer business as LAN.
The price/performance ratio of this system is far better than that of a mini computer, and there is greater flexibility if it becomes necessary to expand. The installation can be made to go on-line to a large mainframe computer via a modem. There are certain advantages to this, since information from one town or country could be automatically transfered into the local system without human intervention.
Our office in South Africa and Drake Computer Systems (a Canadian based company) have pioneered our system with minimal "teething" problems.
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