Thank you Redroad for your contribution and reminding me privately of Latigo214.info. As you mentioned, it has some 2026 entries. Again these are clear, measured, ethical and as far as I can tell, fully accurate.

The author has answered my question:
the GRAND TOTAL of money that was diverted from Church funds - without knowledgeable member consent? - to the loss-making businesses, mainly to the Speirs school, appears to be an almost incredible THREE MILLION POUNDS.

This is a major financial scandal which must be addressed. In any universe.

I ask the treasurers, CHRIS JOULE and his successor, to confirm that they signed off these huge transfers and to explain themselves.

With your solemn fiduciary responsibilities, and in your case, Chris, with your banking background and your generous church salary, should you not have protected the rest of the leadership from their own folly?

God is not in the bankruptcy business! Anything of divine origin works. The school was never in any spiritual or rational plan; its origin, I believe, was entirely in the soaring imaginations and ambitions of its two founders: ALISON SPEIRS and MARY BLACK.

The Latigo author quite rightly asks, among other searching questions, "Is the Glasgow Church to receive a rescue package to enable the building’s survival?"

Having served in that branch for 20 plus years, and "tithed" there, I want an answer. I, for one, was not aware my money was being transferred to the Speirs school. And as I've already said ad nauseam, I opposed the private school on day one - and was frozen out of the church for doing so.

The Glasgow branch had (and has) many good people earning decent money and should have hundreds of thousands in its coffers, for listed building upkeep, real evangelism, helping its own people in need, etc.

Will I get an apology? More importantly, will people whose careers were interfered with and nearly stopped, such as psychologists and social workers (while all the kudos went to ... wait for it ... primary school teachers!) get an apology? Will those whose relationships were broken up get an apology? No sign of that. This has to change.

Oops, someone has pointed out my misspelling!

It is CHRIS JEWELL the former banker and long-time Struthers church treasurer I am asking questions of, not James Joule the physicist.

Without prejudice.

Al Duff,
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Absolutely. There has to be an explanation and apology for the financial side.

There also has to be an apology for the abuse of the pulpit. I have said before that, if the leaders did not mean for everyone to refuse to have TVs, for all the women to wear hats, for people to defer to the leaders in terms of what job they took or who they married, then they had the worst communicators in history, as these were the messages received by everyone in the congregation.

It is the same here. As Al Duff says, “I, for one, was not aware my money was being transferred to the Speirs school.”

So whatever nonsense they argue about what they SAID, this is what was HEARD.

That is a big part of the problem – they do not have any internal feedback loops to let them know what is being HEARD. The only people they get feedback from are sycophants and those to frightened by years of being degraded and told that they are hopeless. That is exactly why they should treat this forum as a resource, not a problem. Here is where you will find real feedback about what is being HEARD by those you minister to.

That is also where their nonsense complaints policy fails miserably. As a result of issues raised by 31:8 a few years ago, they adopted a reasonable complaints policy that said they would deal with issues. What happened then? There was a complaint raised (that was subsequently posted on this forum by FriendlyFace). The result, “we have looked at your complaint and decided we do not want to apply our complaints policy. We are instead going to have a new approach that is all about ‘reconciliation.’ ”

What a load of nonsense. The kind of issue raised here by Al Duff and the previous question about nepotism raised by RedRoad need looked into. It is not the person raising the issue who needs corrected or reconciled, it is the issues that need looked at.

I have been reading the Latigo information and find it absolutely jaw dropping .

Is it the case that all the staff of the school of " nepotism " were basically salaried by the fees paid by parents and church money ?

And dare I ask which pot funded the " reduncancies " and " pay outs " when the school closed ?

I also recall an article that the shocked parents had raised £50,000 pounds to try to prevent the closure ?

I too , am shocked and angered that tithed money went into this . Also I don't follow why G R is signing off things ... definitely more " nepotism " and surely some illegalities ? And would it have been the case that some of the pupils were awarded " bursaries " or grants to attend . I don't see them mentioned . Also appalled to discover that some of the leaders were salaried . ? And ... they have properties including the former school building valued at £ 500,000 ?

