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Is the Current TWI BOD cleaning up after LCM?


Eagle
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Since Rosie and the current BOD took over I haven't had too much to report. Often now, when talking about TWI I have to mention the distinction between Wierwille, Martindale, and the current TWI BOD. All lawsuits against the Way by former members were directed at Martindale's behavior. Here are the TWI lawyers and the current TWI BOD trying to manage the damage of a released clergyman and former president.

The staff working there are now taken care of a lot better since Martindale left. I've spoken to two of them who showed me health insurance cards. Apparently, they have insured their full time staff members.

They did in fact, put a memorial to Mrs. Wierwille on their site and now have opened hours of visitation at the Fountain of Living Waters.

There is more to investigate here because they still have very tight security for some reason and I want to know why.

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Well, from what I understand, they still have many millions in reserve, they can only realistically pay themselves (the BOD and minions) so much of that money every year without raising the eyebrows of the I.R.S. (again). So what else can they do with all that dough?

According to the laws governing non-profits, the money can only be used for the purpose it was originally given for, so that kind of limits what they can do with it. Yeah, they can have their yearly meetings in the Bahamas and maybe an ocassional sabbatical to somewhere or other (Belize or Cancun maybe?), and they can certainly pay themselves a handsome salary with all the bennies, but they've got a LOT of cash to dispose of.

I'm thinking maybe they've finally done the math and figured out that they're not going to live long enough to drain away all the resources, so they can afford to be real egalitarian with what's left of the ABS.

That and the fact thay they probably don't really give a flying &*$% about promoting their particular brand of superstition anymore...

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Health cards huh? I wonder if the Staff has to pay for it themselves. Although they supposedly make "normal" salaries now. But they have to pay rent, even if they are living in the dorms.

When I was first on staff, we got 100% of our medical paid. After we took the 10% pay cut, they changed to reimbursing us for 80% of our medical expenses (including prescriptions), although our "living on a need basis less 10% salaries" were never adjusted to have to pay for the 20% of our medical needs. We just had to steal from Peter to pay Paul in our budgets. I just went in debt with my credit card. Talk about living in fear. Like we had so much money to spread around....gawd I'm glad I'm out of that place.

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Not sure if staffers at TWI pay for their insurance. But it is a start, I guess. I remember in the last days of LCM that many women were not allowed to get pregnant. Now, I assume, they are. There is insurance. They have done some improvements. Gotta give them at least this.

That security thing bothers me a lot though. Anybody send threatening letters or phone calls to TWI? I got into a near fight with one Corps guy after I left but that was off grounds a long way from TWI. Just ended up an argument and no blows exchanged. But that was all I did. Couldn't handle the harassment anymore.

Were others angry enough like that in the LCM years? I don't know anyone but it makes me wonder. The current BOD may still be putting up with a lot of s**t from LCM's reign, trying somehow to manage it all.

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quote:
Originally posted by Eagle:

The staff working there are now taken care of a lot better since Martindale left. I've spoken to two of them who showed me health insurance cards. Apparently, they have insured their full time staff members.

They did in fact, put a memorial to Mrs. Wierwille on their site and now have opened hours of visitation at the Fountain of Living Waters.

There is more to investigate here because they still have very tight security for some reason and I want to know why.

The answers to that are very simple.

They are STILL the same tight-assed, overlegalistic

organization that makes the power of God of little effect thru

their tradition. They STILL wield autocratic power and lord

over the peons. They are still whitewashing the sepulchre and

keeping it full of dead men's bones.

The ONLY difference is that the GSC is THE public forum where

twi CURRENT members and FORMER members come for news.

Thus, whenever we report an outrage, twi has to deal with the

fact that something they were trying to hide has suddenly

had 8000 watt spotlights on it. Thus, they begin the spin

control or loosen the reins a bit.

They shoved mrs w in a nursing home quietly. It was reported

here and all heaven broke loose. Their press was so bad they

actually tried addressing people HERE to calm things down.

The slave wages, absence of social security, and absence

of health coverage of staff have been discussed many times.

So, there have been some steps in some of them.

If they weren't topics here, I'm certain NONE of that would

have happened.

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quote:
and now have opened hours of visitation at the Fountain of Living Waters

Eagle, do I understand correctly, that greasespots can now travel two or three hundred miles or more to have the "priviledge" to sit by the "sacred" waters?

Or is it still a "non-members only" little slice of "heaven"?

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I wonder how long it would have taken them to notify everyone of Mrs. W's passing if it hadn't been posted on here in such a timely manner. Many "innies" received condolences from GSpot friends before it had even been announced within TWI.

Look at how long it took them to post anything on their site about her. I imagine they probably had not planned to post anything until it was mentioned here otherwise they would have already prepared and word-smithed what they planned to put on the site prior to her death.

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quote:
Originally posted by Belle:

I wonder how long it would have taken them to notify everyone of Mrs. W's passing if it hadn't been posted on here in such a timely manner.

