Hi Seekingsusan, great to see you again!

Yes, I remember that quote too and it still makes me smile :-)

This is so typical of SMC leadership: When asked a question for which one has no logical answer or explanation - breathe hellfire and damnation on the questioner for not just blindly believing every word you say!!

We've all heard similar 'cop-outs' during our time in SMC but this particular quote shows just how absurd the leaders of SMC (and not just the late HB) are.

Thanks also for the heads-up on the impending relocation of the refuge - I'll be sure to give them a wide berth next time I'm in Aylesbury.

As always,
Biiiiiiig love and huge huggggggs to all
God Bless xxxx

Hi folks

Not sure where everyone is hiding but I just thought you'd like to know that we no longer have the privilege of 'Front page News' in Google, in fact the first mention doesn't appear until page 5 in a search.

This may be due to the server moves etc. but I tend to think it's more to do with inactivity on the site. Such a shame - I guess they've finally managed to drown us out!

One good thing though is that Latigo still appears on the front page... KUDOS to you Latigo! You are now a lone voice among the multitude of SMC websites and ads.

So sad, after all the hard work and emotional effort which we were all putting into this site for so long, to help and support each other.

All I can say, is get active again peeps or we will just disappear into oblivion and nothing will change at SMC - except that they'll all be thanking God for answering their prayers for destruction of our thread.

Take care all and God Bless
xxxx

It's up to you and the others.

If people are interested they will post.

We did go through quite a data loss due to a backup error.

See [forum.culteducation.com]

This included a deletion of two years of membership records.

People that were posting need to register again.

Hello again folks!

Time to come out of hibernation! (Sorry to ruin your day SMC leadership!)

I would like to mention a few concerns I have about Cedars School.

Three months ago I was talking to a lovely young Mum whose daughter spent a good number of years at Cedars. This lady and her husband decided to withdraw their daughter when she reached the age of 16/17. They sent her to the local state school to finish her education.

This Mum had quite a few concerns about Cedars. She told me how her daughter would bring home textbooks with passages blacked out through censorship. When it would come to Parents Evening her daughter would plead with her to wear high necked tee shirts and not to wear make up or nail varnish.

She told me that, thankfully, her daughter was always a thinking young person who knew her own mind and she and her husband knew that their daughter would be able to resist the brainwashing. They have a younger son who she told me they would never dream of sending to Cedars because he is more impressionable and vulnerable. In case you are wondering why they ever sent their daughter to Cedars, there is a close family member who is a member of SMC and who encouraged them to send her there and who made a contribution to the fees.

I remember a few years ago being in the Greenock SMC and hearing from the pulpit that money given to SMC was going into the "Forward Vision Fund" and that much of this fund was sunk into the school. Cedars School was then jokily described as "a black hole".

That's all for now folks. There is more to tell but enough for now.

Thank you for all your encouragement to me to start posting again.

Let's all keep up the good work.

Happy Survivor.

Hi Happy Survivor!

We're so glad you're back and you have our full support and love while you go through the recovery period.

To be honest, I'm not in the least bit surprised that school text books are being censored by the overlords of Cedars. If it wasn't so pathetic it would be laughable.

Also, and more abhorrent, the fact that pupils are begging their parents to be 'abnormal' on parents' nights shows that they must be receiving some kind of harassment, from teachers in school when their parents don't live up to SMC standards. Otherwise why would there be the need for such begging of parents to look and act like SMC believe they ought to?

Again, this shows the sort of control being exerted not just on SMC members but on the school children as well. I don't know the law on this but surely abnormal pressure, of this type, on school children MUST be unlawful?

I know we have posters here who know the law as regards the treatment of children - can you guys shed light on the legalities of such pressure being brought on kids to make them beg their parents to 'conform' on parents nights?

I mean I could understand if a child asked their parents not to turn up to parents night drunk or under the influence of drugs but to beg them to wear certain clothes or not wear make-up - is that normal?? Surely this amounts to bullying of children by unscrupulous adults??

When I attended parents nights, while my sons were at school, the most they begged me for was not to get mad at them when their teachers told me about bad marks or that they needed to pay more attention (or, on one occasion, about my eldest blasting a hole in a desk in the science room!) but I'd have been hopping mad at teachers who gave my sons a hard time because of the clothes I wore or the make-up I wore. I'd have torn strips off the teachers for starters and then complained bitterly to the schools Council about such pressure being brought to bear on my kids!!

Happy Survivor, thank you for sharing with us. We were all well aware that things were not right at the school but, until now, we only had knowledge of the state of the finances but no real inside knowledge of how the kids were being treated and we could only surmise what was going on. It's good to know that we were right to be so worried for the kids in Cedars.

