am not coming from a position of knowledge am just trying to understand what the problem is like everyone else. Have no idea if the parents are paying for their children's ipads, was just trying to figure things out.........what did the headteacher tell the members of the church?

If the parents have/are in the process of, paying for these ipads, then surely at the point the ipad is paid for, it then belongs to the parent. I really don't think I would be appy if I had a child in Cedars school and as a parent, I was asked to pay for a ipad for my child. Then, a few years later was told, these ipads need updating, so we are going to give the ones you have already paid for to children in Africa and you have to pay for new ones. I know for a fact that I would be kicking up a stink about it, whether I had the money to replace the schools ipads every couple of years or not.

I personally don't think that is very professional or very fair to the parents of the children at Cedars school. I also, for these reasons, don't think it's very likely. Also, as has been said previously, it still begs the question, why are the leaders playing games with the congregations money YET AGAIN? Have they not learned from their last mistake? Repentance means to have deep sorrow and regret over something and to turn away from the offending behaviour. It sdoesn't mean covering it up or doing it again with the hope we won't get caught

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.

Quote
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.

Squareone

I wrote what the Head Teacher told the congregation, in my post here on March 20th on Page 88. That's what she said.

Hi guys

Just wanted to back up thePetitor in the above observations. If the I-pads were being paid up by the parents then the income they still owed to the school would be treated as Debtors and would still be counted as an asset to the school and they would not then be recorded as an expense to the school anyway - so even without the I-pads there would still be a £300K loss in three years. It's not as clear cut as just income less expenditure - everything else has to be taken into account too; such as how much money the church owes to other people and how much is owed to the church or school or whatever from other people.

No matter what way you cut the cake, the bottom line is that the church funds propped up the school to the tune of £300K in three years. But not only that, the church funds also propped up the coffee shops and bookshops over an above the £300K for the school. so the losses incurred and covered from the general church funds were actually quite a bit more than £300K, if you include the other ventures outside of the actual church itself - over the past three years.

You have to remember that to incur a loss means the money has to have been spent. Since the school, coffee shops and bookshops did not make enough income during last year and the previous two years (that we know of) to actually spend all that money, then they obviously started spending general church members funds to the tune of OVER £300K in the past three years. It's money which has already been spent and even if the parents of the school kids were paying for their I-pads, at some later date (which is really doubtful) you're only talking about around £40K - I certainly don't think they'd be asking the parents to pay twice in two years, do you? That's just a spit in £300 PLUS thousand, isn't it?

There's a serious ethical and moral question here - that only looks shameful on the SMC leaders, from where I'm standing.

AS always, biiiiiig love and huge huggggs to all
God Bless xxxx

Hi Squareone

I also think you are asking a perfectly proper and reasonable question.

The church have claimed that they lease the ipads and that they belong to the school. The lease was organised by the school IT teacher. They are made available for the pupils to use but remain the property of the school. The pupils hand them back at the end of the school year.

I think you also made another very important comment.

_{sorry if this is annoying, but if the accounts etc. are checked by outside bodies and nothing untoward is found does that not make it likely that nothing untoward is going on?}

It is possible that people can assume more checking is done by outside bodies than actually occurs. Charity accounts are checked by the trustees of a charity and signed off
Then audited if they are above a certain income (which Struthers are).

The accountants who carry out the audit are paid for by the charity itself and are usually the only “outside body” who look at the accounts. The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) would not re audit in any detail the accounts once submitted to them unless they were part of a rolling programme of audits, or had a specific reason to such as a complaint.

But what is covered by the accountants audit of the report and accounts is more limited than some people imagine.

If an entry in a charities accounts showed donations being made by the charity the auditor confirms that figure is correct. They may check the total against the issued cheques or the bank records. But it would only be an insider who would know that these payments were subsidising school places of the friends or family of the charity directors, or to subsidise the rent of favoured members, or to help with legal expenses in a divorce case in which one party was publicly blaming the church for harming their marriage, or to buy shares illegally.

