Financial Affairs UpdateFinancial Affairs Update
Ray Wright  

As many of you may already know, Mr. Herbert Armstrong has started making half hour television broadcasts on the weekly Sabbath in Tucson. They will begin airing either at the end of June or the first part of July, finishing up the contracts that we have had for the Garner Ted Armstrong program. The new program will be titled "The World Tomorrow with Herbert W. Armstrong," as it had been in the past. A new 13-week schedule for Mr. Armstrong's programs is being scheduled with our agency, with time buying slots to be made starting in July or August of this year.

The programs will obviously be more religious in content and will be consistent with the PLAIN TRUTH magazine which will be correlated with a positive religious approach emphasizing the coming government of Cod. All programs will then be directly correlated to focus on a consistency of content between television, radio, PT, booklets, and the subscriber development program. In doing so we anticipate considerable shortening of the cycle between the time when a person first responds to the media and his first direct contact with the Church. This will not only save money, but most certainly should affect the direct growth of the Church.

With the recent decisions made by Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, various budgetary improvements have been realized for the Church. First, the recent decision to close the undergraduate program in Pasadena and formulate a new academic structure geared more to the present needs of the Church has resulted in millions of dollars worth of annualized savings. This will not only help balance the 1978/79 budget, but will also greatly enhance future monies to be channeled into first line priorities for Church-related activities.

Next, an unpredicted and unscheduled heavy income response was netted by Mr. Herbert Armstrong's recent co-worker letter which has certainly been a boost to the June income figure, one day reaching the $358,000 level! Income in general has continued very good and is still positive for the year, running approximately four percent above actual for last year.

Also, Mr. Armstrong has directed the sale of certain peripheral Pasadena campus properties that had been purchased for the future expansion of the Pasadena academic complex. These have been put on the market and for the most part have now been sold. These sales in no way affect the main campus property. Add to this the fact that Mr. Armstrong has put on the market for sale our feast sites at the Ozarks, the Dells, and the Poconos as well as the Big Sandy campus. Please note that this will not affect our fall Feast schedule in any way.

The Citation aircraft, which we were recently instructed by Mr. Armstrong to sell, was in fact sold this past Friday. This will not only inject money into the cash flow of the Work, but will also reduce operating expenses in Flight Operations.

Finally, I'm very happy to report that the Pentecost holy day offering has been exceedingly good and will most likely reach our budgetary projection of one million dollars. We expect the average will be between $13.80 and $14.00 per person, which is a very good offering and one for which our generous brethren should be thanked.

The budget for the 1978/79 period is shaping up very well. Finalization should be taking place in the next several weeks. As priorities are adjusted and set by Mr. Herbert Armstrong, the resulting decisions are being translated into income projections and budgetary impacts.

In light of all I have reviewed here with you, the financial outlook for the Work looks very promising, of which the new program for generating growth in the Church is the long-term key. Your continued support of Mr. Herbert Armstrong and your positive encouragement of the brethren will obviously be vital factors in our achieving maximum results. Remember that the world still ha$ a crying need for the truth we have been given. So together let's rededicate our lives to getting on with our Commission.

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Pastor General's ReportJune 13, 1978Vol 2 No. 21