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Money handling at STFI has always been on the loosey-goosey side. Someone would leave and there would be checks found that had never been deposited. I always felt that the books should be handled by a bookkeeper and for a while, they were. The bookkeeper spent about a year reorganizing all the accounting so that an accountant could make sense of the books. This presented some problems. Because the finances were now intelligible and someone who actually knew what could be expensed was handling the books, irregularities were being questioned. People in the home office were not happy. A finance committee was put together and they found even more problems. What happened after that can only be described as "characteristic". The bookkeeper was let go and someone with no financial background was put into the slot. The finance committee had a list of things that needed to be changed - nothing spectacular, but 18 months later, not one suggestion was put into place. STF has only had 1 person in its entire history that has had any kind of financial training at all. What does this mean? Maybe that ignorance is bliss. The argument can be made that the current CEO has been a successful businessman. That depends on what you define as "successful". By his own admission, he got into some trouble building that success. I don't know how that experience plays out in a religious organization, but the truth is that there is little in the way of accountability and they like it like that. There is the appearance of accountability, but if you know anything about reviews, they are not audits, much less fraud audits. In the day-to-day accounting processes, they continue to be handled by someone who has no financial training. But let's get into how money is spent. When I was there, nearly $800 a month was spent on keyword internet marketing - basically enough to support a Philippine family for a year. The reason why I bring this up is that trips to the Philippines netted a fair number of new followers who were promptly targeted for beatings and ejected from their homes and their jobs. Yet STFI did little or nothing to help these people after they "set them free". In true TWI fashion, any income that came in was used to promote STFI to new people, not help those who were already in, even though STFI was practically pastoral in comparison to TWI. The other problem with this internet marketing tactic was that most search engine optimization can (and I believe should) be organic. In other words you write copy in such a way that the site naturally rises to the top of where you want it to be and you get people to link to you - and you to them. If you do it right, you should never have to spend a dime on SEO, much less spend $800 a month on keyword advertising. I was alarmed about this in 2004 and felt that it was a poor use of money. Postage was a huge part of expenditures back in those days. Since I'm not on the mailing list, I have no idea how much they're spending and how they are doing it now, but when I was there, everything was sent first class. Even when I showed them how much money could be saved by sorting and sending bulk, it fell on deaf ears. Instead they went out and rented a postage machine. I think the problem lies in the TWI carryover mindset. Money is used to promote the product. People are not hired on the basis of ability. People are hired who buy into the whole mindset with the whole idea that they can be trained to perform a job (the way they want it done, not the way it probably should be done). Anyone, anyone, anyone who has questioned the methods or suggests that there might be a better way is shut out. That is my experience and observation. I have no reason to believe that has changed since my exit.

And I think it's funny. It's funny because I got this private message telling me I was telling people things that weren't true, without telling me which part wasn't. So I have no idea what part she thinks isn't true. Here's the reality: some things I write about are my observations and my experience. Things I saw; things I experienced. How I felt about them then; how I feel about them since some time has come between me and the original experience. These are my thoughts, my experiences, and I am entitled to them. Feel free to have your own memories and experiences, but don't tell me how to remember mine, or whether or not I can talk about them. OK?

As a matter of fact, yes, you can say nozzle here. Not only that, you can say douche chills (as defined by an urban dictionary I found online), douchebag, douchey, all sorts of douch-abilities!!! And wait!!! There's more!!! You can actually get these definitions on a mug! No kiddin, eh - I wouldn't douche ya!!! Here's the link: http://www.urbandict...m=douche+chills douche chills 94 up, 20 down The intense feeling, very similar to a shiver up your spine, that can be invoked simply from being in the presence of a douche bag. Usually triggered by a specific douchey act or statement. Here's more from the same wonderful site!!! douche chills 32 up, 15 down Originally from the Howard Stern Show in the 1980s, when Robin described friends of hers experiencing a shiver while cleansing their vaginal palette. Howard generalized this to mean a kind of overload of the senses. This first episode was re-aired on the "History of Howard Stern" broadcast during the last week of 2008. Hearing someone else get credit for that term just gives me douche chills. douche chills 3 up, 3 down the chills you receive when someone is acting like a TOTAL douche. the only cure is to destroy said persons babymaker and put them in their place. im gettin some serious douche chills from you. i couldnt handle the douche chills 24/7 so i broke up with him. he gave us all serious douche chills so we destroyed his babymaker and hes aight now. douche chills 14 up, 36 down A 2008 expansion team in the La Resistance Football League. Wow, the Douche Chills are so good this year, they give me douche chills. Okay, I'm done. For now. Oh, and yes, I get your initial point. Same thing happens to me sometimes. I get really surprised at what people think they need to post on the world wide web for all to see... Makes me wanna stop posting altogether. Well, almost. LOL

I hope you bring it to a good place, whatever it is. doechenozzle?... :o