For example annual accounts might show that the charity owns shares. The auditor confirms that from whatever checks they choose to carry out. These shares may have been gifted to the church, bought legitimately or bought secretly and illegally many years ago. The accounts would only show the church had shares to a certain value and the auditor confirmed that that was true to the best of their knowledge.

Another example would be when a staff wages bill of half a million pounds is checked to be accurate by the auditor. They may check the total against the individual payslip records. They have no remit to check whether recruitment to those staff posts was carried out, possibly years earlier, in line with charity law requirements. If a charity employed anyone outside of charity law guidelines (i.e. appointing trustees friends or family with no interview or selection process to ensure the charity’s best interests are being served) that is only likely to be discovered on the basis of a complaint being made and OSCR inspecting the charity specifically to look at that issue.

Linking to the points others have made, the auditor checks the bank accounts and confirms that the amount of money paid from collection income in the branch churches to the school has been correctly recorded. They have no remit to check whether the trustees have made it clear to the congregation that this is happening.

Part of the problem of course is that in healthy, open charities the members/contributors are the check and balance on these things. If they are unhappy with what is being done with their contributions they cease to make them. Hence the excesses of the trustees are kept under control.

When the charity is a church and the congregations have been taught that the leaders of the charity are appointed by God to carry out his specific revealed requirements, and are to be regarded as beyond criticism, it is easy to see how the system could be abused. The members are to give sacrificially and the leaders can announce any changes to whatever they like as “they only do this when God tells them to”. Then a charity that used to spend most of its time and money running churches can morph into one that spends most of its time and money running a small private school and if someone questions this fundamental change in direction they are treated as deluded and far from God.

But, as the other comments have indicated, if people are happy for about a third of all the money they give to their local branch church to be redirected to private education of 100 kids in Greenock that is fine. If that was happening for the last 3 or more years but people did not know about it that is possibly deliberate deception. Particularly as there have been clear public statements from the head teacher that the school paid for itself from fees, which is a thing many people claim to have believed.

That is possibly not even illegal but is shows a dishonesty at the heart of Struthers Memorial Church, as Covlass points out. The Struthers leadership frequently declare a view of themselves as having superior insight into holiness and spirituality. Yet when reasonable people look at the actions of the Struthers executive what they see is secrecy, power grabbing authority for life, lack of honesty, fear of scrutiny, a unique approach to recruitment, shunning of those who do not accept the leadership view of it's own specialness, and an almost now bizarre aversion to answering questions.

Any excuse not to it seems. We ask from a wrong attitude, with a secret agenda they can detect, because we are demon possessed Christians, or because we don’t understand how important their work is. Always no answer whatever reason they invent.

Hopefully OSCR in their current audit of Struthers get to the bottom of these issues which concern many people and which are rightly of public concern given the negative impact Struthers has had on so many lives as testified to on this forum. That hard to dispute negative impact does not mean they have done everything wrong in every detail. But it does make them less and less credible as long as they refuse to respond to the things the public are asking them.

So in answer to your point, Squareone, about outside bodies, it may only be if OSCR go in and inspect based on a specific complaint that anything that might have been done outside charity law guidelines, for example in the deployment of the i-pads, would be detected and action taken. The standard half day charity audit by an accountant of the annual report and accounts (sometimes without even a site visit) would almost never detect this kind of problem.

