UK POSTERS UNITE! Get as many to sign our petition as possible...

by cedars 154 Replies latest members politics

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  cedars

  ABibleStudent

  It has been 5 days since the e-petition was started and only 108 persons have signed as of today. To reach the goal of 100,000 signatures, 1370+ signatures should have been collected today. I suggest that more is needed than passing out flyers or sending out emails to achieve this worthwhile goal.

  Yes, I've done the maths, and we are significantly behind schedule - despite the excellent efforts of some very determined individuals. However, everything has to start somewhere, and the idea is that if we persistently spread knowledge of the petition's existence, this will in turn increase the number of signatures per day exponencially until, towards the end of the 12-month period, we are potentially getting over a thousand signatures per day. It's ambitious (like so many of my projects!) but it's still worth a go. I've been busy this last couple of days with my business, but I plan to set aside some time this weekend to email various UK-based websites and organisations that may take an interest in the petition, and see if they will spread the word themselves.

  I've been involved in yet more heated discussion with "cupcake" over on the Manchester Forum today. Considering he/she insists to never having been a JW, he/she certainly puts up a strong fight for their cause!! Some of her points have been thought-provoking, especially as regards the dynamics of Gift Aid, but for the most part she seems quite emotional on the issue, and is ignoring key facts and logic.

  You can read the thread here, if any of you are interested:

  http://www.manchester-forum.co.uk/index.php/topic,6939.0.html

  For those of you who are able, and have not yet signed the petition, here is the link:

  http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/29949

  Cedars
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  diamondiiz

  cedars - you have a pm
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  cedars

  Thanks diamondiiz, I've replied!

  Cedars
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  slimboyfat

  I read the exchange with cupcake in full. I can't understand why you ever thought they were a JW (talking about eternal souls and damnation in the very first post, and the mention of a governing body was clearly nothing to do with JWs). I am afraid this is exactly the sort of reasonable member of the public who may find it hard to understand why JWs should be singled out as losing charitable status. I think you were barking up the wrong tree and clearly did yourself no favours in accusing cupcake of having an undisclosed interest in defending JWs.

  My argument would be that if you remove charitable status from JWs they would rightly lose legitimacy in the eyes of members of the public who may be less likely to join the JWs and be subject themselves to possible shunning, restricted medical interventions, and flawed protection from harmful predators. That's the public benefit of the petition.
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  cedars

  slimboyfat - I'm sorry you don't like the way I handled the exchange with cupcake. I personally didn't find her at all reasonable, and she was on the offensive from the word "go". The reason I suspected she was a closet JW was that she did so well at side-stepping key elements of the argument, and coming up with ludicrous statements that were based on hyperbole, i.e. claiming that "thousands" of charities would lose their status if my petition succeeded, and demanding that I provide a list of all those that potentially would. At one point she even tried to minimize the harmful effects of shunning, likening it to not being invited to "sunday dinner". If you felt you could have handled things better, then nobody was stopping you from rolling up your sleeves and wading in to the discussion.

  My argument would be that if you remove charitable status from JWs they would rightly lose legitimacy in the eyes of members of the public who may be less likely to join the JWs and be subject themselves to possible shunning, restricted medical interventions, and flawed protection from harmful predators. That's the public benefit of the petition.

  That's precisely one of the things that I said to her in my final detailed answer, although I think she is wrong about JWs making MORE money if they lose charitable status. Overall, she struck me anti-reform in general, and not somebody who likes to upset the status quo.

  Cedars
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  Chariklo

  In fact, it seems to me that Cupcake wrote in some ignorance. She's unaware, for instance, that the Charity Commission is a toothless bulldog. I can provide details privately.

  Secondly, admittedly from a brief read-through of that thread, she doesn't really know or understand JW beliefs.

  Cedars, I'm thinking about your petition. I'll send you a PM in due course. I think you may be on to something, but the approach may need some tweaking, and I, like possibly the majority of readers, don't want to put my own name and details out there for all to see.
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  Flat_Accent

  Just thinking cedars - have you contacted some of the ex-JW youtubers like jwfairytale, anondude2, TimKilgore, truth4jws etc, asked them to make a video about it? Im sure they'll have plenty of UK subscribers who can help out.
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  cedars

  Hi Flat_Accent - that's an excellent suggestion, thank you. To my knowledge, two posters are so far working on videos, but it would always be worthwhile letting some of the established youtubers know about it so that they too can spread the word. The more the merrier!

  Chariklo - thank, I'll check my PMs. I'm always interested in new ideas! I think cupcake is a bit of a wind-up artist. She now claims she was baiting and provoking me to see whether the project was worthwhile for her to invest her time and resources in helping to promote it. I don't believe that's the case for one moment, but even if it were true, I hate working with the type of people who get a thrill out of winding people up to see whether they have the desired "potential"!! Not my style.

  Cedars
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  cantleave

  I am still intending to make a YouTube video. Unfortunately I have had a really busy week and nugget broke the family computer.
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  cedars

  Hi cantleave - no worries, whenever you're ready! I see there is no indication of whether nugget's actions were deliberate?? I certainly never thought of her as having a temper, so I'll assume it was an accident!!

  Cedars