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St Hill Protest – IAS Event October 2012

Ogsonofgroo

Crusader
Lol, hm, wonder how good the OT's weather postulating is/was? The sucked-in Scots pagentry farce shite must be a fine thing in the pissing rain/mud lolol!
Still awaitig someone to DL some 'can't drive in de mud' tech :drama:

Great reportage Ax! :cheers:
 

Aelita

Patron
There werent many people protesting on the High Street though, which I thought was a shame. Next time we should all come together and organise it better. anyone got any ideas how to form a group with anonymous activities on it? So everyone knows when a protest will be happening and where etc and how to join.
 

Infinite

Troublesome Internet Fringe Dweller
..

Blast from the past . . .

6494519025_bed5e6914a.jpg


6494349523_2cdfafc099.jpg


. . . 1984.
 

solo

Patron with Honors
Re: IAS Event 2012 Saint Hill

We just watched the live streaming of the press conference in East Grinstead. Very frustrating, as we couldn't find a way of asking live questions! However, I have to say a big thank you to the host, whose name I missed, to Steve and most of all to John Duignan, who raised the flag for sanity in saying that he had no time for Scientology in any form whatsoever! The event otherwise came across as a promotional piece for the Independents, instead of the whistleblowing event it could have been. Reports of abuses within the church were watered down by the Indies claiming it all went wrong in 1982, it was all Miscavige's fault, etc etc.

It all went wrong in 1950. Hubbard was a charlatan and a fraud and created the Scientology mindset. He abused and defrauded people, we must get this message across!

Solo
 

Sharone Stainforth

Silver Meritorious Patron
Re: IAS Event 2012 Saint Hill

We just watched the live streaming of the press conference in East Grinstead. Very frustrating, as we couldn't find a way of asking live questions! However, I have to say a big thank you to the host, whose name I missed, to Steve and most of all to John Duignan, who raised the flag for sanity in saying that he had no time for Scientology in any form whatsoever! The event otherwise came across as a promotional piece for the Independents, instead of the whistleblowing event it could have been. Reports of abuses within the church were watered down by the Indies claiming it all went wrong in 1982, it was all Miscavige's fault, etc etc.

It all went wrong in 1950. Hubbard was a charlatan and a fraud and created the Scientology mindset. He abused and defrauded people, we must get this message across!

Solo

I am on a short break from work today, split shift and have just managed to catch some of John McGhee. Thank god some people still have their sanity.The host was Peter Griffith, Solo.

I am hopping mad right now, I so wanted to be there but due to work was unable to be.

I have just written this on my blog:

On a short break from work and have managed to watch a bit of the live stream from East. Grinstead. Caught John McGhee speaking and there is a man that talks sense.Too many people seem to think there is substance in L. Ron Hubbard's scientology but not David Miscavige's. Utter poppycock! Scientology is L. Ron Hubbard, always was, always will be no matter who practices it.Whom ever Silver Solo is on livestream chat, has it right and the biggest reason I regret I could not be there. What about Hubbard's abuses of which there were many? Locking children up in the chain lockers, overboarding,SP declares, disconnection,Sec Checks,forced abortions,locking adults up that suddenly disagreed with Hubbard in Hubbard's terms called a psychotic break. In plain English called induced mental breakdowns due to the afore mentioned abuses.And Vicky, whom ever she was, says she was one of the first to be declared and thrown out, what rubbish, hundreds of people were declared and thrown out long before Vicky.

Not just declared, but previous to that, locked up, sec checked, committed to harsh labour. When are these people going to stop lying? Especially to themselves.

http://theapolloseries.blogspot.co.uk/

Sadly from what I saw it does come across mainly as a promotion for 'Dependant' Scientology.

Solo, we will get this message across!
 

solo

Patron with Honors
Re: IAS Event 2012 Saint Hill

Well said Sharone! I'm sorry you weren't there, too, you would have put them right, what a load of apologists for Hubbard! John was brilliant.

Of course Vicky Ballard wasn't the first to be thrown out - it doesn't matter how many times she repeats it, it doesn't make it true. People were being thrown out by Hubbard for years before 1982. You may not have heard her say that she was thrown out because she "couldn't be brainwashed" (but Scientology's great and she still gives auditing if needed, ha ha!!)

Thanks for letting me know the name of the host, he spoke very well at the end and has put his head over the parapet by saying he won't rest until Scientology is brought down, good for him, I hope he is at the party we'll have at the end of it all!!!

Much love,
Solo
 

Axiom142

Gold Meritorious Patron
Did anyone catch the live stream?

Recording is here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/cult-...unknown&utm_source=12333166&utm_medium=social

Due to the nature of the environment, the quality isn’t brilliant, but watchable and you can hear the speakers reasonably well.

