NI Presbyterian mutual society, Short of funds for withdrawal?

ballyblack

News Letter today

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/PMS-borrowers-must-repay-their.5327748.jp

crazymess

Ballygal

Agree with you!!

On the issue of shareholders - those with up to £20 k

Creditors with over £20 k - they are both shareholders and creditors - and have the largest amount of voting power given that they have approx £200 m in the pot!!!!

presbyteriannomore

Rev Shaw Thompson said that he and his wife and daughters had substantial investments in the PMS and that he had been "deeply hurt" by rumours that PMS directors had been able to remove their money.

He came back from holidays to find 367 threats to sue him but had no knowledge of the PMS' lending policy to property developers and speculators.

This just says it all, a director admitting he knew nothing about what PMS were doing - so who was making the decisions & with whose authority? The answer to that question will ultimately lead to the cause of this crisis in the first place. But is the administrator or anyone else seriously persuing this line of investigation and if not, why not?

Having listened to the PCI in the run up to the general assembly, and heard reports of what was said yesterday I am very glad that I am "presbyterian no more" they are still more concerned with self preservation than genuine compassion. Check out Will Crawley's latest blog on Stafford Carson's view that this is a satanic attack.

crazymess

Directors who take on roles - do so and should be aware that it is an extemely responsible job and their actions may come into question and may need to be accounted for.

I find it quite amazing that Directors are annoyed that people have taken legal action.

This is not about them - its about protecting the victims here - the savers!!! Many of the Directors are savers too - this is why they should have been even more careful and on the ball.

Nobody seems to want to tell us who were on the Loans Committee!

I asked this question and the PMS office told me

"the loans committee was on a rotational basis" - if one Director was not available then the next one would be telephoned!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps maybe the Directors would tell us who were on the loans committee if the above is not true!!

joylikes2shop

Having 'sweated it out' in the public gallery at Church House yesterday (if you were there, you'll know what I mean !!) from 2pm until the end of the PMS discussion, I would like to add my thoughts about the event.

I felt somewhat reassured that Derek Wells (an elder from Castlecaufield Presbyterian) a person who seemed to be talking a bit of sense in my opinion, raised a few interesting issues which I have heard mentioned in the 'real world'.... as well as on this forum.

Derek seems to have been part of a group set up by 'the church' to advise and have discussions with Dr Patton about the PMS issue.... I assume this group will continue to advise and have discussions with the new Moderator......

One of the issues he mentioned was that of a Creditors Committee...as we all know, without the Administrator holding a public meeting for investors to attend in person,there was no way in such a short timescale, the necessary arrangements could be made to appoint a creditors committee. Derek Wells pointed out that if such a committee (min 3, max 5 people) did exist that it ''has the power to summon the Administrator to attend before it and provide information about the exercise of his functions'' Derek suggested that the group he belongs to were looking at the possibility of still having a creditors committee set up.

My question would be, having been told about all this ''behind the scenes work'' yesterday, how can the investors now be kept informed about the developments of this groups investigations ??
Could they publish their investigations or progress via a link on the PCI web site, in order to keep us informed of developments ?? Should we contact Stephen Lynas at Chuch house to get his take on this ??

Without knowing of even some of the basic ideas the church group are looking at, we can only assume that they are doing nothing positive apart from trying to get the Government to step in.

I also was interested to hear that 1st Armagh had organised a meeting (presumably in the early days) attended by 300 people where,despite the worry, hurt,and anger being felt by many people, a number of PMS investors were able to congregate -peacefully- and listen respectfully to what was being said.:T

I still personally believe that ''THE CHURCH'' as a whole has not yet done enough to find out who in their congregations are affected by the current situation, and asked 'What can we do to help ?'...As a result of the communications the Moderator has circulated since November- in relation to the PMS-I now know that many churches and ministers have been very keen to do what they can to help (well done 1st Dromara:T !!!), however the sad fact remains that the perception by many people I've been in touch with is that THEIR minister is not actively doing enough to help, or in some cases not doing ANYTHING to help those in their congregation who are in desperate need of help (pastoral as well as immediate financial assistance)

My final point is that before the PMS debate began, a number of other groups gave reports on the activities they were personally involved with.
A point was raised, by a gentleman on behalf of the Overseas committee (I think ?) He mentioned that the Irish government had reduced the amount of financial help they where making to the Irish government aid budget, and suggested something about everyone sending a postcard to Taoiseach Brian Cowen about this cut in funding....what a great lobbying idea.....
Might it have been an great opportunity for the church to have appeared supportive towards PMS savers... MONTHS AGO ...if they'd carried out a similar exercise.... they could have directed savers to contact the various politicians and government departments that the church it's self had been approaching for help.
As it is we needed to wait for the formation of ,and direction from, the various lobbying groups in recent months,so missing out on an more direct and intense lobbying opportunity which could have been initiated by the church....MONTHS AGO.

goodbyepci

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8081315.stm

Bannside_2

goodbyepci wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8081315.stm

Thanks goodbyepci. Certainly looks like very positive comments from Shaun Woodward. Fingers crossed!

D.A.

To paraphrase Shaun Woodward:
"Your local politicians are a bunch of incompetent fools who couldn't organise a nun shoot in a nunnery". Arlene Foster has some very tough questions to answer on this, and hopefully those of you out there who are PMS savers will not let her wriggle out of it.

Now on to what I've read about the Assembly debate:

Rev. Shaw Thompson being threatened with being sued. Boo hoo. If you had no clue what you were getting into when you decided to be a director or you had no clue what was actually happening with the society, then no harm to you, but you deserve all you get. You're a Minister, you're supposed to set high standards, so you should have been asking questions about things which you didn't understand.

Rev. Derek McKelvey - you plonker. How much more sanctimonious could you sound? Quoting one little piece of Scripture which was written in a completely different context is just so trite and condescending. In my view, if any investor (Christian or not ) has proof of wrongdoing or incompetence amongst PMS directors, they have every right to sue them, if only to make sure that PCI gets the message that a fiasco like this must never be allowed to happen again.

I've seen somewhere that someone has said that PCI only has £1 million in funds to assist PMS savers (I think it was mentioned yesterday?). To me, this sounds like a severe case of misdirection. PCI has much much more than this; I think the speaker should have said "£1 million in funds which can be easily and quickly accessed".

Keep fighting folks - do not let some sanctimonious ministers (who are in a minority) try to put you off.

brick

Woodward's comments here - haven't read them yet.

http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/oversight-of-the-presbyterian-mutual-society-is-a-matter-for-the-devolved-a/

crazymess

Now more than ever:



We need to phone our MPs - Arlene Foster, DETI - anyone who will listen and plead for help - television and radio stations - if there was enough time we should be out tomorrow with placards - demanding the two Governments sort this out urgently!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its not the Savers fault - they want our votes and yet we can't even get our own savings back - we have been waiting for seven months.

This is the warmest we have ever been in getting help from Gov - we need to make it hotter - email- email email, phone - go on tv do whatever it takes - no more silence.

We employ these people to work on our behalf - at speed and not like tortoises!!!!

This should be top priority now!!!!!!!!!

The next two weeks are crucial-

Really keep working on those awful sad stories we share with each other