It appears that new pdfs have gone up again on the [latigo214.info] site. There's a couple of narrative articles which have been there for a while and now new pdfs filled with numbers and charts galore with some attempts to explain on every page. Not gonna be everyone's cup of tea. 40 pages! But don't think many of us are going to miss the driving headline of £3MILLION that Al Duff has already stated. Pile-driver repetitive assertions of organisational error of 16 years. That's 16 years that we can assess thanks to existence of public information. What about the earlier 50+ years of SMC existence? We will probably never know.

In an attempt to take in all 40 pages of the 3 pdf documents and turn them into a digestable meal, I've sought some AI help. "Digestable" is the wrong word. I feel emotionally abused once more in the Trust department. An unending case of Indigestion. The Stomach being the part of the body that holds emotion. After "digesting" the 40 pages? Sick to my stomach. Turns my stomach. Can't stomach it. But puts fire in my belly for accountability.

I feel I've been hit in the solar plexus, over and over and over. Abuse of Trust. Manipulation of positions of authority. Deliberate Deception. Self-centred advantaging for a small inner-circle, both financial and ego. The value of the monetary abuse, the planned organisational set up around specific families, the length of time it lasted - all of it staggering. Cannot be taken in. Cannot be digested.

SMC abuse impacts different generations in different ways. SMC has now existed for 70 years. Three-score years and ten as Mr Black might say.

There is no single way to sum up SMC abuse.

The current set of posts are financial. Wise Piglet in the couple of pages before takes us to childhood physical and emotional abuse. Last year's whirlwind of "Esme" and "Mirmac" postings took us to "bend the knee", "break your will" emotional abuse. The allegation of parents giving over their children into the Alison Speirs orbit for spiritual discipline training.

The Gift-Aid generation of SMC survivors may feel they were stolen from financially. Indeed these PDFs have proven factual transfer of funds and sales of properties. Gift-aiders may feel funds were requested from them under false pretences. Now they may feel coerced and duped. They think of what they forwent domestically in order to give. Some may think of the years of striving to reach that inner circle of approval. Of pushing down doubts for years and years before making the break. Of still giving after their generation was deemed to be past it. When their generation was side-lined with the rise of the Dawntreaders, Radical Alternative and the post-Mary Black era. Still giving through all those emotionally difficult years. Genuinely trying to attain the best, truest, deepest spiritual life. Possibly also living for the atmosphere. The singing. The miracles. The feeling of being in an exceptionally brilliant church. No other church could possibly give those experiences. No other church had the true understanding of spirituality.

But the church children. They had no choice. They had their childhoods stolen. Some knew at the time and rebelled (pointlessly, physically and emotionally painfully). Some did not. Some threw themselves wholeheartedly into the project. But they still had their childhoods and adolescence stolen, even if they co-operated at the time. They had their transition into adulthood made so so so more difficult. Of a 4 legged table, one leg always shorter, not stable, confused about what they were feeling in their gut, not always feeling safe in and after services, being hot-housed and pressured into expressions of uber-spirituality, being frightened by the stories they had to listen to from their first age of remembering, the pile-driver commentary of "death to self", of antagonism to relationships, seeing parents being undermined and pitted one against the other in the favouritism stakes, parents seeking leadership approval and choosing to give away their children, parents allowing, or worse, themselves telling their own children they were demon possessed, not defending them using the spiritual scriptural armour that this allegation was nonsense because in Christian Conversion they now had the Spirit of God living inside them, of children seeking leadership approval themselves and to get it, having to abandon relationship with the parents who were not making the approval mark or who had a differing opinion of raising their family. Families internally pitted against each other. Some family members stay. Some leave. Some return to SMC in later years to the confusion of siblings who have left.

These adult children too have Stomach indigestion.
Dead in their stomach.
And the pain of coming alive again?

I am hoping to put up a few separate posts that will go through the AI summarisation of the Latigo214 pdfs, but I don't want the 70 years(!) of adult children who live and breathe the after-effects of growing up in SMC to feel that £3 MILLION is more important than the relational mayhem of their lives.

The Basic Edit pdf
Introduces the pdf's to be a 16-year financial analysis, between 2008 and 2023, which was the year before the school closed. It says its data source are the legal accounts at Companies House. That means with a bit of effort, the numbers could be checked and should prevent over-exaggeration of reporting within the documents.

