NI Presbyterian mutual society, Short of funds for withdrawal?

crazymess

Excellent point BelfastGran - re the South of Ireland Presbyterians - but there still needs to be more work done on getting further support from our fellow Presbyterians who feel they are not directly involved.

fivealive_2

BelfastGran wrote: »

I agree there should be many many more votes.

But just a thought:

Presbyterians living in the South of Ireland who are Irish Citizens cannot vote on line as it states you have to a British Citizen/ or Resident.

On Sunday past my minister announced that you don't have to save with the PMS to sign but that you do have to belong to the PCI! Is he correct?
I also wondered if you have to be over 18 to sign the petition or can I get all my kids to sign it?

BelfastGran

crazymess wrote: »

Excellent point BelfastGran - re the South of Ireland Presbyterians - but there still needs to be more work done on getting further support from our fellow Presbyterians who feel they are not directly involved.

Yes I certainly agree there !!!

soothsayer_2

Pardon my late contribution to this thread. It is good to see some of the members here finally starting to read between the lines and make proper sense of some of the useful information posted from various sources. I think that there is a way out of this mess, but I also think it needs clarity over who is responsible married to a determination to identify those who ultimately should be able to resolve it.

Some thoughts:

The petition to the Government, although well intentioned, will not resolve anything. There are hundreds of these online petitions. The concept is a cynical way of drawing the sting out of any protest. Rarely do they produce results, or force change. There are numerous examples where petitions involving hundreds of thousands of names remain unheeded, unless the Government is minded for its own reasons to take action.
As the PMS petition:

• Involves paying out money, (setting a precedent for perhaps more bail out money in due course).
• Is confined to a comparatively small group of people.
• Involves a region that is perceived as having received more than its fair share of handouts from the UK taxpayer.
• There is no legal obligation (FSA & FSCS scheme cover) and it has no impact anywhere else.

For these reasons it is in my view unlikely to succeed, although obviously it helps to publicise the issue and is better than doing nothing. The real danger is it could act as a smokescreen diverting attention away from those who are really accountable and should be resolving the issue. By this I mean the PCI who will be desperate to avoid liability for the cost and blame for negligence AND the Stormont administration (DETI) who have a similar objective. In both cases they will be keen to pander to their core vote and congregation, which is largely the same. It is a cul-de-sac which they are happy to push savers and investors into.

I would suggest that membership of the PMS should concentrate on 3 areas:

• Leaving no stone unturned to force the PCI to live up to its moral obligation to savers in hardship by underwriting in full the savings of the needy. The PCI outlay could be offset by an equivalent equity stake in the PMS.
• Determination to keep the society afloat at all costs. Bring in a professional management team, on advice from Eric Cairns and other successful business investors. Provide them with strong incentives to turn things around, accepting that investors will hope to see rewards in the medium to longer term.
• Form a strong independent representative group of savers and investors who have the right to be request information and a mechanism to disseminate news to all members.

Please excuse the length of this post. There is much to consider; as we all know it is a complex problem. But at least the scales are now falling from peoples eyes.

fivealive_2

jon_groovy wrote: »

the hierarchy in the PCI are quite worried about the whole situation

sell the manses and make the ministers buy their own homes like everyone else has to do

donate the money from the manses to the PMS.
charity begins at home !

Yeah, I like your idea too but I'm glad that this forum is relatively anonymous because I don't want to get lynched.
I am the breadwinner in our family and we are on a relatively low income ( i.e. in receipt of free prescriptions ), living in a house too small for our needs. Yet I pay my tithe/FWO to keep my minister & his family in a standard of living that I will never personally experience. To be honest I don't begrudge it to him because he is a Godly man, but his salary ( & his wife's ) could get them a far superior house than I will ever be able to afford.

expat68

soothsayer wrote: »

I would suggest that membership of the PMS should concentrate on 3 areas:

• Leaving no stone unturned to force the PCI to live up to its moral obligation to savers in hardship by underwriting in full the savings of the needy. The PCI outlay could be offset by an equivalent equity stake in the PMS.
• Determination to keep the society afloat at all costs. Bring in a professional management team, on advice from Eric Cairns and other successful business investors. Provide them with strong incentives to turn things around, accepting that investors will hope to see rewards in the medium to longer term.
• Form a strong independent representative group of savers and investors who have the right to be request information and a mechanism to disseminate news to all members.

quote]

On the petition i agree to some extent but it is a covenient tool to keep the issue in the press and to show the level of support. I am not sure any one party can be singled out and blamed for this fiasco - it is in some ways a perfect storm with PCI, UK Government, DETI and Directors all responsible in some way.

I disagree that the PCI should only underwrite the savings of the needy - this is too difficult to define and will only serve to divide the PMS investors who are largely of one voice to date. Likewise a moral obligation is harder to enforce than a legal one - this will come down to how big the PCI think the downside is - if a big chunk of their offering income dried up it could push them to intervene more quickly. Likewise many presbyterians will be reluctant to contribute to church property funds while all of this is going on.

Other points I am very much in agreement on, hopefully there will be some form of offer by the administrator to set up a forum for the cascade of information in the near future.

fivealive_2

jon_groovy wrote: »

i agree with pretty much all of it

one other thing which people can easily do is to stop contributing financially to the church

Yeah, I know what you mean, but then we would be acting in an unbiblical way ( read Malachi 3:8-10 ) and two wrongs don't make a right, do they? Maybe we need a theologian here.
Unless you are suggesting a Ghandi type peaceful protest which would need to be properly organised or it could just be hijacked by those who would love to ignore the Biblical principle of tithing.

ballyblack

I also wondered if you have to be over 18 to sign the petition or can I get all my kids to sign it?

Any age.

All you need is ur personal email address and an UK home address


http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Save-the-Mutuals/


.

sickasaparrot

As I understand it, any U.K. resident can sign the petition and there is no age barrier. Each signer must have an individual email address.

expat68

fivealive wrote: »

Yeah, I know what you mean, but then we would be acting in an unbiblical way ( read Malachi 3:8-10 ) and two wrongs don't make a right, do they? Maybe we need a theologian here.
Unless you are suggesting a Ghandi type peaceful protest which would need to be properly organised or it could just be hijacked by those who would love to ignore the Biblibal principle of tithing.

You could always look at it from the point of view that your tithing is accumulating in the PMS but payment is deferred while the PCI help to sort matters out.

Personally I think if PCI have £40m in central investments they're doing rather well out of all this tithing business.