Howdy all y'all.
Just got an update re; vulnerable children (and indeed adults). Care Commission currently are responsible for many aspects of care. Certainly anything residential (fee-paying or not).
Legally, all adults spending time with children or vulnerable adults, must have Enhanced Disclosures. (This is not the way I would have it, but in an environment that operates secretively...well, we have learned lessons.)
I have passed on concerns that this is not happening. I have also pre-emptively warned how leadership may try to circumnavigate these simple checks. Transparency and towing-the-line WILL happen. The only other option is for the church to close.
Charity status: seriously under review. A charity has to raise money, not absorb it internally.
I haven't even focused on the school yet. HMIE see it as fit for purpose. Care Commission will act on information as it comes out. The Charities Regulators (in light of recent financial hardships) will be as fair as possible. But if a school characteristically loses money then its viability as an educational establishment is anulled.
Anyway, am I right? The headmistress has 3 family members on her staff. If true....disconcerting. And the IT guy has potentially the ability to control all outgoing/incoming internet traffic.
Nice to see people coming into this discussion. More and more comes to light..
Got that about C&P before submission, Cbarb, thanks chum. I am an immigrant to the internet (lol...as is anyone over 30!).
Rensil (I think..), I have to say I perhaps agree that no dilution will occur and the damage will only intensify. I recall now some older folks who were always in attendance, and good people. But they never bought into the whole idea. Effectively they only were looking for wives and husbands, and were willing to play a role to do so. They never disclose their wealth/income. (Actually I was working in a bank in Maddison when a church member I used to know came in to do his banking. He was so upset at seeing me there, he changed banks and the manager, when I explained the probable reason, was aghast and disappointed....because this was a rich guy, but I'm pretty sure he got more out of the church than they got out of him.) I wonder what percentage of the congregation use the church in similar ways.
Have to home in on "nit-picking". I'm sorry friend, but you have had a relatively positive experience of church life. Struthers go after "a type". Anyone here any thoughts? I notice a pattern of people who are enmeshed. This is the vulnerability I keep referring to. For example...Youngster X has dabbled a bit in drugs/drink. Starts to have negative experiences. Finds God through SMC. Gives testimony and believes everything then told, ever after. Over the years their drug habit grows from one bad trip to daily injecting, anecdotally.
Example may be someone suffering a mental condition (eg, depression). They find solace within a church and maybe get better. Well done them! But I bet their testimony omits any medicines used to achieve healing.
This forum has people who are getting no answers to very serious issues. And many have NOT moved on and found happiness, because questions remain and there is often no resolution. But if you read the whole thing, you would have noticed this of course. I have discerned (!?) no nit-picking at all. Lack of answers leads to further inspection, which may come across as irrelevant or off-point. If only someone in authority would accept call to defend their home church and its flock. Was I a pastor, I'd be here telling truth and listening and offering any help I coud. Just saying...
Either way, this conversation grows and additional points are made. More people see.
A good thing is being done here. It will continue to raise contested subject matter. The truth is already evident, but it needs spread.
All for now. Thanks to all. Your contributions give me hope.
Faithfully yours, Ifellaway

Hi guys

Yes, Ifellaway - you are right about SMC going for a 'type'. From what I can gather now, the congregation consists of the more affluent members of the community - in other words, if you have money (and a lot of it) SMC will be your friend for life and you're likely to be one of the chosen few to whom the leaders 'feel drawn'. Wonder why? Could it be coz you will be able to pay their wages?

When it comes to marriage, I would steer well clear of trying to find a spouse in SMC, since the church are likely to take over your whole life and ruin your marriage anyway - never mind ruining your wedding!!

I have recently heard of another TWO marriages which were completely wrong, instead of being made in heaven they were made in SMC and that's a recipe for disaster anyway. One couple remains together but not out love for each other and only out of a feeling of duty to their spouse; the other couple parted ways and neither has been the same since.

I'm sure there are probably many many more stories like this and worse. The last thing anyone should do is listen to what the leaders of SMC say when it comes to relationships with other human beings never mind your relationship with God.

I actually don't think it would be a bad thing for the church to close it's doors and disband because they have an utter cheek to be associating themselves with God and Holiness when they have been proved over and over to be anything but Godly and Holy!! Blaming the congregation for being 'faithless', 'backslidden' or 'in need of deliverance' is just laughable and sickening at the same time, when you look at how these people treat their fellow humans. They are supposed to be leaders - shepherds of men - but they only pay attention to the ones who can contribute financially to keep them in the ways to which they have become accustomed.

As always
Huge love and biiiiiiig hugggggs
God Bless xxxx

Ifellaway
I am surprised to read what you've posted re Enhanced Disclosures for people working with children or vulnerable adults. While I am in no way sticking up for SMC, as far as I was aware, they always put people who were working with the children, through the Enhanced Disclosure Scotland checks (now PVG) and only allowed people who had no convictions to work with children in the church or school. I think it was quite rare, actually, for anyone's disclosure to show any past convictions. There were plenty of people, who were young or who'd been brought up in Christian homes, to work with the children, people who were unlikely to have been involved in crime. Where you have people, say, who have come from a background of drug abuse, then convictions are likely to show up, but not necessarily involving offences against children.

