Another Ideal Org Fail

[Karen#1]

Excerpt:




Another failed “ideal org” — this is one of the older ones. Bought in 2007, it is part of the “old guard” of ideal org buildings bought in a flurry of activity in the first years after Miscavige announced his boondoggle program. Battle Creek, New Haven, Philadelphia, Plymouth, Bulawayo, Harare and Capetown were all purchased and decades later sit unoccupied and falling to pieces.


As I have pointed out many times before, if this “ideal org program” was really what Miscavige believed was the answer to expanding orgs and clearing the planet, he would just spend 50 million or whatever it would take to ostentatiously renovate them, and open the buildings that are doing nothing.


Here is the story from the BBC.~~~READ MORE

Another Ideal Org Fail

www.mikerindersblog.org

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

.

Bought & Boarded up by COBB
(Chairman of Bankruptcies & Boardings)

No Scientologists inside. . .

No Scientologists in sight. . .

Ironically, that actually IS an Ideal Building. LOL

Scientologists are in total mystery about WHY
all those "total cause over life" OTs are total effect
of an Ideal Building they bought 15 years ago. Even with
Listing & Nulling, the OTs could not come up with any explanation!
So I asked an SP (Don Hubbard) to help figure this out by inquiring:
"Hey Don, what the hell is wrong with all those supernaturally empowered
Operating Thetans--why can't OTs operate on their Ideal Building?!"

(and he sent me this cryptic answer that I am still trying to decipher)

CONFUCIUS SAY...
IDEAL BUILDING
CANNOT BE BUILT
BY IDEAL BEINGS

...

​

 

[Chuck J.]

$cientology just following orders from its parent company (the IRS) to spend money and not hoard it.

 

[La La Lou Lou]

.

Bought & Boarded up by COBB
(Chairman of Bankruptcies & Boardings)

No Scientologists inside. . .

No Scientologists in sight. . .

Ironically, that actually IS an Ideal Building. LOL


...

​

15 years of deterioration, 15 years of lost financial value, 15 years of an eyesore that is known to belong to the cult of Scientology . Great Public Relations. Great Bringing Scientology into disrepute.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

$cientology just following orders from its parent company (the IRS) to spend money and not hoard it.

if their focus was really on spending money like that, wouldn't they be renovating buildings such as this one rather than getting themselves in trouble with local governments -- not to mention further staining their reputation with the public, and probably disaffecting at least a few of the local members?

and the majority of these buildings are subject to local property taxes while not in use for 'religious' purposes, and so the tax and other expenses on some by now have got to more or less equal what was spent to buy the properties to begin with. there's obviously some underlying strategy, but also just an amazing amount of incompetence and dysfunction that goes against any sort of professional practices.

like with many quotes it turns out they have been attributed to multiple people and their origins may not even be clear, but i picked this version for its connection:

 

[Chuck J.]

if their focus was really on spending money like that, wouldn't they be renovating buildings such as this one rather than getting themselves in trouble with local governments -- not to mention further staining their reputation with the public, and probably disaffecting at least a few of the local members?

and the majority of these buildings are subject to local property taxes while not in use for 'religious' purposes, and so the tax and other expenses on some by now have got to more or less equal what was spent to buy the properties to begin with. there's obviously some underlying strategy, but also just an amazing amount of incompetence and dysfunction that goes against any sort of professional practices.

like with many quotes it turns out they have been attributed to multiple people and their origins may not even be clear, but i picked this version for its connection:

View attachment 21167

I have no idea.
I'm sure the dwarf has some "logic" about all this that makes sense or makes $en$e to him.

 

[ILove2Lurk]

~


"I'll not always be here on guard. The autos race by on Askew Road and the
wind sighs for songs across the empty fields of Windmill Hills. You won't
always be here. But before you go, whisper this to your sons and their sons . . .
'The work was free. Keep it so.' "
Don Hubbard ​

 

[Reyne Mayer]

I'm sure the dwarf has some "logic" about all this that makes sense or makes $en$e to him.

i'm sure there is some of that, but it also seems to me that the CoS often is just responding to crises or whatever shiny object has their attention at the moment, and then things just drop off the radar with no real 'logic' about it -- like all these buildings. Battle Creek at one point for example announced a plan to fix up and move into part of the building they've now owned for over 20 years -- that would have made sense in terms of things like saving on rent, but i think there is a sort of magical thinking at work that says they can't enter into a building unless it has been perfectly prepared.

most recently, how is it that the can't even open a building like the one in Chicago that's been done for about 3 years, or open the one in Austin on the dates that after 2 years they've finally scheduled with the city? that to me speaks of once again of a kind of magical thinking that gets them lost in sorts of rituals and fetishes that requires things to be perfect in some imagined way, as well as just disorganization and dysfunction.

maybe some of it is also that DM has always been in over his head in trying to run an organization as large as the CoS -- especially if he can't effectively delegate authority, and lead a management team under him. i think that fits with stories we hear of him micromanaging things that make no real sense for someone in his position to be doing.

