From Fraught With Peril, the Kempon Hokke Blog:
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fraughtwithperil.com]
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3072 Performers East Zone x $125 performance fee. $15 for day spectators not including bus fees x ~ 3000. $3 lunch for spectators. Spectators $125 fee for Temple University shared four (two?) to a dorm room and 6 meals if staying 2 Nights x ~ 1000. Probably a cool half million in profit to Rock the Era for Sensei. At least auditing (guidance) is free.
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From Blue Lady, www.culteducation.com
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The clincher for me is this:
If you were a youth you had to pay $15 to be confirmed. This would allow you to then get a a T-shirt or some sort of gift. BUT if you sign up after the deadline you still have to pay the $15 but GET NO GIFT. So where is the extra cash going too? Especially since we were told we were not paying for the venue? 

So in my next of the woods they could easily make $100,000 off this event. This money might be used to pay for the Venue - which they say it's not , or they just pocket it.
If you order 5000 T-shirts its only $2.60 for a simple one color font and white shirt. The other gift might be some old bookmarks - which can be made at a fraction of the cost. They are makin money off of this event- trust me.
SGI over charges on things like materials etc so that if Actual and Budgeted are off by say 45% they will not loose thier shirt in this mess.
Here is the contracted agreement. I say they will probably pay a minum of $100,000 .
SGI brings thier are staff but you need union people to sit next to you . Last time we rented McCormick we brought in our on SGI wizkids in computers and A/V
The YMD/YWD run around as security and ushers although you still need thier security.
We bring our own food so they dont need the 30% cut.-------------------------------End of Quote-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sounds like your typical SGI activity. Members are doing the actual work, for no pay. They're providing transportation for themselves and other members and not being reimbursed for gasoline. They're bringing in things and paying for it out of their own pocket -- food, bottled water, snacks, band-aids, you name it. On top of all this, they're PAYING to go! $15 for day admission, $125 for two nights -- when the two nights are in a shared dormitory room, and the food's probably just cheap stuff like cereal, hot dogs, baloney sandwiches, peanut butter? How much would a university charge a group to use an empty dormitory in the summer anyway? How could SGI not make money?
Very common tactic in all kinds of groups -- get people to work for you for free. Even better if you can get people to pay their own money to work for you. The Byron Katie thread in the "Cults, Sects and New Groups" forum also discussed this. This very rich lady puts on these seminars and gets people who've been to other of her seminars to come in and work -- not just for free, but paying her! Yes, paying her so that they can work for her!
It's like the story of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer -- Tom was a boy who had to whitewash his aunt's fence. He didn't want to paint the fence, he wanted to play. So, being a smart, sneaky kid, he manipulated his friends so that they were giving him things so that he would let them whitewash the fence. This kid was really able to con the other boys into thinking that working for him was a great privilege!
The story about Tom was funny....the reality of SGI, not so funny.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/2010 08:19AM by tsukimoto.