Welcome "London'sCalling". Like the name you've chosen. Hope your old pals do get in touch with you. You've given us a lighter feel for a moment. The Falkirk/Cumbernauld to Glasgow divide is an interesting thing to have noticed. Any other fun stories welcome. There are lots of Wiston ones, think you are the first to bring us Gartmore ones. Stories are always good. :)

Reverting back to previous chain from weekend
RE-POSTED HERE FROM SEPARATE MESSAGE THREAD

Quote

Reply to a question from RR
Posted by: Esmespiers ()
Date: March 31, 2025 05:27AM

In response to a question l received from one of you. Why did l live in Cedars when l had church parents. Answer for my total" Breaking to the will of Spiers" . Many of us landed up theee for Santifucation! Cop out but made Spider Spiers feel powerful, so sad..
Good bye.
Esme.

Scohhol spider was my teacher and head
teacher.
Home she ran cedars
Church day and night she was a so called minsiter
Wiukd that not break sane person.
Thank you AG for getting it and sadly seeing it.

I separately asked Esme if her parents paid Alison Speirs for their children to stay there and she said yes. The questions I asked her sent my mind to look up various things and to ask various questions:

Parents - Hello, hello, are you there?
1) Paying??? Paying for your child to be brought up by another person when you were not incapacitated or living abroad?
2) Did you sign an Occupancy Agreement, stating rate, length of stay, with safety guarantees on servicing of equipment, heating in the premises outlined?
3) Did you see the legal licence that is required if three or more unrelated occupants share bathroom and kitchen facilites (HMO licence Inverclyde Council)
4) Out of interest, what was the going rate for a room? Was it a shared bedroom?
5) Any receipts for payments made to Alison or Elaine or Sheila?
6) What was the youngest age it was deemed safe and appropriate to make this life-altering decision for child/ young person?
7) Were there house rules known in advance and agreed to? eg How were strained relations to be dealt with, what the cooking and cleaning rota's would be?
8) Did you agree to rules around use of "ministry" sessions or “deliverance” treatment in advance?
9) Was there consent of the child/young adult at each "ministry" occasion?
10) Could the child/young person leave on their own choice rather than being banished?
11) Did the child/young adult ever ASK to leave and you refused?

Directors' responsibilities
See TheGreek’s safeguarding post on p229 above. He outlines the church's responsibility and asks questions re follow up to the safeguarding report. I would remind Forum readers that the longest serving directors are each of Grace Gault, Jennifer Jack, Diana Rutherford, Chris Jewell and Pauline Anderson. Chris and Pauline have of course recently resigned from the Board. Interestingly I am told that Pauline had responsibility for Health and Safety(??). All of these persons were legal Directors from the formation of the current SMC legal entity until last year, therefore all in place during the reign of the Cedars house.

Personal legal responsibilities
House of Multiple Occupation
p158 has already discussed this topic. On that page, Cheery Lizard goes to great pains to stress that Cedars house was legally privately owned. This is not disputed even if some aspects of its two phase acquisition remind me of Ahab, Jezebel, Naboth and the Vineyard acquisition from 1 Kings 21. But legal ownership is irrelevant to facts of multiple occupation. It is the law. I wonder if Mrs Goodbrand's report investigated or commented on the existence or otherwise of such a licence. Social Work departments are well acquainted with the need for both "Occupancy Agreements" and HMO licences as they organise rental accommodation for vulnerable persons in a sharing context.


The Rent a Room Scheme
You are allowed to earn up to a threshold of £7,500 per year tax-free from letting out furnished accommodation in your home. But as Cedars was possibly not Alison's legal home, then begs question whose personal income the accommodation charges belong to. If you are receiving income without owning the property, then that would be trading income, subject to normal rules of Income Tax, and without the £7500 Rent a Room tax threshold. ie would be due to be declared on a Personal Tax return and tax paid on it at the individual's highest rate of tax.

If there are any investigative journalists out there following this story, this looks like a rich seam, personal property or not.

Parents I return to my the topic I bring up the most. You and your choices. You have agency. Stop and look at the elderly people in the church, or think of elderly people from the church who have died in the past 10 years - how many of their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren are still attending? How many close parent/ adult child relationships do you see? What do you want your family to consist of in 10 years time? You can say they have not been affected, but time will run its course and will show whether or not your children agreed with your Struthers devotion in due course.

London'sCalling it's really interesting to read your posts! I was around at the same time and a similar age, I remember a lot of the people you are speaking about. I definitely remember the drummer from the other church, there were a lot of baffled faces when he spoke about that, although loads of the people at SMC were listening to Christian music that happily had drums (although of course, nothing too heavy!)

I remember being in a tent at Gartmore and one of the lads started playing Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson through his phone, and it felt totally taboo. Glad you're doing well!

London’s Calling – welcome to the forum. It is interesting to see a new generation of young folk being willing to add their own thoughts on all the interactions and shenanigans (both youthful and spiritual!) I really hope a number of you do manage to get in touch with each other and share a bit of camaraderie.

That actually reminds me of something I have probably alluded to here and have certainly said to individuals I have met, which is that, when I meet other Struthers Survivors, it feels like we are long lost cousins. I was in touch with one recently that I never knew at all, yet it was like we had known each other all our lives. I guess it is a bit like you were both brought up in the same small village or something like that, but I feel it is somehow even more than that.

