My involvement with SOBBS began mid 2014. I embraced the idea of Cuddle Cots, and the founder embraced the idea of us raising money. And that, we did. We sent over $2,000 and how that was spent is another issue for a later blog.
The fundraiser was with custom nail art wraps which require a minimum order to keep costs down, costs, mind you I always absorbed. I gave every single DIME to the charity, using my family's own money to cover all costs associated with mailing to customers.
In 2014, getting word out about the fundraiser was tough. The owner encouraged me (and denies this now, stupidly, since our conversation is still there and provable) to message all her members. (Make sure you let that sink in) I asked her if she was sure, would that bother them. She said "I am not concerned with pleasing everyone." Yup. So message everyone I did and we got the ball rolling. Apparently she never asked her admin for approval to do this and they just went with it
A year later, I was simply too busy to do that again. I asked SOBBS permission for another member to do this in my place. There was NO QUESTION about the messaging. Lori asked her admin persmission about WHO DID IT. That's when another admin piped up with a concern about messaging people and instead wanted to post it on SOBBS main wall and bump it everyday. I expressed MY concern that it being in their face day in and day out seemed rather pushy. So yes, there was a disagreement. I proposed a solution that did NOT go over well: Let's include other loss groups in this fundraiser and get it rolling. Let everyone benefit, let all loss parents come together. That was NOT going to fly. In discussing this with my team, one of Lori's admins, who designed a wrap for us starting sending her screen shots of our discussion about opening the fundraiser. I got a very ugly message asking why we were discussing "SOBBS business" without her permission. My team of girls doing the fundraising were understandably angry. They were outraged that we weren't "allowed to discuss" our OWN fundraiser without Lori's go ahead when all Lori's involvement was was collecting the money we worked our butts off to raise. Things went south fast as Lori refused to tell us who was sending screenshots (it was easy to deduce, we knew who it was, we wanted an admission)
On June 3, at 8:08 pm, my husband who did all the accounting for our fundraiser told Lori that the behavior of her admin and her bringing up a lawyer the minute we said we needed some accountability was cause for us officially pulling out of her fundraiser and moving on to work with other groups.
Two hours later, she posted to her admin that she was "not sure why Melissa left but can only assume it was due to the disagreement about messaging." THERE WAS NO DISAGREEMENT. There was her saying it was okay and then lying to her admin about it. She can "only assume." That's the message to her admin. NO MENTION of the group conversation between all of us about the behavior of her admin. She never, ever admitted to her admin that messaging her group was HER IDEA. She threw me under the bus because it's what she does. I am not the first and I certainly wasn't the last in this whole debacle. What we found out along the way is little lie=big lie . And there are MANY!
She never has told her admin the truth, so the follow her blindly. Never asking themselves if she's such a good person why are SO MANY PEOPLE against her and her actions. I ask them this. How do you feel about your leader having to lie to you and omit what she's said in private to get you to do her work? To side with her? You really think it's okay that a person you trust is not telling you the truth? Oh, I remember "Not everything you read on the internet is true." But why don't you go ahead and ask her what the truth is, reminding her our entire year's worth of conversation still sits very nicely in my inbox and I wouldn't say ONE THING I couldn't prove with her OWN WORDS.
Can she say the same? Would SHE give you access to HER messages? Or would it paint a very different picture than her public face? Ask her. She what she says.
I did. I posted publicly while she was still on my wall and could SEE this and she refused to answer. Not only did she refuse to answer me, ANYONE on her group that asked anything was banned within three minutes (we timed it) These are NOT the actions of a person that is above level (and later we'll show you how ironic her banning everyone is. It's almost funny, except it involves grieving parents)
I'll leave you with this open letter to her that she completely ignored.
Dear Lori,
As a member or former member of SOBBS, I'd like a few things cleared up. I don't need another neatly packaged sound bite from you or any of the admin you have lied to. I want some straight, factual answers, I figured a few direct questions might clear this up for me. Since you represent yourself as being concerned with our healing and proclaim love towards the loss community, I fully expect that you think I, that we, are worthy of the respect and dignity of answering these questions. As loss parents, we have our reality questioned everyday. Our truths are vitally important to our healing hearts and to feel safe sharing in a group where you maintain control, I need to know I can trust you. These questions are easy. These questions have answers attached to screenshots, so choose your answers wisely.
1. Did you give specific permission in September 2014 for your members to receive a private message from the fundraising organizer?
2. Did the fundraising organizer ask you for your wisdom regarding the feelings of the members with the a statement that she wanted to treat the members with the utmost respect?
3. Did you ever withdraw this permission?
4. Did you disclose to your admin that you gave this permission in September 2014 before granting it?
5. Did this fundraiser end for the reasons you have publicly stated?
6. Did the admin suggest posting the fundraiser to the wall and keeping it bumped daily?
7. Did the fundraising coordinator express concerns with the fundraiser being on the wall so much, in concern for the pressure that might invoke in the space people came to seek conversation?
8. Did the entire fundraising team ask you a question you refused to answer?
9. Did you say you were speaking with an attorney because the question was asked?
10. Did you ever tell your admin, besides the one involved in countless acts of visiting groups and taking screen shots to send to uou, that the fundraising coordinator what was actually said about messaging?
2. Did the fundraising organizer ask you for your wisdom regarding the feelings of the members with the a statement that she wanted to treat the members with the utmost respect?
3. Did you ever withdraw this permission?
4. Did you disclose to your admin that you gave this permission in September 2014 before granting it?
5. Did this fundraiser end for the reasons you have publicly stated?
6. Did the admin suggest posting the fundraiser to the wall and keeping it bumped daily?
7. Did the fundraising coordinator express concerns with the fundraiser being on the wall so much, in concern for the pressure that might invoke in the space people came to seek conversation?
8. Did the entire fundraising team ask you a question you refused to answer?
9. Did you say you were speaking with an attorney because the question was asked?
10. Did you ever tell your admin, besides the one involved in countless acts of visiting groups and taking screen shots to send to uou, that the fundraising coordinator what was actually said about messaging?
And lastly, the most important question of all. Have you or your admin ever gone to view the members here in any other group and monitored their private discussions in those groups? Have you encouraged this behavior or discouraged it?
These should be easy enough to answer. A simple yes or no would clear things up rather nicely on the topic of the admin you say did these thibgs. We'll get to the next subject that needs answers very soon.
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