You say you have concerns. Do you have concerns that this isn't being carried out correctly by SMC or do you know of cases in SMC where no Disclosure checks have been carried out? That is serious if its the case.

Re the types who get drawn in to SMC, like Cbarb, I haven't seen in my experience, people joining to get a husband or wife. They wouldn't last long in the church if that was their mission! It was more like forget getting a marriage partner or if you already have one, be prepared to go your separate ways (even if still married) and for your marriage to come under the control of your leader. Read Lintar123's testimony early on in this thread (Dec 2011). Mr Black and Mary Black taught people not to seek marriage and most of the leaders discouraged or forbid social mixing between the sexes. So that partner-seeking may have happened in one church-branch but it is not my experience nor the experience of many I know.

I agree that people get drawn in to SMC when/because they are vulnerable or, in my opinion, at an impressionable stage of life such as late teens/early twenties. The large number of such educated young folk in earlier years couldn't have brought in much money but perhaps the hope was that they'd get good jobs and then contribute a lot of money to the church. But there were probably older folk with money who were keeping things afloat. The majority of them (the young and the older) have now in fact left SMC.

Hi folks

It's good to know that outside bodies are taking more interest in what's going on in SMC but whether or not it will do any good is something else entirely. I don't think that there would be a problem with full disclosure for those who're working with kids, however you don't need to have a criminal record to be abusive or be handling kids wrongly. So I doubt very much that anything untoward would be found in disclosures about the people working with the kids in SMC or the school.

The issue is far more subtle than that and is unlikely to be covered by anything in law. Mind control is a very subtle thing and doesn't happen overnight, it's also not something that you could see in black and white and say "Well that's obviously wrong!". Mind control takes time to carefully chip away at a persons self respect and mental health.

It's the subtlety of it that makes it so hard to recognise even when you're on the receiving end of this mind control. OK so you have your Derrin Brown's who are entertaining and show you just how easy it is to manipulate people into doing what you want and thinking the way you want them to think. But unless you are blatantly SHOWN how your thoughts and actions were being controlled it is unlikely you would ever actually realise that this is what has happened.

SMC leaders are obviously not going to show people, in black and white, how they control their various members or they would lose the element of control anyway and be shown up as charlatans. This is why they despise us so much because we are showing, in black and white, exactly how they have been controlling people for so long - under the guise of holiness and anointing. This puts them in a very precarious position, of course they don't want their remaining members to be reading this forum (or Latigo) because they realise that they are no longer hidden from public scrutiny and they cannot give a solid explanation for the way they treat people and their own abuse of the name of God.

I could say that I am a very discerning person and often get 'feelings' or 'dreams' about people and situations and quite often (although I may not realise it at the time) these feelings or dreams turn out to be correct. Does that mean I'm specially anointed by God? Of course not, it just means that I am sometimes overly sensitive to atmospheres and people's feelings and this can come out as what seems to be an insight into something that I shouldn't really know.

For example; my dearest friend and I are of similar ages and have grown up together very close and, even although we live 35 miles away from each other, I can 'feel' when something is wrong with her. That doesn't mean that I'm holy or anointed, it only means that we are so close we have a spiritual as well as a physical bond.

How many times have you heard about twins or close siblings knowing instinctively if something has happened to the other one? Or mothers knowing that something is wrong with one of their offspring?

The truth is that every human being in the world is connected to each other but because we are not in constant contact with everyone else in the world we wouldn't notice if something happened to anyone we didn't know personally. But spiritually we are all ONE and connected on the spiritual plain - this is also our connection to God himself - totally spiritual.

This is the connection that SMC leaders abuse - they may not realise they are doing so but that's exactly what it is! It's not a special anointing or holiness it's just that they have learned to read the signs psychologically and use that to their advantage to control the congregation. Of course, when this is called into question they are not going to outright admit that this is what they are doing but it's blatantly obvious that it is. If they were anointed by God, their actions would speak loudly of the love and grace of God, which we all know is not the case since they are sadly lacking in these two MOST IMPORTANT aspects of being Christian and God fearing, never mind being holy and anointed.

