Quote: “Obedience is the daily sacrifice of a Christian“….. even when you know those you are being “obedient” to are doing things that are wrong?
When our blog was created in November 2011, it was done so to share with the community the problems associated with the PCRM and how it has effected our community. Since that time we have left an open line for mission management and Board of directors to contact us via email and correct any specific pieces of data that are incorrect or the conclusions using those facts is inaccurate. We have received zero communications from Fox, Chambers or any board of directors. This actually doesn’t surprise us as it is part of the “culture of stupidity” that permeates the Rescue Mission. They seem convinced that by ignoring concerns, that that is the best solution.
Recently, we did have a senior staff member contact us via our blog. In her defense, her comments showed she was truly interested in being a catalyst for change and offered to speak directly with us as well as members of the BARC team who had recently had a communication blackout from Chambers and the BOD. In spite of her best intentions, apparently the management of PRCM quickly put the brakes on her communication with us or anyone else in the charitable community. Below you as a move the mission follower will read an ongoing thread of communications between us and this staff member and better understand the insanity that is so pervasive and has created the problems that exist today.
MTM BLOGGER: ******, I am choosing to respond privately to your newest comments to our blog page. I do this because I think your intentions are honorable as to fixing problems associated with the mission. With that said, I am forewarning you that comments that you submit to the blog page are going to be treated as official comments from management of the PCRM and we are playing hard ball there with rough and tumble responses. Our blog just surpassed the 119,000 page view mark with easily several hundred page views each day. We are being read by the community who your organization claims to serve and ask for donation dollars from so when you make a post, I encourage you to make sure that that is exactly what you want to say as a representative of the PCRM.
To answer a couple of your questions, we did not post your comments about XXXXXXXX as they were irrelevant to the discussion. The comments about XXXXXXXX that were within our post were not us “slamming” him but were part of incoming email offered to us by a reader. We don’t know XXXXXXX and our intentions are not to soil the credibility of those individuals who have simply found themselves participating in the “culture of stupidity” that is associated with the mission. People like XXXXX and probably yourself are just pawns doing what management tells them to do and have no real power or influence to make the real changes needed to make the mission an honorable and stable community service organization for our community. What WAS intended with the post that listed XXXXXXXX was to show the indiscretions and inappropriate behavior of a senior staff member who DID have influence. Having someone who lives a homosexual lifestyle and oversees mens programs is inconstant with the core bibical philosophy of the PCRM. This becomes even more problematic when that individual has a known history of financial problems and has used his position for personal gain.
As to your comments about policies being or not being in place, documents being or not being available, Chambers not being the one creating the financial problems, etc etc…All of that is simply hogwash. You are getting caught up in the psychobabble that is typical of the culture of stupidity. Its like worrying if the walls in the spare bedroom need to be painted while watching the house burn down. Your organization has financial problems, ethical problems, potentially legal problems, operation problems, employee moral problems and public perception problems. Your management has no idea how to move into a triage status to fix real problems and quite frankly still seem to have no interest in mending fences with the same community that they want to ask for donation dollars from. The culture within the PCRM board and with the executive director is morally bankrupt and THIS is what is sad. Our community needs to have resources available to those in need but the PCRM is not the entity to provide this services.|
So, in closing, if you wish to offer commentary to our blog as an official statement from the PCRM, we will be fair but we will not pull any punches with our responses either.
SENIOR PCRM STAFF MEMBER: I won’t post anymore then. You yourselves said no one responds to your posts but when we do nothing is ever good enough and you use it to slam us even more. What you want are changes, but when I share the changes being made that also gets slammed. I am not going to defend ignorance as you call it. You are bordering on slander, so be careful. You don’t know Mr Chambers or the reasons he let staff go. Personnel issues are confidential. But let me assure you there’s a lot your informants are not telling you because it would make themselves look bad. Why would they. They are in retaliation mode.
Mr Chambers focus has been getting the financial situation straight. Any person with common sense knows you have to operate a balanced budget. Billy apparently had no common sense you didn’t care.