Page 1 - bright multi-coloured statements!
General Funds Surplus over 16 years is £1.75 million and 94% of that amount is given away to Commercial ventures. £3 million comes from £0.7 million Coffee shop losses; £0.1 million Conference losses; £0.9 million school losses; £1.3 million special school offerings and donations. Raises key governance questions: ownership of funds, decision-making, and accountability to congregants.

Page 3 section 1.2
Balance sheet shows most church assets almost entirely consists of Properties (no surprise there) but that Cash only increased by £119k over the 16 years despite large Income inflow of £23m over the 16 years (shown on page 2, section 1.1, 2nd Column "Income").

Page 3 section 1.2 also states there were Loans from Individuals to the church that were paid off in full by 2011 but more intriguingly, there were Loans from the Church to Individuals that existed as Debtor balances until 2017. No details as to why Individuals gave Loans or were given Loans in turn, nor what the terms of the Loans were.


Page 4 section 2.1
Core church generates £6.77m income and £1.76m surplus. This Surplus is the primary source funding other activities.
£900k of the £6.77m income derives from Gains when selling property!!!
That's the same amount as the School Losses, or the same amount as the Coffee Shop and Conference Losses put together.


Page 5 section 2.2
Coffee shop income £5.1m vs costs £5.78m. Deficit £0.66m.
95% of sales absorbed by direct costs before paying overheads. Direct Costs are Stock Purchases, Wages, Utilities.

For every £100 spent, the coffee shops generated £87.47. Structurally loss-making. Church funds subsidise £665k total coffee shop losses.

Page 6 section 2.3
School fees £8.1m vs total costs £10.3m. Large (understatement!!) deficit.
Staff costs alone consume ~99% of fee income.

£1.33m restricted school donations plus £0.86m church subsidy cover gap.
True congregational funding of school estimated at £2.19m.

Suggestion that restricted school funds may not be used strictly as intended. Possible under-reporting of bursaries and fee values.

Page 7 section 3.1
Cash flow: £1.31m generated from operations. Majority consumed by school and coffee shop deficits.
94% of generated cash diverted to loss-making activities.

Page 8 section 3.2
Property-related cash inflows ~£1.81m from special offerings, legacies, sales of properties and investments.
Spent on repaying loans, property purchases and expansions and unspecific (on this page at least) special fund expenditure.
This is an interesting page because it lists all the different property purchases and sales and loan repayments.
I notice that a property on Denholm St was owned by the Church. That happens to be the street that the Black family home was on.

Combined bank balance increase £119k over 16 years. Confirms limited accumulation of cash reserves despite big flows of money in and out.

A Further Look pdf
Page 16 Narrative page - What was found after a Further Look:
Chronic Deficits in Commercial Ventures - as in Repetitive Losses! The narrative states that the only year the Coffee Shops made a surplus was in 2008 and the only 2 years the School made a surplus were in 2012 and 2016.

Misleading Financial Reporting - concerns are raised about the clarity of reporting on bursary awards, restricted school fund usage, maintenance cost re-classifications in one particular year, related-party and close family transactions and unusual decisions as to which church and school roles were "Key Management Personnel" and which were not.

Page 19 section 4.2
Very clearly shows 3 years where Properties were sold and Gains in Property Value were realised into Cash Proceeds.
States that Rental income begins after new property acquisitions were made out of the proceeds of sale of "The Refuge" and Denholm Street properties.

Page 20 section 4.3
What stands out is a large unexplained gift paid out by the church in the first year of published accounts, represented by the dark purple band.
On this page, the first questions are asked around transparency and distinction between Church and Restricted School Fund charitable distributions.

Page 21 section 4.4
There is no mid-green coloured section in the 2013 graph line - narrative points out that all Maintenence costs of Church, School and Coffee Shops underwent Funds reclassification in 2013. All reclassified as Forward Vision expenditure. Just in that one year.