If past behaviour is an indicator of what they would have done, they would never

have mentioned she was evicted from her home, nor that her health was failing,

nor that she passed away until and unless they were getting ready to bury her

at the Garden of Dead Trustees. Even then, the information would have been only

partly truthful.

quote:
Many "innies" received condolences from GSpot friends before it had even been announced within TWI.
Business as usual.
quote:

Look at how long it took them to post anything on their site about her. I imagine they probably had not planned to post anything until it was mentioned here otherwise they would have already prepared and word-smithed what they planned to put on the site prior to her death.

I expect they blame us for the need

to have announced anything at all. They've much preferred the "mushroom"

strategy of leadership until now: keep the peons in the dark and apply fertilizer

periodically.

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I got the notice she passed away only hours after her death and prior to GS having it on the site. I think JP emailed Doug McMullan and Jan Parker (McMullan) forwarded the emails out right then. I received one of them.

You raise excellent points about the health insurance issue first being discussed here at GS. But I don't know that TWI does all that much by reaction to this site, though it might.

But I guess most are right...people are still followed on Wierwille Road by security. They have to watch their boundaries, though. Wierwille Road I do believe is a public road just named after the Wierwilles.

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quote:
Originally posted by Eagle:

You raise excellent points about the health insurance issue first being discussed here at GS. But I don't know that TWI does all that much by reaction to this site, though it might.

I agree twi doesn't do that much, period.

HOWEVER,

that which is actually done that represents a CHANGE is often

a result of discussions here, which expose matters they'd

prefer remain hidden, which then are exposed and people start

to ask questions which have to be answered.

From 2000 to now (everything after the Y2K panic at hq),

try naming all the changes, then subtract the ones mentioned

FIRST at the GSC (like healthcare, a living wage, a trustee

living more like a regular twi member) and see what you find.

From the last 5 years, I think that ONLY leaves the decision

to kick out Mrs W and the commercial they bought.

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quote:
Wierwille Road I do believe is a public road just named after the Wierwilles.

I believe it is also. It has to be actually because there are other people than TWI who live on it. One is right on the corner of Highway 29 and Wierwille Road and the other is half way down the road on the opposite side of the other neighbor.

TWI used to get ticked off when people would hall foot down that road or throw bottles or trash out on the grounds, but they could not keep anyone from driving on that road.

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quote:

TWI used to get ticked off when people would hall foot down that road or throw bottles or trash out on the grounds, but they could not keep anyone from driving on that road.

True...

The whole area was engineered many decades ago, (over 100 years maybe? I don't know that specifically) by county planners in 1 mile blocks with a few angle roads that cut diagonally across the blocks. The roads were named in a very practical manner, basically to aid in the delivery of US mail. Each plot of land in the rural areas is assigned a 5 digit number that you will see on the verticle green sign posts roughly in the middle of the piec of the land that fronts the public road.

Eg: My address was 06208 Cloverleaf road. That address tells postal workers as well as first responders, like fire fighters, police and paramedics precisely where in the county my house could be found, which was on the southwest end of clover leaf road which was in the northwest grid of... You see my point.

Also, since the plots of land originally were basically bought by individuals as farms...About 150 years ago, the landowners originally built and named the roads, in cooperation with county officials. Calling it "Wierwille road." told people it was the road used to get to the wierwille farm.

Some roads are named things like "wierwille-poppe road" because the Poppe family owns the farm on the other side of the road. BUT. Wierwille-Poppe is too many letters to put on the standard size sign and the wierwille farm takes up more of the road than anybody else's property. So they settled on the name Wierwille Road.

The names of the roads help people know where they are, Its actually kinda cool but has NOTHING to do with TWI.

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In terms of the "vandalism" that TWI hated so much...

It was way (no pun intended) BEFORE VP's day when they named the road. More recently. People would "hall foot down that road or throw bottles or trash out on the grounds" and shoot the signs with shotguns, and do other "normal" country type mischief. They have their own non-verbal "language" of things they do in that area. To me, its part of the local charm. When they shot the signs with shotguns, that was "localese" for, "we don't want you here no more."

If you do something people like and you're popular, say like a favorite teacher announcing your retirement. They will T-P (toilet paper for us ignorant city slickers :-) your trees. People drive by and know who lives there (cause "everybody" knows that) The T-P'ing is a public announcement of your popularity. Folks will see you out and it a conversation starter, like, "I see they got your house..."

"Yeah, I'm retiring next month..." is how you respond, then you laught & chit chat about things & stuff around it. Next day at school you invite some students over to help clean up the mess. Some of the ones who did it help clean up. You hang with the kids increasing your popularity.

If they don't like you.... Say you sell your family farm and make it an international headquarters that brings in a bunch of outsiders. Or, you post some angry stuff on the door of the local church. AND do other things that in the local non-verbal language give the "middle finger" to the community....

They let you know they don't like it by throwing bags of cow manure on your lawn. The worse the infraction, the more, and stinkier the Sh!& they throw in your yard (human and pig smells the worst). They put it in bags because otherwise the manure is fertilizer the spots it lands on and you'd just leave it there or spread it out a little and get better, healthier grass! They MAKE you go all the way out to the side of the road (where anybody driving by can see you) and deal with THEIR SH!# after you've "sh!#" on them.