Thurman hired a new program manager who is reviewing and make changes that need to be made to make the good programs even better, that process has been slow. However it is working. Policy changes and operational fixes are being addressed also with the AGRM certification that takes time….
We can’t fix overnight what was broken for many years. We are trying though.
And so you know I agree with 90% of what you say about the failure of the board to hold Billy accountable, power struggles that existed between XXX and XXXXX. The sickeningly alleged homosexual relationship between XXXXX and Ken Owens . Billy’s lies and poor management.
I returned because I know I can make the Mission better now that my eyes are opened.
I do feel as though your readers need to see at least 1 person within the Mission is trying to make things better. I would appreciate some public acknowledgement that I am trying to do what is honorable instead of you slamming me too.
But I doubt that will happen because your goal is to move or close the mission, not see it be a better run organization. You never publish the good things that are happening.
MTM BLOGGER: Wrong again, I have encouraged you to post and told you we would be fair in our response. Are you not reading? What we said was that we would continue to be quite critical of your organizations positions and actions. We aren’t going to just roll over and play dead because someone finally after almost three years decided to open up lines of communication. In the few post you have made you demonstrate that you don’t get it with the verbage used. When you say situations are “sad” you are wrong, the reality is they are a “tragedy” an “abysmal failure”. When you say the rescue “acknowledges a problem” you are soft peddling…you don’t understand the extent of the problem. The real words should be “admit our failures” and “confess to our wrong doings”. We do want change. The entire community wants change but we want REAL change not some instituting of a policy after the fact because your organization got caught with their pants down.
Don’t even open that door of slander, liable other legal mumbo jumbo. There is potentially enough on your organization to send people to jail if some enterprising attorney decided they wanted to take your organization to the cleaners. You’re right, I don’t know Chambers personally but I don’t need to. His actions speak for who he is and is not. As for my “informants”, the ones you have mentions as well as at least two former board members have shared quite a bit of information that makes perfect sense. Perhaps you personally are in “retaliation mode” having been fired by mission management once before.
Mr Chambers was hired to do a JOB. The JOB is not just fixing the financials, its getting the entire organization from operations to facilities to programs right. He can’t just pick one and ignore the others. This is a recipe for disaster.
Where I do agree with you is that it is appropriate to have “at least one person within the mission trying to make it better”. We would welcome “public acknowledgment” of the things that are going right but with that you need to understand what your role is as well and “publicly acknowledge” all the problems associated with your organization as well as the problems that you have caused the surrounding community. But I will doubt THAT will happen. The tide would turn significantly if your executive director took out an advertisement in the news herald with a simple letter. “We are the PCRM, these are the problems we have, these are the things that we have done that were not the right things to do, we know how these things have hurt our community and we apologize, we are interested in being good stewards of the communities donation dollars and operating in a way that truly serves those in need while being respectful of the community at large. We are interested in being involved with the bigger service community and working with other organizations and agencies in a way that provides the most with the least resources.” All of that, as simple as it sounds requires a major shift in attitude. YOU personally cannot be the only one with a conscious and make that happen. It requires YOU (the bigger you as in organization) to be willing to come clean and say enough of the hiding, enough of the shady business dealings, enough of stonewalling against the community.
Yes, we downtown want the mission moved. It being downtown with Fox’s larger and larger numbers of participants has almost crushed the downtown. The mission management should work with BARC to find appropriate facilities that help those in need the right way. The current mission facility is in no way designed to facilitate the needs of our community. This is fact. Do we want it closed? No, as the mission CAN be PART of the solution for our community if they decide to integrate into the rest of the what other agencies and groups are doing.
So, the challenge is yours. I am unaware of your actual job title and actual position of influence, but the hopes are that you DO have some influence and ARE able to wrestle some of these more dynamic changes of attitude that I spoke of into fruition.
SENIOR PCRM STAFF MEMBER: Me in retaliation mode? That makes no sense at all. I would have been in retaliation mode when Billy fired me in Aug 2012 if that were my personality. I walked away and prayed that God would handle it and He did. Because I had done nothing wrong.