I recorded the whole event on HD video and hope to have it YouTubed soon(ish). Definitely well-worth waiting for as we had some great speakers, with a wide spectrum of views:

Samantha Domingo
Martin Padfield
Peter Griffiths
John McGhee
Terril Park
Vicky Ballard
and even, albeit briefly – me!

One of the things that I always found most compelling and convincing, was the personal stories of those who have been affected by Scientology and we definitely had some of those.

Although there wasn’t a huge turnout, we did get reporters from two newspapers and of course, the TV documentary crew.

Axiom142
 

Axiom142

Gold Meritorious Patron
I was so wrapped up in the video recording I totally forgot to take any still images. So here is a screen shot from the conference, just to give you a taster:


8105938520_a888ee67e0_b.jpg



Axiom142
 

solo

Patron with Honors
Hi Ax,

thanks for that. We were watching the live stream (see my comment on the Pickets and Protests thread and Sharone's reply - maybe someone could merge them here?) but it was a bit frustrating that our comments on Ustream didn't get picked up, we were desperate to get more hard-hitting reports about CofS abuses and Ron's lies, I was even trying your phone to try to ask some questions about what happened on the ship etc!

We missed the beginning while trying to get the streaming to work, so I will have another look at it later. We may have missed the most hard-hitting stuff? There was an awful lot of discussion by the Indies about their views on the tech, in my opinion. It's beyond me how anyone can still think "it all went wrong in 1982" and that the tech works, and think it's all Miscavige's fault. Hello! Hubbard committed far worse abuses!

John and Peter were spot on, we were cheering!

Solo
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
I was so wrapped up in the video recording I totally forgot to take any still images. So here is a screen shot from the conference, just to give you a taster:


8105938520_a888ee67e0_b.jpg



Axiom142

Thanks very much, Ax. Nice quality pic. What's that white stuff on the table in front of Terril? Looks like a half-eaten plate of meringue. :)

Paul
 

hartley

Patron with Honors
There werent many people protesting on the High Street though, which I thought was a shame. Next time we should all come together and organise it better.
The delay was due to the rain, by the time people were assembled it was lunch time! In town protests will only be worthwhile when local people are prepared to stand up and do them, so we (old Guard) have learnt by experience.
 

British Mom

Patron with Honors
To all, at Cult in the Backyard.

Thanks to all that attended the talk, I found it very interesting, the sound wasnt very good so didnt catch all of it. Thanks Martin for mentioning Mandy & others for speaking out. :thumbsup::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:
 
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Axiom142

Gold Meritorious Patron
Hi Ax,

thanks for that. We were watching the live stream (see my comment on the Pickets and Protests thread and Sharone's reply - maybe someone could merge them here?) but it was a bit frustrating that our comments on Ustream didn't get picked up, we were desperate to get more hard-hitting reports about CofS abuses and Ron's lies, I was even trying your phone to try to ask some questions about what happened on the ship etc!

We missed the beginning while trying to get the streaming to work, so I will have another look at it later. We may have missed the most hard-hitting stuff? There was an awful lot of discussion by the Indies about their views on the tech, in my opinion. It's beyond me how anyone can still think "it all went wrong in 1982" and that the tech works, and think it's all Miscavige's fault. Hello! Hubbard committed far worse abuses!

John and Peter were spot on, we were cheering!

Solo

Hi Solo.

Sorry, I did get your text message, but I had my phone in my bag and was concentrating on trying to get the best image possible for the video, so I wasn’t able to respond.

I suppose it is fair to say that we had more of the FZ / Indy point of view from the speakers, but John McGhee made the ‘anti-Scn’ point very forcefully. He let everyone know in no uncertain terms just how much he despised anything Scientological.

I’m sorry, but there wasn’t anyone monitoring comments during the event, so we missed them. Our bad. This was obviously an oversight and we will have to look at this in the future. In our defence, I can only say that this was very rushed as we wanted to coincide with the IAS event weekend and only had about 2-3 weeks notice of when that was. Also, we had already had a very busy 2 days before this, and the tiredness was beginning to show.

As for the general content, well we are still experimenting as to the best format. In Dublin we had everyone get up and say their bit and field some questions. This was great, but I think we ran for something like 6 hours or so. Due to booking constraints we didn’t have anything like as much time, so the organisers felt that we should have a short(ish) session and just take questions from the audience and also allow time for interaction on an individual basis at the end. I filmed virtually 2 hours of video, which gave us a good range of views on the subject. Personally, I like to see a balance with some views that I hadn’t heard before. For example, it was great to have Vicky there as I hadn’t spoken to her before. I certainly didn’t agree with everything she said but she came across very well and had some interesting things to say.

I agree with you that it didn’t all go wrong in 1982, the rot had set in long before that, by all accounts.