Of course they must haul foot down your road, else they would be caught in the act.

Then. "Everybody" knows who did it by the rubber tracks they leave behind because "everybody" knows who owns the cars capable of leaving a track like that. like; "Mike's car's tires are wider than that, this was Jim because he's the only one around who can leave a track that long - - and zig zag it like that. That's his trademark tire skid, right there." But that's not enough to convict you. The police know who did it. They're your neighbors too and their family hears you when you leave and come back home.

I found the whole thing more interesting than aggrivating. Locals didn't do it every day. They did stuff like that in response to what TWI was doing at different times of the year, Like ROA when TWI messed up the normal tranquility of the area by bringing in all of us "crazy outsiders."

SOME TWI people did things that deserved a response from the locals. Things like having sex with local girls (who was some local guy's girlfriend) being rude to locals at restaurants, in the name of, "we gotta get out of here to get to the Rock!" Stuff like that.

I say all this to speak to the point that SOMETIMES we give too much credence, and power and attention to TWI. They were what they were, certainly. Nut in a LOT of ways they were, and certainly now are NOBODY. Their thoughts, opinions and current failures sometimes are just not worth the time & effort to think about.

Most of what they do now is just BS. TWI could have lived in harmony w/ locals had VP not middle fingered them so much and so often in the later 60's / early 70's. He finally wised up and embraced the community in his last years, but now, TWI is very irrelevant to the local community.

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I took a drive down Wierwille road a couple of years ago while passing through. I slowed down to take a look at the fountain, and was immediately tailed by security, who bird dogged me until I was well on my way. I thought of pulling over and letting them question me, but I just didn't feel like dealing with it, and I was already weirded out from just going down that road.

I'm still wondering why they let the old roa camping area get overgrown with weeds and bramble. Very un-way like, especially since the rest of the joint looked as obsessively groomed as ever.

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They do a few things that make them a better neighbor like after they stopped ROA they donated or sold some of the equipment they'd no longer need to the local park. Now its a really great well equipped park. They could do SOO much more, like just be NORMAL people.

They STILL do not allow TWI kids to dissolve into the local school community. Most local HS kids get cars or at least have access to their parent's second or third car. They, like all teenagers, run in packs going here or there. Normal teenage dynamic. My daugher would ask me as short time ago as this past June during the graduation party season, why would TWI parents NOT allow WAY kids to ride in the cars of locals.

Their ONLY reasoning was thet the driving kid wasn't a wafer. My daughter spoke for a lot of them when she told me she was insulted by the insolence of TWI parents. Some local parents would tell their own kids to ride with my Jasmine because they felt she was a better driver than their own kid. The Way kids just weren't allowed to go, they didn't get their own cars, and parents would seldom allow them to use theirs. The TWI kids who made the graduation party circuit came together, rode together, left together. Very few parents came. Its tradition in NK that parents will visit their kid's best friends parties, another charming thing to me. Not one TWI parent showed up at my kid's party, and I'm actually (or at least WAS) closer friends with the TWI folk.

This type of stuff upsets "the balance" in a small town like that. Some TWI kids are really decent people and the other kids want to hang with them as part of "everybody." IF they didn't have such off the wall ideas about crazy stuff, that is.

The PARENTS say no. Trickle down from the current BOD.

TWI people keep you at arm's length now and you can feel it. When you hit it off with them to the point of saying, "Hey we should do something someime!" They invite YOU to s STS.... but they won't come to YOUR church, or go to your house, or invite you to theirs, like for dinner & a board game of movie on DVD. Why don't you come to a Sunday service? They're really great lately. (cue Twighlight Zone music....)

PLUS they cuss like sailors, a lot of them. I found it really uncomfortable, like the person was cussing to prove he was cool to me. I was like,"Sh- - man, why you gotta cuss so f#'ing much?"

nono5.gificon_biggrin.gif:D--> redface.gif:o-->

Lol!

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That is really wierd about the ROA campgrounds.

Especially since "the vision" was that ROA would NEVER die.

IMO. The ONLY thing I think they could do to give a good appearance of "cleaning up" would be to reinstate ROA. They could scale it back to something their current staff & leadership could handle, both in terms of size & length of time. God knows they have the bucks.

Perhaps they've forgotten that the first ROA was only 1,000 people?

They have no intention of truly cleaning up.

What do they plan to do? Have their next generation of kids say as tourguides... "See that overgrown, weedy, bramble filled area over there? That was where great granpa VP and LCM used to have this thing we called ROA."

Kid says, "What does ROA mean Daddy?"

"Ask you mother, she remembers."

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quote:
TWI could have lived in harmony w/ locals had VP not middle fingered them so much and so often in the later 60's / early 70's. He finally wised up and embraced the community in his last years, but now, TWI is very irrelevant to the local community.

LCM was horrible to the neighbors. I remember at 6:00 a.m. on opening day of Rock of Ages 1994, he had the whole crowd yelling "Wake up neighbors!!" That is completely rude and uncalled for no matter how much anyone disagrees with your beliefs or doesn't allow you to walk all over them.

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