All things come to light. I trust that God is using your efforts to help shed light on whatever’s going on. I am not mad you are exposing error but you are not giving credit due either. Your mind is made up and no amount of truth will change it.
I am not surprised former board have shared….you should consider who is feeding you information and connect the real dots. They are both close friends of XXXXXXX. Retaliation.
MTM BLOGGER: Of course it makes sense. You were fired by Fox and Chambers has welcomed you back into the fold as you are operating as a fine young lieutenant doing his dirty work for him. Of course your loyalties are to Chambers (at least for the time being).
Without appearing as a smart ass, I don’t really care if you are mad at what we are doing. Strike that, I actually want those who are involved in the mission and read what we post to be mad. I want you (the collective you) to be so mad that you decide to do something about it. When I say really do something about it, i am talking about true change it attitudes that i spoke about in the previous communication. This involves board members, Chambers, staff..everyone to come clean and operate the way the community expects them to. The first thing is get past the philosophy that you are a “private” organization. This is what has gotten you (again the collective you) to where you are today. The PCRM belongs to the community. When you decide to begin to operate in a way that stockholders (the community) wants you to, things potentially can begin to be fixed.
Our “mind is made up” that we are going to tell the truth about the mission. You have enough of the local media falling for every feel good story and ignoring the not so fun facts. All we are doing is creating the balance. What are you (collective you) doing to share the complete “truth”?
You need to get off of the perspective of “retaliation”. It does not look good on you. When others tell of the poor behavior, often it is because their conscious has worked on them long enough and feel the need to tell the truth. Much of what we report is verified from more than one source. The former board members have no close ties to XXXXX or any other former employees.
By the way, we are not exposing “errors”…more soft peddling on you’re part…we are exposing lies, indiscretions, wrong doing, poor planning, poor judgement, shady business dealings, incompetence, etc…see the difference in language? Words have meaning ******. Understand the difference.
SENIOR PCRM STAFF MEMBER: Would you take the time to send me a list of all items you would like to see addressed? What I can do is take these items to the board and suggest what you say, take action to admit to all wrongdoing. It would help if you can send just a bulleted list with each allegation being expressed in 1-2 sentences each. I have been asked to work on a perception survey and expect to have to preset to the board in 1 month. I can add your list to the other feedback I receive.
MTM BLOGGER: If your intentions are real to make some headway with moving forward, let me offer a different twist. Instead of us offering a laundry list of “gotchya’s” that your board members would then thumbs up or thumbs down comments on, a much better approach is your organization offering a general shift in attitude towards our community. In the big picture, the specifics are quite irrelevant provided you actually are doing something to fix them. Your organization HAS to be willing to touch on a handful of key points.
1. “We screwed up in the past” The organization has not always operated in the way that we should have as a community organization.
2. “The PCRM belongs to you the community”. We recognize that every day when we step foot into mission facility we have a responsibility to not only those in the program but to the community we serve.
3. “We commit to be open and truly transparent on not only our successes but our failures”. People are going to make mistakes. Mistakes can be forgiven, deceit cannot. Provide detailed independent audits of financial records
4. “We recognize the negative impact we have had on the downtown community and will work closely with downtown businesses and governmental agencies to lower our impact and be proactive in fixing the problems that we created for our neighbors” then actually do this in a big way.
5. “We understand that provide the best services for our community, it is our responsibility to be part of a larger team and associate ourselves closely with other agencies and organizations to take advantage of collective resources”. This means involve yourself with BARC and a number of other organizations in a very public way. This also means a streamlining of services that the PCRM facility takes on. The days of the mission being a one-stop source for our communities needy are long gone. There are no more lone rangers.
6. Admit where your money comes from. When you say you take “no direct taxpayer money” that is deceitful. Deceitful=lying
7. Admit that downtown is not the best place for a mission facility and that your organization is looking for better facility options that will allow you to better serve the communities needy and provide opportunities for the downtown sixth street corridor to thrive again.