I'll look forward to hearing from others with regards to the legal issue of what surely must amount to bullying in the classroom by teachers. Hopefully the OSCR are still following this thread because I'm quite sure they will not be getting the true picture from Cedars teachers (in spite of their self-proclaimed holiness).

As always, biiiiiig love and huge hugggggs to all (especially to you, Happy Survivor)
God Bless xxxx

Cbarb
I don't know why the links to this Forum aren't coming up in a Google search because I noticed this a wee while back, before the recent quietness on this Forum thread. Perhaps one of our technically minded contributors or the Latigo team might be able to enlighten us? And get it back on?

Anyway, to go back to your post from 3 November, Cbarb, where you wondered about the "grants, donations and pensions" which SMC say they provide, I think they are as usual trying to make themselves look good in a similar way to politicians who can give us "spin".

I think the donations and grants refers to financial support SMC gives to a few SMC members who do missionary type work overseas, either long-term or short-term (students)or to those who run similar foreign aid charities. All those involved are SMC members so they're really giving to themselves but would like people and OSCR to think that they're supporting all kinds of needy organisations. They have to now show they are benefitting the public, remember.

Happy Survivor, I remember the Forward Vision Fund but I never ever found out what it was for or where the money went, or if it was being saved up for the future. We were never told. I didn't know that some or all of it went to Cedars School. Not surprised, though, from what we now know. Thanks for your info re the School. Disgusting.

I noticed SMC held a small remembrance service on Armistice Sunday at the War Memorial Cross outside the Glasgow Church, with a boy who has been in the Army laying a poppy wreath and a bagpiper from the church playing alongside. It is nice that they did this, but is it just another way to try to show they're benefitting the public? And that they're normal after all! However, I wonder how many of the local West End residents knew about it. Remembrance Sunday never used to get any mention at all, back in the days of Hugh Black and Mary Black. We hadn't to think of such things, but just to focus on God and holy living. Eh?

Recent quietness?? I thought we were just giving rrmod a wee rest.
Happy Survivor, nice to see you and in fine fettle. Censorship is one thing that schools have to deal with. If done it has to be justified. I wonder if they are protecting young minds.
Ahhh, I think I am not being truthful. I wonder no such thing. I am deeply, gravely suspicious.
Rensil, as far as I know the pecking order is mostly based on volume of traffic. Even people popping in to read counts as a hit. Maybe smc leaders are sitting all day repeatedly hitting their own boastful, misleading blogs and whatnots. I suppose we could do the same kind of thing..
But the information loss might have set us further down, in which case we will climb again. I'm not going anywhere. :)
Meanwhile Latigo shines even brighter because of our current absence. It's a win-win for truth.
Oh! I do know that the longer a charity is "under review", the harder time they are having. They may eventually pass muster, but such a lengthy review period is surely an indication that they need closely watched in future.
It does seem like they are trying too hard, thereby coming across as against the wall and willing to make (perhaps only temporary) changes.
I am confident that OSCR are better at spotting fakery than smc are at squirming around to appear acceptable.
Anyway, regards to all, and happy days!
Cornelius Dredd (Once Ifellaway)

Hi All, good to see that the interesting posts ‘jus keep a-comin’.

I do have concerns about the school, but my bigger concern is about the whole organisation and how the two bits fit together. The leaders/Trustees need to answer the question of whether the school in an outreach or not. If it is, they have to explain to parents that this is the case and they will be trying to influence young people. If not, then they have to explain to the congregation where their money is going.

I don’t suppose that we will ever get an answer to all the questions, but I am sure OSCR will require them to answer that one.

What is of course also bizarre (but not surprising) is that they are influencing young people, but not in particularly helpful ways. For example, parents are being encouraged by their children to dress a particular way to attend school events. So, all this money and effort, and what is the outcome? Is it lives transformed, hope where there was despair? No, it is young people worried about what their parents will wear to a parents meeting. Not that it will ever have been explicitly mentioned, that is not their way, but it shows where their real values are – not in honesty, integrity, humility, love, but in a dress code – the outer form of holiness. Not sure how that scores against the new curriculum that is meant to encourage individuality etc., no matter against the gospel.

In terms of the google rankings, there is no doubt that the loss of data has contributed, but the big change will actually be the server move. Even if the data was still there in the new servers, google would lose all the links created by old searches, so, instead of RR page 20 being clicked on as a result of 100 searches, it is now just another internet page that has never been clicked on from google.

As contributions continue, the pages will go back up the rankings but the thing that would really make a difference would be if people found RR through a google search. This is of course a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy. If a page can be found through a goggle search, more people will find it through a google search, which means that it is easier to find through a google search.

