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SRF Walrus

Mt. Washington, Ca

Open discussions about SRF

SRF Walrus > Core Issues > Money
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Spi Unregistered User (10/22/01 8:05 pm) Reply	Money Worry over money. Worry that the membership might find out how much money there is. Worry people will quit sending money.
an x Unregistered User (10/23/01 10:01 am) Reply	Re: Money There is a wage hike freeze and a hiring freeze in SRF at the moment.
PS1 Unregistered User (10/23/01 2:50 pm) Reply	Wrong! (Buzzer sounds) Wrong! There are selective wage and hiring freezes. The peoplesoft team is still getting their wage increases. It is written into their contract that they get raises at specific intervals. These contractors are making over $170/hour. Not bad considering they don't know much about computers or peoplesoft.
an x Unregistered User (10/24/01 10:54 am) Reply	YES! Thanks for the correction. Now, what do I tell my friends who were just denied raises for the above reasons? SRF needs to pay peoplesoft people first?
PS1 Unregistered User (10/24/01 2:27 pm) Reply	Cost It is generally estimated to be costing SRF about $100,000 to $120,000 per month for peoplesoft. That is a lot of donations. They don't take in that much usually so the finances are going backward. Since they don't even use about 80% of the packages they bought for that system, it is just a dog gone shame. I don't know what you tell your friends. What were they told originally? SRF doesn't have the money? I would suggest you tell everyone you know to step up their donations so SRF can pay for all this. Once the level of donations improves your (our) friends might get some raises. Get your friends to tell you about the vast improvements in productivity and control. That should inspire everyone to give more.
Shadowman Unregistered User (10/24/01 3:06 pm) Reply	A Prayer before Offering Heavenly Father, bless this offering. May it serve to carry Thy message of prosperity into the pockets of Peoplesoft everywhere. Om Peace Amen.
PS2 Unregistered User (10/24/01 6:31 pm) Reply	Cost This is not an exaggeration. And the facts are known, for many reasons. There are people who know the cost of this software. There are people who were involved in the contracts. There are people who know the consultants, and so know what they are paid. And so on and so forth. Go ahead and ask any of the employees who now have to waste time feeding this monster with information. How about the people who have to manually calculate numbers to enter, because the program itself can't do it? Because there is no accountability at any level, it goes on. Anyone who doesn't toady up to the leaders, and pretend the emperor's clothes are gorgeous, is dismissed. Monastics and employees and consultants. They only keep the consultants if they go along with their insanity. This should be published and sent all over the world. Now there's something people can do to help. Someone get hold of the SRF mailing list and then tell the truth. Like dropping leaflets.
PS1 Unregistered User (10/24/01 8:08 pm) Reply	PS1 to PS2 I like the leaflet suggestion. Maybe an alternative "VL Appeal" type thing. How your money is really being spent? We would probably have to use email or a website. Too expensive otherwise. We could post it on the Walrus website. Maybe a series of articles? Of course this board serves that purpose too. What would be the impact? Those in charge would just get more paranoid and probably lay off all the members to prevent the harmful sharing of information.
Shadowman Unregistered User (10/25/01 12:46 am) Reply	Sharing Information Read this article for ideas. It reveals the outlandish spending practices of the Sierra Club. Maybe something about SRF could be written in this way? www.sacbee.com/news/proje...10422.html
Reporter Unregistered User (10/25/01 7:07 am) Reply	Accounting I think in this case the spending and waste are a by-product of another goal. Wasting money is not a pervasive problem. In fact, they are down right paranoid about money. They worship large donors and refuse raises and compensation for employees and monastics. The accounting system boondoggle is about CONTROL. The accounting department feels that if they can get all these areas using their processes and procedures, then they decide how they operate. Accounting gets to decide how money is spent (not just keep track of it) and how it is handled, even when it is spent. They feel this is controlling SRF, keeping is “safe” and on track. The prez agrees with this. The effect is unbelievable waste. Not only waste of money, but in time and morale. This project has revealed to a great many people what SRF truly is, where its priorities are, and how it operates. While SRF thinks it is extending control to all the departments and temples, they are really exporting what and who they are. It has been very revealing. This is not an isolated case. Look at the way the Lake Shrine project and master plan at mother center were handled. They revealed the same root SRF disease. Those involved have seen what SRF really is. This accounting project is just another in a long list. It is all part of God’s plan to reduce the influence of the “new” SRF Guru’s so they don’t totally destroy the organization.