8. Admit that there are issues with programs, thrifts stores and outline a basic multi-stepped plan PUBLICLY as to how you intend on correcting those problems.
All of this needs to be done in a very very public way. Invite Caz from the News Herald to personally come and write an article about the problems and the solutions. This requires some soul searching and a humble attitude. Embrace the problems as YOURS and offer hope and solutions that the community can count on as fact. Offer very specific benchmarks that can be validated easily by average joe on the street. Have local television stations do the same. Be honest and upfront with not only the problems but how they came about.
These few steps alone would move you worlds away from where you are now. But all of this again is about an attitude. The truth will set you free.
“Perception survey” has the ring of damage control to it. If all you are wanting to do is fix perception, you are wasting your time. You need to be fixing problems and telling the community about the problems in an honest way so they can become part of the solution. Again for like the third or forth time now..it is attitude. Without a core change of attitude..nothing worthwhile is happening. This is something that is about a change of heart and mind. You (the collective you) HAVE to give in…it is your only course of survival. We demand it and you should want it if you care so much about the programs that you say you do
SENIOR PCRM STAFF MEMBER: What it will do is show them just how bad it is, why support is down, and that without taking a hard look at ourselves, be willing to admit wrongs, and make more changes these perceptions will not change. If we really want to help people and the community these things have to change.
MTM BLOGGER: Indeed it does
Two weeks go by without a single communication from the staff member who felt compelled to reach out as the “one person from the mission communicating”
MTM BLOGGER: i’m assuming that you are finding it not so easy to change the mindset of board of directors and chambers. Sad isn’t it
SENIOR PCRM STAFF MEMBER: Guess not. But I have to support my organization nevertheless.
MTM BLOGGER: Ahh but here in lies the problem, when you no longer can be a catalyst to move things forward in a proper way and you stay just because it is a paycheck, you become part of the problem. The defeatist attitude of those who like you wanted to do the right thing but succumbed to the pressures and deeply entrenched culture of deceit and slimy business dealing is what has gotten us where we are. When you say you support “your” organization even knowing all of crap that is going on shows where you really stand. You are one of “them” and being one of “them” isn’t something to be proud of. I’m curious as to where is the line in your own mind? What is the one action or inaction that the BOD or Chambers would do that would cause you to say enough is enough? Do you just continue on turning a blind eye until you get run off? There are a great number of those who have proceeded you that have found their pink slips handed to them when they knew too much and became a liability. I was forwarned ahead of time by two different people that (a) you would probably get your hands slapped for engaging with us and (b) that you really are nothing more than a cog in the wheel and have zero influence to move anything in the right direction. I actually was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that with some obvious facts and a bit of nudging that you may do the right thing by our community and those participating in programs. But apparently that is not the case
SENIOR PCRM STAFF MEMBER: On the contrary, this is not a job, you see, this is a calling from God and this is God’s mission. And even if I voice my concerns and I am not heard, ultimately my calling is unto God, and is to be obedient to those put in authority over me. I don’t expect you to understand this. I don’t know if you’re Christian, but obedience is the daily sacrifice of a christian. I am praying for the city, praying for you specifically, and praying for the best course of action for the mission. I hope that you will understand. It is in God’s hands and if God wants us to move, it will happen according to His will. Maybe it is god’s will for us to be part of the b a r c behind gulf power and if it is god will make it known to the board of directors .
I respectfully ask for you to please stop emailing me. Please remove me from your mailing list a_s_a_p.
MTM BLOGGER: Here is the last correspondence. Btw, remember you contacted us first…when you say “God’s will” and know all the “human problems” associated with the PCRM, it makes you and the entire organization look like crazy people borderline on a cult like mentality. None of the happening at the mission has anything to do with “God’s will” and those who believe so are living in a fantasy land. I am a Christian and being one, God has blessed me with the intelligence and foresight to see things for what they really are.
The truth about the "Panama City Rescue Mission" and your downtown Panama City, Florida 