I was sharing this with someone else and they said, “exactly, it is like you were in the Vietnam war together” and I think that is exactly it. If you watch American detective-type drama, especially things like NCIS, you will see that ex-service men and women who meet for the first time exchange information about which division they were in and which years they served, and there is always this sense of brotherhood (/sisterhood) and shared experience. That is how I feel when meeting other Struthers Survivors and, speaking to others, they also seem to share this sense of shared experience and survivor-hood (often including a sense of guilt that they have somehow survived when others perished). So “Semper Fi” as they say in the Marines.

Pheobe, I may be too late to catch you, but thanks for all your contributions and insights. It has been lovely to have you walk with us for a while and to have you as part of “the village”. To follow the analogy I used above, you are a long-lost cousin and a fellow-marine, so are always welcome here!

Anyway, to business! (Although, unlike Struthers, I do think that welcoming people and having personal interactions is a big part of the business.)

There has been quite a focus on Alison Spears recently, with Esme giving a very personal account of the trauma she experienced, Al Duff asking searching questions about whether her vision for the school was from God and RedRoad’s most recent post about Cedars and the many biblical, moral, legal and financial questions it generates.

Two of these three points also ask very serious questions about the role of Chris Jewell who was the treasurer at the time.

I do not want to in any way detract from any of the points made, but I do want to add something to all of this, which is “What were the Trustees (including Cheris Jewell) doing during all of this?” I have not looked at all the annual reports but in 2015, 2018 and 2021 the Directors were:

Grace Gault
Pauline Anderson
Jennifer Jack
Andrew Jewll
Chris Jewell
Karen MacDonald
Daina Rutherford
Alison Speirs

These were the people responsible for everything that happened. Whatever Alison Speirs was doing, the Directors carry “joint and several responsibility”.

In financial settlements, joint and several liability makes all parties in a lawsuit responsible for damages up to the entire amount awarded. That is, if one party is unable to pay, then the others named must pay more than their share until their joint financial obligation has been met.

Even leaving aside the financial bit, the same principle applies – that each director is fully responsible for all of the actions of the organisation. So each of these people carry the full responsibility. They cannot sidestep this, it is their responsibility.

If Alison was doing things that were not right, the others had a very clear obligation to take control and manage her. The is the job. So, by all means draw attention to the things Alison was doing but remember the full responsibility and the fault lay with Grace, Pauline, Jennifer, Andrew, Chris, Karen and Diana as well. They carry full responsibility for everything Alison did.

Some have of course since resigned, but that in itself does not absolve them of having that responsibility at the time.

Pauline Anderson Reasons for Resignation Letter

[drive.google.com]


Directors Response to Pauline Anderson Letter

[drive.google.com]


Pauline Anderson Response to the Directors Letter

[drive.google.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2025 06:12PM by FriendlyFace.

Well interesting reading, thanks FF. I am sure that will generate a number of comments over the coming weeks.

My initial thoughts are pretty simple.

Letter from Pauline: 46 Scripture references. That provides a scriptural basis for discussion and debate.

Reply from Struthers: zero scriptural references. zero. not one. Just, "well, the way we like to work is..."

Do they even consider themselves a church anymore?

My initial thoughts are also pretty simple.

SMC's official response is that those externally raising concerns are small in number, have no evidence, and are probably remembering things wrong.

This is the reasoning of abuse.

Small in number? They obviously missed my earlier post

Quote
ThePetitor, p205
I do not think there is any other church on the planet that has such a high ratio of unhappy ex-members to current members. There may in fact never have been another church in history that has this sort of ratio – 100 unhappy ex-members on this forum, and probably at least as many others who have not posted here, so that is 200, which is comparable to the actual number of people currently in the church.

Has any church in history ever had that ratio of members to disgruntled ex-members?

This is not normal folks.

Does anyone else have fun trying to deduce who is who in this forum? I think I only know who 4 of you are- 2 because you use your real names! Not too good at this deduction game, am I.

I would also like to know why people post anonymously? This is a genuine question. My parent is still in the church and I'd like to protect their privacy, otherwise I'd be happy to be transparent.

Hi all! Thanks for the warm messages, feels like we’re all kindred spirits here. @anonymousfornow that’s crazy that we probably met once or twice at camp but never knew each other. I stayed in the activity centre and the Mews so never got encountered the music. The leader’s son who I mentioned in my previous message was really into those artists so I presume it was him keeping you up at night! Haha! I hope he has sleepless nights now. Jokes. Ha!

I’ve read some previous messages and you’re from Pudsey church, is that correct? I believe one of the leaders who didn’t get along with me was Emma R. I believe she was a member of your parish. If I recall correctly, she didn’t like the Falkirk lads and would often verbally scold them because they were there for a fun time not a spiritual time.

We often had young stragglers join our gang, there was one with glasses and clubfoot - I think was a brother or cousin to the leader of our gang. His face is a face I want to forget but cannot, haha! He had an accomplice who used to bully me unrelentingly. Which is why I stopped coming. There was a huge bully culture in struthers camps, often defended by those ‘middle leaders’. The men older than I, those in their early 20s, were big bullies. I only got wedgied the once thank the lord but others there not so lucky. Boys will be boys I guess, ha ha.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2025 11:48PM by London'sCalling.

Hi Mulberry.

I think you’ve answered your own question.

Sometimes I wish I’d stayed anonymous but I didn’t.