In view of the subtlety of the abuse, I don't really think that any illegalities would be shown up by reviews done by outside bodies - unless of course they are illegally using the church funds for ventures that they were not intended to be used for. This might have been the case during the shares fiasco back in the day but I don't see any proof of illegal dealings in the current sets of accounts - since all money seems to be given to them freely. That's not to say that they are using the money as it was intended but only the givers of the money can say whether or not they feel that the money is being used as it should be.

There is the point about 'Restricted Funds' suddenly being reduced by 200K in one year but since we don't know what the restriction on those funds was originally we can't say for sure that the funds have been used illegally.

So really what I'm trying to say is that the issues about SMC leaders are not as clear-cut as we would wish them to be and reviews by outside bodies may not find anything untoward going on at all - assuming the congregation are happy to be paying for the education of well-off kids and the salaries of the nepotistic teaching staff. Although we have heard from current members that they did not know their money was being used to subsidise the school and shops, we can't be sure that this is the case for every member of the congregation.

Remember when the stock market crashed and such a lot of money was lost - only the 'Yes men' were approached to bail the church out which, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, we have to assume the 'Yes men' did willingly and that's not illegal - however unholy or underhand it might be that the rest of the congregation were not even made aware of the situation until it became impossible for them to hide it any longer. By then it was too late to do anything positive about it anyway and HB was demoted from being holy and anointed to being 'just human'! But that's the main argument here - ALL the SMC leaders are 'just human' they are not any different or any more holy than you or I. In fact I would say that even Clive (who has suspiciously gone quiet since I asked if he had a vested interest in the I-pad issue) as a self-proclaimed atheist, is probably more holy than the leaders of SMC!!

At least here we are all being honest and truthful and some of us don't profess to be Christian or holy or anointed or even in any way spiritual and yet we have truth on our side. If the leaders of SMC are indeed truthful and Christian (forget about holy and anointed) then they would be here with us telling us why they act the way they do and why they have interfered in such an unholy way in so many peoples' lives. They would be showing us the scriptures which underpin their words and actions and they would be convincing us that they are indeed Godly people. But there is a distinct lack of anything coming from them in that regard, instead they'd rather sweep us under the carpet and try to forget about us - this is why they forbid the members of the churches to read this forum and brand us as liars and just a test to the church. It's great how they can get away with absolutely ANYTHING just by saying that those who disbelieve or ask questions are to be shunned because they don't understand what SMC are doing. LOL :-)

At least that's one thing they ARE right about! No, we don't understand them because nothing they do or say is actually founded in the Word of GOD. And they need to realise that they can't hide behind their imagined holiness and anointing any longer. The handling of the finances is the practical side of the issue but the more serious side is the spiritual aspect because this is what they will be called to answer for to God himself and, if I were them, I'd be quaking in my shoes to face God with all those destroyed souls on my conscience.

While I applaud the fact that outside bodies are taking a deeper interest in the goings on in the church, I have to say that I'm sceptical of them finding anything illegal going on. SMC leaders are too smart for that! I think anyway. Perhaps, if anything, the only aspect which could legally be construed as untoward might be the nepotistic way in which positions of authority and salaried positions are meted out to the families of those who are already leaders.

Certainly I will wait, with baited breath, to discover the outcomes of any reviews or reports made by outside bodies regarding the way in which SMC operate in their commercial ventures. ALL of which are LOSS MAKING ventures!! Without any of the commercial ventures the church would actually be doing OK for itself financially but it is as a DIRECT result of the commercial ventures that their finances are still questionable. And to my mind that just says it all - if God wanted them to be running bookshops and a fee-paying school do you really believe he would be allowing them to make such heavy losses every year? I don't think so, but I could be wrong - perhaps this is, dare I say it, just another 'TEST' from God of the faithful??? Hmmmmm .... I think that old adage has lost it's flavour a long time ago. It's such an easy statement to HIDE behind, isn't it?

As always biiiiig love and huge hugggggs to all
God Bless xxx