News From Around the World

• Philippine Mall Exhibits Yield 3,372 Subscribers So Far
• Asian Leadership Conference Focuses on Doctrines

UCG-British Isles Holds Annual General Meeting

by Daniel Roy Macaraeg

During a mall exhibit conducted at SM City in Davao from May 29 to June 4, we added 679 new subscribers on the spot to the Philippine Good News mailing list. That's an average of 97 per day. There were 228 more who simply picked up a trifold brochure but did not subscribe on the spot. Taken together, that would be close to 1,000 new potential subscribers in just one week.

This successful test was followed by mall exhibits in three additional malls, with the following numbers of subscribers added:

SM Cagayan de Oro ............ 408.
SM Bacolod ....................... 1,179.
SM Cebu ............................. 1,106.

This brings the total to 3,372 so far.

We are hoping to do the SM Megamall (in Metro Manila) and SM Baguio on the northern island of Luzon after the Feast of Tabernacles.

The four malls so far completed have already exceeded our target of obtaining at least 400 new subscribers from each of the malls, with a goal of at least 3,000 total subscribers. This should put our GN circulation over 10,000 by the end of this year.

Elements of the Exhibit

The form the subscribers filled out is a blue-and-yellow "Subscribe FREE" trifold brochure from the home office featuring "Bringing Up a Moral Child" on the cover. Those who decided to subscribe on the spot were offered one piece of literature from our eight featured booklet titles, along with certain available back issues of The Good News magazine.

Incidentally, in Davao we learned a lot about which titles were most popular. The eight booklet titles on display were: The Book of Revelation Unveiled, Making Life Work, Marriage and Family: The Missing Dimension, Creation or Evolution, Why Does God Allow Suffering? Are We Living in the Time of the End? The Middle East in Bible Prophecy and The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy.

Marriage and Family: The Missing Dimension was the most popular booklet by far, followed by The Book of Revelation Unveiled. Many have also inquired about our articles and issues dealing with marriage, sex, family and parenting.

The GN display booth in Davao was located on the ground floor near the National Bookstore entrance. Apart from the machine-printed, full-color headers and skirting, we also selected 12 of the 30- to 60-second video ads from the Beyond Today TV program and customized them with our Philippine cell phone number and Web site. Those 12 ads cycled overhead on two full-color LCD panel monitors positioned at opposite sides of the booth facing mall traffic.

We are very thankful to God for the quality responses we got! The results are very good, and the cost per response is reasonable. It appears that mall advertising works well in the Philippines. The malls chosen are located in key cities in the Philippines (two in Mindanao, two in the Visayas and two in Luzon) where we either already have a presence or would like to have a greater presence. UN

Asian Leadership Conference Focuses on Doctrines

by David Baker

The third week of June we held an Asian Leadership Conference in Quezon City, the Philippines. A total of 25 attendees from the Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao regions of the Philippines participated. We also had the privilege of having Jim Franks, director of Ministerial Services, conduct the conference. As we continue to develop our leadership in Asia, we felt it was very important to focus on the doctrines of the Church.

The conference began June 19 with an evening meal. The following day began with a presentation by Mr. Franks titled "Introduction to Doctrine: Teaching as You Have Been Taught." After a short break I gave the second presentation on "The Miracle of God's Calling/Understanding Conversion." After lunch Mr. Franks presented a lecture on "The Nature of God/Divinity of Christ" followed by Florante Siopan's lecture on the fundamental belief of "The Sabbath." The last lecture of the first day was presented by Eriz Dizon on "The Resurrections." At the conclusion of the lectures, a general question-and-answer session was held.

On June 21 the conference continued with a presentation given by Mr. Franks on "Repentance and Baptism." The second presentation of the day was given by Rey Evasco on the fundamental belief of "The Holy Days." After lunch, Ed Macaraeg presented a PowerPoint presentation on the fundamental belief "Three Days and Three Nights." The concluding lecture was given by Mr. Franks on "The Purpose for Humanity." The final portion of the conference was a 100-question quiz on the fundamental beliefs of the Church. Everyone who participated in the quiz really enjoyed the exercise.

As God continues to bless us with very good growth in GN subscribers and members, it is important that we focus on developing leaders to serve those being called. UN

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