But, we can only hear from those who turn up. If anyone else would like to appear at one of these events in the future, please let me know and we can put you down ‘on the list’. It would be especially good to hear from some of the ‘old timers’ who were around before the Miscavige era and even more so, those who had direct experience of Hubbard.

Also, please give us feedback on what you would like to see at these events in the future.

When I get time, I’ll try and produce a complete write-up of the events of the past few days, but I also have a ton of video to edit and ‘Tube.

You definitely haven’t heard the end of this, a major national newspaper are producing a story, hopefully to come out in the next few days. Several speakers were interviewed and photographed and a part of the story will cause some consternation for the cult. :coolwink:

Axiom142
 

Axiom142

Gold Meritorious Patron
Thanks very much, Ax. Nice quality pic. What's that white stuff on the table in front of Terril? Looks like a half-eaten plate of meringue. :)

Paul

Thanks Paul.

The quality is OK, but nowhere near as good as I would have got with my still camera. I’ve reviewed some of the video footage and although there wasn’t really enough light (something to fix for next time) and thus picture quality suffers noticeably, it is watchable. I learned from previous experience with regard to the sound and got a proper sound recorder and the sound from that is great, but the downside is that I now have to splice the two together and then synchronise. Lots of work!

Knowing Terril, it could well be a giant meringue. :)

More likely a plastic bag that he brought some stuff in.

Axiom142
 

Smilla

Ordinary Human
Re: IAS Event 2012 Saint Hill

The Cult of Hubbard is made up of the Cof$, the [STRIKE]In[/STRIKE]Dependents and the[STRIKE] Free[/STRIKE]Zoners.

The are all
Hubbardites - what they call themselves after the fact doesn't matter much.


oldhubb.jpg



This is their God.
 

solo

Patron with Honors
Thanks Ax,

yes, of course, the event can only make a platform for those who show up. I guess I would rather see a format that gives a consistent view on what we're protesting about, but with exes you have such a range of opinions that becomes rather difficult, and it was apparent that half the panel were still Scientologists at heart which rather compromises a coherent criticism of the subject, but then I have been completely disenchanted with Hubbard for many years now, so I have less patience than I should, maybe, for that range of viewpoints. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the format, I think 6 hours would have been way too long!

Thanks for all the work in organising the event and videoing etc, it's really appreciated. Yes, it would be good to use the live streaming to get more ideas into the pot and get more people joining in the debate who can't be there in person.

Sharone said she would have liked to be there and I think she would add a valuable dimension to the evidence provided to the press. Would Darts be willing to add his voice? He goes back a long way.

Great on the prospect of it going national, will look forward to that!

Solo
 

Terril park

Sponsor
Thanks Ax,

yes, of course, the event can only make a platform for those who show up. I guess I would rather see a format that gives a consistent view on what we're protesting about, but with exes you have such a range of opinions that becomes rather difficult, and it was apparent that half the panel were still Scientologists at heart which rather compromises a coherent criticism of the subject, but then I have been completely disenchanted with Hubbard for many years now, so I have less patience than I should, maybe, for that range of viewpoints. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the format, I think 6 hours would have been way too long!

I think its worth making the point that this conference is aimed at the
general public rather than the critical community. The fact that there was not a consistent view seems a strength. This was mentioned by some and in
particular the journalists and film crew. They very much appreciated that despite the differing viepoints we got along together happily and had fun.The important thing was that all viewpoints considered CO$ abusive and a cult.

What led the conference in the direction it went was less the composition of the panel but more on the questions asked. So the first question was along the lines of "what got you interested in scientology" [ unfortunately
not audible in the recording] and thus people answered that question. One of the journalists [who knew almost nothing about Scn] toward the end asked about the harm done by COS and this got more of the sort of response you desire. As it happens most if not all of the questions were asked by people who seemed new to the subject and wanted answers to their questions, which were not ones it seems you yourself would ask.

Detailed discussion of should one blame Hubbard or DM re abuses while quite relevant here would go over the head of the broad general public. One needs lots of background knowledge to discuss such matters.

Its coincidence that the meeting was held in " The Old Courthouse". CO$ was on trial and the jury unanimously declared it guilty of abuse.


Thanks for all the work in organising the event and videoing etc, it's really appreciated. Yes, it would be good to use the live streaming to get more ideas into the pot and get more people joining in the debate who can't be there in person.

Sharone said she would have liked to be there and I think she would add a valuable dimension to the evidence provided to the press. Would Darts be willing to add his voice? He goes back a long way.

Great on the prospect of it going national, will look forward to that!

Solo

Pete Griffiths did a magnificent job of organising the event.

An interesting post script:-

A spy has estimated that there were 3000 attendees. This is way down on the peak of 8000 on previous IAS events.
 
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