Shadowman Unregistered User (10/25/01 11:04 am) Reply	Publish the truth Perhaps most of the people on this thread have known employment in SRF. The majority do not. Such are content to toss a five or a tenspot into the donation basket every week and that's that. They trust SRF's judgment with how the money should be spent -- which is obviously "to carry God's message of love and truth to truth seekers everywhere." When money isn't helping to further God's message then the members are not being told the truth and should be informed, presuming, of course, that they are even interested in the truth. Most are not. To me, the intrigues and stupidities at the SRF workplace -- control, misspenditures, backstabbing, bad leadership, ineffective organizational practices and systems, unequal wage schedules (UNIONS people!!), etc. -- are endemic to the workforce at large. That's why there's all those books and seminars showing us how to be highly effective leaders and one-minute managers, and how to maximize the productivity in our companies, etc. etc. etc. What makes any company want to improve is the pressure of competition. Who is SRF competing with? SRF is like an unchastened IRS, sucking in cash, then spending it wastefully. At least the IRS has watchdogs. Where are the SRF watchdogs? I know several people who work for Mother Center who absolutely adore their job, their pay, and the people they work with. They say they've never noticed any bad behavoir from the nuns as most of you describe. Maybe that's because these individuals have low expectations to begin with. If you don't like the SRF climate, move on. If you want to make a change, have the guts to speak up....if that'll do any good. In a devotee's mind, SRF can do no wrong. That disinterested naivete and implicit trust in everything SRF is what chills my spine. It reveals SRF as a culture of denial, unable to see or address its own breaches of integrity. One way to solve a problem is to publish the hard cold facts of corruption. Below is an excerpt from the article I suggest you read. it begins by quoting a typical Sierra Club direct mail solicitation which we can liken to an SRF Voluntary League Appeal. Following it is the author's breakdown of how donations are spent. Someone ought to post a similar breakdown of how our donations are spent in SRF.... THE EXCERPT: www.sacbee.com/news/proje...10422.html ---------------------------------- "Dear Friend, If you've visited a national park recently, then some of the things you're about to read may not surprise you! America's National Park System -- the first and finest in the world -- is in real trouble right now. Yellowstone ... Great Smoky Mountains ... Grand Canyon ... . Everglades. Wilderness, wildlife, air and water in all these magnificent parks are being compromised by adjacent mining activities, noise pollution, commercial development and other dangerous threats ..." So begins a recent fund-raising letter from the National Parks Conservation Association, a 400,000-plus-member organization. The letter goes on to tell of the group's accomplishments, warn of continued threats, ask for money -- "$15 or more" -- and offer something special for signing up. "Free as our welcome-aboard gift ... The NPCA bean bag bear!" Let's say you did send in $15. What would become of it? According to the group's 1998-99 federal tax form, much of your money would have been routed not to parks but to more fund raising and overhead. Just $7.62 (51 percent) would have been spent on parks, less than the minimum 60 percent recommended by the American Institute of Philanthropy, a nonprofit charity watchdog group. ----------------------------------------------- THAT'S ALL FOLKS...
Reporter Unregistered User (10/25/01 10:46 pm) Reply	Will stay secret Unfortunately few people know how SRF spends money. We can add up the millions for some of these projects, but even a partial accounting is beyond difficult. SRF keeps its finances at the very top of it paranoia security pile. An accounting insider tells me that the nuns running that department feel that someone has inappropriately looked at the finances in the last year or so. They either broke into the system or some nun or employee told someone what the figures are. There is no evidence of it and I myself have never heard any of “secret numbers” but the nuns use it as another hammer for showing how people (members) can’t be trusted. What a pity. How telling. SRF hides behind a lot of laws and “rights” and keeps all this stuff secret. They DO have something to hide and they should be held accountable. But it beyond the resources of the members to extract this information. There is no penalty to keeping it secret and since the membership generally feels they can do no wrong, it will stay secret.

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