Those with experience of Struthers might want to note this is different form the SMC approach to prophesy which is based on the model of UN-fulfilled prophesy ;-)

Anyway, back to the search question. If people searched for a suitable term then clicked on the link in google, that would certainly help boost the rankings. For example, I searched for “Struthers Church” then flicked through the results until I reached page 6 of the search where I saw a link to the culteducation forum. I clicked on that link to go to the forum rather than using a bookmark. Google records which link led to a click, so that boosts page rankings.

That is only one factor of course, but if people do use google to find the links they want, it does push pages up the rankings.

Best wishes to all!

Hi folks

Thanks, ThePetitor for your insights into our Google demise and I'm taking your advice and using Google to search for the forum and clicking on the link in Google results (which incidentally has now dropped to page 6). Unfortunately, Google is brining up a link to an old post on the old server, which of course no longer exists, and this could also be harming our position in Google. However, if everyone just uses this link to get into the forum - as you suggest - this may help to bump us back up the rankings.

Also, I noticed a spurious link to a site with the tag 'Speaking in tongues' I'd urge everyone to stay away from this link since, although it appears to link to our thread, it's a scam and actually takes you to a site linking to an online casino!!

It certainly seems that all the moving about of the forum has done a bit of damage to us - not least of which was the loss of two years worth of posts. But also the loss of logons, returning to comment moderation in spite of being regular posters and a 'not very nice' template for the new forum.

Anyway folks, I hope none of this discourages people from posting and hope to see some of the old posters (whose logons have been lost) getting back on and supporting us.

Another thing, in case some 'out of towners' were wondering about recent news stories regarding the mysterious removal of a head teacher from a local school - this was not a Cedars teacher but a teacher from another local primary school. I think that, since all the teachers in Cedars are related to each other and high members of SMC, it's unlikely that any of them would be removed from their posts anyway (regardless of conduct).

Although Cedars have to conform to legislation and law regarding the running of a private school - they seem to be able to LOOK as if they are doing this while still imposing their own agenda 'under the blanket'. This is no real surprise, since the leaders of SMC are in general very manipulative people anyway and they know how to use psychology to stir people to act in the ways they want them to act. We all know that (we've all succumbed to this manipulation at some point in our lives).

So, folks we have to keep up this debate and stay active to ensure our voices don't get drowned out by the manipulation of SMC.

Keep up the good work folks, people need to be kept informed of the dangers of joining the SMC organisation.

As always,
Biiiiiiig love and huge hugggggggs to all
God Bless xxxx

Hi Folks

Sorry Rensil, I meant to thank you for your comments regarding the grants, loans and pensions that I was enquiring about:

Quote
Rensil
I think the donations and grants refers to financial support SMC gives to a few SMC members who do missionary type work overseas, either long-term or short-term (students)or to those who run similar foreign aid charities. All those involved are SMC members so they're really giving to themselves but would like people and OSCR to think that they're supporting all kinds of needy organisations. They have to now show they are benefitting the public, remember.

Do you know how much these people received and do you think it would amount to substantial amounts? It's just that reading the mission statement on OSCR - it appears as if they are giving large sums of money to people in need of grants, loans or pensions.

It would be interesting to know how much exactly is being given in this way - even if it is to their own missionaries or chosen students and charities.

It's just that I can't see how they can possibly say that this is a main focus of the organisation when they don't have enough money to keep their own ventures going. Some years ago I worked with a huge charity who were losing a lot of money every year and needed to investigate why, since they had previously been doing very well - to cut a long story short, and without giving away too much detail, this charity had to severely cut their expenses and the very FIRST expense they cut was their level of giving to outside charities, individuals and organisations. They immediately lodged a statement regarding this, with the charities commission, and had their published mission statement changed to reflect the fact that they could no longer support these outside operations for the foreseeable future but would continue to cover their main duties as information and assistance providers to a particular section of the local population. Yes, they did lose some of the public funding they had previously received because of the changes being made - but they were honest and up front and the reduced benefits were built into their plan for the future. Incidentally, that was 12 years ago and that particular charity is now back on it's feet and fully supporting ALL it's original commitments.

So, fair enough if SMC are giving such grants in the way they say they are (by their mission statement on OSCR site), but I don't see how they can be - given the present level of consistent annual losses. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Furthermore, the charity I mentioned above are NOT religious in any way but at least they are truthful and have integrity on their side. On the other hand, here we have Struthers Memorial Church, whose leaders believe they are akin to God himself and they are way more HOLY than anyone else on earth and yet they appear to be continually trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the charities commission, the public and even their own members. That's not the kind of holiness taught in my Bible.

Is there a new Bible I haven't heard about? "The Gospel According to Struthers Memorial Church", which preaches unaccountability?

As always biiiiiiig love and huge huggggggs to all
God Bless xxx