It seems to me that Rensil's point about the information that is given to people is the most important one. Or, as CovLass says, "One of the things I like about the Latigo site is that they often ask the question,Is this what the leadership team at Struthers believe? If so, why not come right out and say it? If the leaders at Struthers believe that it is 'the will of God' to use money collected from the congregations to subsidise Cedars school, then why not just say it?"
I am totally with that - it is not so much what they believe, it is that fact that they refuse to tell anyone, even their own congregation, the right information. Why not simply say what money has gone where, and whether they think this was a good decision or a mistake?
I dont want to distract people form these key issues with technical detail about the finance, but I do think it is important to understand what is going on, so I will try to answer squareone's question.
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squareone
if the £300,000 has gone to the ipads and the parents are paying it back is that not all square??
Well, no it isn't actually. I can see where you are coming from but, even if the parents pay back every penny, the issue is still there, because, even if they are paying it back to the school, the school is not paying it back to the church. This is clear because the accounts show that the final NET figure transferred form the church to the school is £300,000 (over 3 years). This could mean a lot of things. It could mean that the church gave £300,000 and nothing was paid back. It could also mean that the church gave £400,000 and £100,000 was paid back by the school or parents. It could mean that £600,000 was given and £300,000 was paid back, or that £1m was given and £700,000 was paid back but, in every single case, the final benefit to the school is £300,000 and the loss to the church is also £300,000.
Whether the school has received any payments for the iPads is irrelevant in terms of that transaction - either way, the amount the school collects in fees + the amount the school collects for the iPads (whether zero or the full cost or anything in between) has been £300,000 less than their expenditure, and this has been taken from the church side of the business.
So, apologies for sidetracking the discussion with financial arguments, but I think this is important as it is very objective. If the leaders don't manage people well, they can obfuscate with the usual platitudes and 'divide and conquer' arguments - "oh, that was a genuine mistake, that other person was being deliberately awkward, this one here was a misunderstanding, and the last one is one where there were these other confidential issues that I can't share." I am sure there will be lots of different reasons they can think up for why every individual on this forum was treated badly. At the end of the day, none of that stacks up of course, especially now that there are so many people that have come forward to talk about how they have suffered.
It is a still a lot harder to obfuscate where finances are concerned however. It is clear that funds form the church have been used to subsidise the school, but the words in the accounts do not explain this or the reasons for it. To me, that is simply wrong. £300,000 is a lot of money, and that may not even include the "annual gift collection" mentioned above. If that annual gift collection goes directly to the school and does not appear as church income, the total that has gone to the church may be £300,00 + another £50,000 = £350,000. Fine, if that is what they want to do, but I would suggest that the people giving the money have a right to know where it is going.
The parents at the school might also like to know that it is the congregation that are keeping the ship afloat.