Page 22 section 4.5
Coffee shops show deficits in 15 of 16 years. Post-COVID decline worsens performance, especially after Falkirk closure. (That may be quite an understatement.)
The graph shows the purple income line falling steeply between 2019 and 2021. The purchases of stock half after the Falkirk closure in 2020, but the navy coloured bandings representing staff costs do not decrease pro-rata.

I would jump to Pages 25, 26, 27 first before returning to page 23 and 24
These three pages take the Total School Costs and divide them into 3 separate funding sources. Page 25 - School costs funded by School Fees; Page 26 - School Costs funded by Restricted School Fund; Page 27 - the remaining School Costs funded by Church unrestricted reserves.

Staff Salary Costs are represented by Navy on page 25, Deep Fuscia Pink on page 26, and Navy again on page 27.
What is being communicated over the 3 pages is that School Fees were insufficient to cover Staff Costs. In four out of 16 years the Restricted School Fund was used to cover Staff Costs to a significant extent (page 26). 2023's staff costs were so large that the Restricted School Fund was insufficient to pay the non-fees element of cost and Church unrestricted reserves paid the remainder (page 27).

Page 26 "b" graphs
"Funds are given and used to provide assisted school places, for repairs & maintenance of the school and for other school purposes."
Dark blue features in most years. Dark blue represents School Activities paid for out of the School Restricted Funds of Special Offerings and Individuals Donations.

Page 27 "c" graphs
Light Peach bands feature in most years. Light Peach colour represents the remainder of the School Activities that neither School Fees nor School Restricted Fund paid for. The Church surpluses funded the remainder of school activities in most years, after the School Restricted Fund had been fully utilised.

There is a large bright green band in 2022 with value of at ~£75k. This represents School Maintenance Costs. Because the School Restricted Fund had to be used to fund the Deep Pink excess Staff Costs in 2022 and 2023, there was nothing left in the School Restricted Fund to pay for the School Maintenance in either of those 2 years.

Page 23 section 4.6 puts the 3 pages together into one graph
School deficits in 14 of 16 years; the Lilac coloured horizontal line shows the value of fees brought in each year. That Lilac line is insufficient to cover core costs.
Combined fees + donations only cover costs fully in 2 years.

Page 23 is the proof that unfortunate wording was used in the signed annual accounts every year until 2023: "The total costs of the school are met by a combination of school fees and voluntary gifts made by a number of individuals keen to support the school. In addition, a number of individuals contribute to the school bursary award scheme, allowing children from more disadvantaged backgrounds to be financially supported as pupils at the school. An annual offering is also made for the school in the spring each year. See also Pages 31,32 Appendices 5.1, 5.2

Page 24 section 4.7 - top graph - use of Restricted School Fund
"Funds are given and used to provide assisted school places, for repairs & maintenance of the school and for other school purposes."
The 3-tone graph at the top of the page is a simplified version of page 26. It shows the vast majority of the spending of the School Restricted Fund is represented by the palest blue of "other school purposes" and not assisted school places.

Page 24 section 4.7 - bottom graph - use of Restricted School Fund
The multi-coloured swap shop scarf graph at the bottom of the page attempts to combine the 2 graphs shown separately on pages 26 and 27.

I'm missing out pages 28-30 and Appendices 6.1 and 6.2 in this section of analysis.

You all sent to sleep yet? Not everyone's cup of tea for sure, but hopefully shedding a light on what might have been hidden by numbers, numbers, numbers.
While also remembering, there are people hurt here for whom, no quantity of numbers can ever express the personal cost to them and their families.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/2026 06:04AM by RedRoad.

Just for the record!
I had a reasonably fierce debate with Mr Black that, unless he provided proper coffee, the coffee shop would not be a success. I couldn’t believe anyone would open a coffee shop and call it that, but use a push button machine.
Small point in the midst of all this mismanagement I know.
Thank you RedRoad for these details.

Continuing on in this labour of love, setting my face as a flint .....
A Deeper Dive pdf
Page 33 Key Findings after A Deeper Dive
Summarises the document’s deeper findings: chronic deficits, poor commercial performance, cash shortfalls, reliance on property sales, and governance weaknesses.
Argues that losses in coffee shops and school were not temporary but recurring, requiring repeated support from reserves and disposals.
The page also points to operational inefficiencies in coffee shops and the school, including staffing and cost-control issues.

