re : spreadsheet for george posey vince -
here is an analysis of the fund giving at the church .
first off , it appears from the data that a special " appeal " for fund giving
was made ( from the pulpit ? ) on april 19 , 1998 and april 25 , 1999 , ( perhaps
tied rhetorically into income taxes ? ) . then , by going back and incorporating
obvious dates from the calendars for 1997 - 1999 , the following regression
analysis is made , where each effect is added independently :
giving this sunday = $ 4403
+ a minor $ 3 weekly time trend ( i . e . , multiply by the number of weeks since
jan . 5 , 1997 )
+ no pure effect from last week ' s contributions ( i . e . , denies first - order
autoregressive effects )
+ $ 2426 if easter sunday or the sunday nearest christmas
+ $ 9695 if ( pastoral appeal ) april 19 , 1998 or april 25 , 1999
- $ 340 if the sunday falls on the weekend of a monday federal holiday
- $ 50 if the sunday following thanksgiving
- $ 73 if a summer weekend ( june 1 thru august 31 )
the pure time trend is very small , so an annual projection based on all 3
years data would be for giving to increase only a minor amount ( $ 150 ) for
2000 assuming a similar appeal for giving is made this april .
clayton