Page 34 Section 6.1 - Funding Sources
The combined analysis shows church flow as positive overall, but coffee shops and school as significant net drains over the full period.
"Property Activity" Cash In Flows are represented by the Dark Brown coloured bars pointing upwards above the £0 line.
"Property Activity" Outflows are represented by the Dark Brown coloured bars pointing downwards below the £0 line.

The page reinforces the document’s final thesis: operational deficits were masked by capital and property transactions.
Year-by-year deficit table confirms persistent negative cash flows. 2022–2023 show particularly large deficits.

Notice that the Dark Brown upward bar of 2014 (Property Sales) is more than used up by the Orange downward bars of 2022 and 2023.
You could also equate that the combined value of earlier Orange downward bars of 2017 through 2021 were "fixed" by the Dark Brown upward bar of 2022 (Property Sales).

Brings together the overall flow analysis showing church flow positive, shop/school flow negative, and property inflows significant.


Page 35 Section 6.2 – Coffee Shops and School Deficits
Shows the ongoing deterioration of shop and school flows in later years.
The page reinforces the argument that the deficits are structural and cumulative rather than one-off.
The march of the downward pointing orange bars is relentless from 2017 onwards.

This page separates out the cost of IT purchases and shows how they were funded by 3 year HP Loans.
It is interesting to see that in 2 of the years when IT was purchased 2013 and 2016 (Dark purple Bars pointing downwards), there are almost equal and opposite Dark Orange Bars pointing upwards. Dark Orange represents School Cash Flow. It is probably a reasonable assumption that membership was asked to give, and did give, to fund the IT replacement programme in both those years. The graph also shows that in both those years there is also a Mid-Blue upward bar representing HP Loan procured to fund the IT replacements.

The small print sentence at the bottom of the page reminds the reader again that in 2013 the entire Maintenance spend of Church, School and Coffee Shops was transformed into Forward Vision Spend. Only in that one year of 2013.
A Further Look at the bottom of page 27 states that 2013 was an expensive year!! So that's OK. It was a year of School Trip to Rwanda and £21k of unpaid School Fees were written off out of the accounts as uncollectable.


Page 36 Section 6.3 - Sources of Funding as multi-colour scarf
This page is a repeat of Page 34 Section 6.1 but has coloured the Property Activity into distinct items, where page 34 simply coloured the Property Activity as Dark Brown. ie if you look at Page 34 and find a Dark Brown Bar, then you move to Page 36, you will see that Dark Brown Bar divided up into the specific item of Activity that was occurring.

The small grid of numbers underneath equates the Cash In Flow of FIDRA, Gorebridge and Pudsey Properties with the Coffee Shops and School Cash Out Flow explosions (or implosions!) of 2022 and 2023.

Page 37 Section 7.1 - Coffee Shops Deficit Funding
Coffee shop performance deteriorates over time.
In the upper, horizontally spread graph, the Orange bars represent Coffee Shop Losses being covered by Church Unrestricted Funds. They begins their relentless one directional march from 2017 onwards.

Page 37 Section 7.2 - Coffee Shops Cost of Goods Sold (Stock Purchases)
This becomes technical.
But anyone should be able to see that the golden income line on the small graph plummets and the blue stock purchases line takes off upwards at the same time.
How can this be? How can you buy more and take in less income? This graph is nothing to do with numbers of staff and whether they were volunteers or not. It is purely comparing Coffee Shop Sales Income and Stock Purchases. So I repeat, How can you buy more and take in less income? Something very odd here.

Page 38 Section 7.3 - Coffee Shops Inefficient Quantity of Staff
Again, a quite technical page. Bottom line: Wage costs in coffee shops far exceed sustainable benchmarks.

Look at the wobbly golden income line between 2008 and 2019. it is more on a downwards trajectory than up. Not dramatic at this point, but definitely not an upward trend. Then look at the navy staff costs line. That's volunteers and paid staff. (I've no inside knowledge whether volunteers received any small payment or not. Please forbid there were undisclosed cash in hand payments that missed the PAYE records). Looking between 2008 and 2016, there's not a lot of movement in the Navy line. And the Industry Average for wages is increasing, so that gives explanation for increasing paid wages.
But from 2016, the Navy line starts to rise in an obvious manner, then takes off in 2019.

Page 38 Section 7.4 - Coffee Shops Deficit compared to UK Average
Industry average is quoted as expected to be 10% surplus. The Coffee Shops only made a surplus in 1 year, 2008.
By 2023, total Coffee Shop costs exceeded £1.50 for every £1 of sales revenue generated.

Page 39 Section 8.1 - School Deficit Funding
School costs consistently exceed fee income.
In the upper, horizontally spread graph, the Dark Purple bars represent School Fees. The other 2 colours are School Spend in excess of School Fees.
With exception of 2 years, always spending more than getting in from Fees.
The Orange bars represent the School Losses being covered by Church Unrestricted Funds. They exist in all years except 2, 2012 and 2016.
The Dark Purple bars show a significant shortening in height in 2022 and 2023. School Fees have dropped from the combined average of 85% to covering 65% of Total School Costs in those 2 years.

Page 39 Section 8.2 - School Employment Costs to School Fees ratio
Staff costs disproportionately high vs UK norms (85% of fees).

The smaller line graph on Page 39 compares the ratio of School Employment Costs to School Fees between the UK Independent Schools Sector (purple line) and Cedars School (of Excellence!!) (mid-blue coloured jaggy line).
The UK Independent Schools Average was to spend £60-£70 on Staff Costs out of every £100 paid in School Fees.
Cedars spent an average of £85 out of every £100 paid in School Fees.
And to complete Page 39 Section 8.2, there were also mandatory Pension levy increases in 2012, 2016 and 2019 which certainly would have added to cost pressures.

Is there any evidence of board response to cost imbalance?


Page 40 Concluding Key Findings
This page lists 7 Concluding Key Findings:
These are listed as

[*] Governance Failures
[*] Misuse of Funds (!!!)
[*] Related Party Concerns
[*] Financial Transparency Concerns
[*] Property Sales to Cover Losses
[*] Operational Inefficiencies
[*] Ongoing Governance Risks

That's quite a set of concluding findings!!

Returning and Completing A Further Look pdf

Page 28 Section 5.1 – Employee and Key Management Information
Records staff numbers ranging from 30 to 43, with a median of 34.5, and total staff costs of £11.574m.
Shows employer pension contributions of £1.126m and the increase in the employer pension rate from 12.5% to 23%.
The page signals a major cost pressure from pensions and staffing levels, especially in the school context.

Page 29 Section 5.2 – Key Management Personnel Information Narrative
Lists key management categories and notes the treatment of employer pension contributions as system-wide obligations rather than individual benefits.
Sets out non-director management, director salaries, and the related benefit figures used in the document’s analysis.
The page is important because it frames the later governance critique around who is considered key management and what should have been disclosed.

Page 29 and 30 Section 5.2 / 5.3 – Related Parties and Director Reporting
The document argues that related-party transactions involving directors, senior staff, and close family were not fully disclosed.
It notes that some roles (e.g., ministers, house group leaders, senior teachers, depute headteachers) may fall within key management yet appear under-reported.
The page presents this as a serious transparency issue rather than a minor administrative omission.

Page 30 Section 5.3 – Directors / Board / Headteachers
Provides a timeline of directors, governors, and headteachers, showing frequent changes and overlapping roles.
The page suggests a tightly interconnected governance structure, with multiple named individuals appearing in several capacities.
The implication is that governance was concentrated and potentially susceptible to conflicts of interest or weak independent oversight.

Appendices follow which are Narrative in format. The areas covered by the Appendices are:
[*] Page 31 Appendix 5.1 – Directors and Auditors Responsibilities and Signed Statements
[*] Page 32 Appendix 5.2 - Have SMC fulfilled their True and Fair Responsibilities in relation to the School Funding and Bursary Award Scheme?
[*] Page 34 Appendix 6.1 - Meeting the SORP Standard, Assessing Transparency and Disclosure of Related Parties
[*] Page 35 Appendix 6.2 - Have SMC fulfilled their legal accounting disclosure duties in reporting Related Party, Close Family Transactions?