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

if their focus was really on spending money like that, wouldn't they be renovating buildings such as this one rather than getting themselves in trouble with local governments -- not to mention further staining their reputation with the public, and probably disaffecting at least a few of the local members?

and the majority of these buildings are subject to local property taxes while not in use for 'religious' purposes, and so the tax and other expenses on some by now have got to more or less equal what was spent to buy the properties to begin with. there's obviously some underlying strategy, but also just an amazing amount of incompetence and dysfunction that goes against any sort of professional practices.

like with many quotes it turns out they have been attributed to multiple people and their origins may not even be clear, but i picked this version for its connection:

View attachment 21167

.
APPLAUSE! That's one of my top ten favorite quotes of all time!

In addition to the COS (Church of Stupid) making foolish, self-destructive decisions there is another factor that I believe is in play. It's my guesstimate that Scientology doesn't really give a shit about whether many of these "ideal" orgs open any time soon, because:

• It's probably more expensive to open the doors than just letting the building sit there decaying. Because when the org is opened (especially in one of those outlier areas) the monthly expenses soar because the usage is significantly higher for electric (lights, computers, et al) and utilities and staff pay and multiple other overhead items that must be covered somehow in a non-viable org.
• Senior management (COB on behalf of his personal wealth, SO reserves and other slush fund accounts) might well calculate that orgs located outside of areas of high demand for auditing represent little to no profit--therefore not a priority.
• Senior management may additionally calculate that the value of a crappy non-viable "ideal" orgs is only realized in the long term. To wit, to stay in business long enough that one or more whales are caught in the net.

Let's do the math. A failing "ideal" org might have a pitifully small monthly average Gross Income. Let's pretend the org is making $5000 a week. And let's further assume that 10% goes uplines. So COB's racket only earns $500 a week or $24,000 a year.

Even if the "ideal" org does 10X that amount, COB's racket only rakes in $240,000 anually.

Now let's compare that to a flubby org that desperately clings to life for 2 years. But then they somehow snare 1 whale who donates $2,400,000. See the equation? One whale is equal to TEN YEARS of "ideal" flubbiness. And what if the next year they get a far better whale who donates $7.5M. That's the same amount going uplines to COB that would have taken 30 years with just the org's income.

For these reasons, I think that "ideal" orgs are just a snazzy front to capture the occasional whale. And think about this as well--when a whale donates $7.5M, it's nearly 100% profit. Well, COB only gets to keep a fraction of that (just $7,499,950), because fifty dollars has to be spent on the bowling trophy.

...

 

[marra]

Sunderland was my local org. When it was announced that there was going to be an Ideal Org in Gateshead, the response from most scientologists in the area was WTF? Gateshead is not Sunderland and we, the local public, could not see how this made any sense. The Sunderland org is in a City Centre location and should be booming, although it never was and never will be. The Gateshead building is in the middle of nowhere.

From what I recall of conversations I had about this decision, I seem to remember that a chap called Richard Pickles was introduced to scientology in Sunderland and immediately went all gung-ho for it. Apparently he owned the building in Gateshead and he was persuaded to hand it over to scientology before joining staff and then the Sea Org.

In 2017 there was an attempt to raise money for renovations by crowdfunding. I recognise a lot of the names of those who donated and many are from other orgs apart from Sunderland. Despite this, all they could raise was £5,645 (about 7,100 USD) out of an initial target of £600,000 (about 754,000 USD). It was a total fail.

Crowdfunding to create a Scientology Ideal Org In Gateshead in the North of England. This initial amount is to kick-start the building renovation. on JustGiving

 

[The_Fixer]

Listen up guys (and gals), these Orgs were set aside for Thetans to do their courses. Without their MEST bodies.

Business is actually booming. Stats are off the charts. Billions of lost Thetans are going clear and OT without assuming any physical form! Huge success.

Maybe Ron is in one of them somewhere inventing more bullshit...

Of course ghost currency isn't really legal tender in our world, so we're working on that one......

One solution being floated is to charge the current visible parishioners a stiff extra ghost tax. It will be called Thetan Support subsidy. Sounds good, no?

Reckon the members would buy it? If they swallowed the Xenu story, no telling what else you could get them to believe if Tom cruise and Davy lead the way.

Wouldn't surprise me if the church did actually come up with an idea like this. After all, they did come up with Scientology. That should rest my case.

 

[Enthetan]

there's obviously some underlying strategy, but also just an amazing amount of incompetence and dysfunction that goes against any sort of professional practices.

Looking back at my time in the SO in the early 1980s, Flag Bureaux was a hive of worthless activity.

There were some very bright people, but control was in the hands of people whose main skill was intimidating and screaming at people into compliance with whatever orders came from above, rather than any actual experience in running large organizations in the real world.

 

[The_Fixer]

Looking back at my time in the SO in the early 1980s, Flag Bureaux was a hive of worthless activity.

There were some very bright people, but control was in the hands of people whose main skill was intimidating and screaming at people into compliance with whatever orders came from above, rather than any actual experience in running large organizations in the real world.

And would get them prosecuted in the courts for their behaviour...

I don't know about America here, but in many Commonwealth countries, definitely.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

Let's do the math. A failing "ideal" org might have a pitifully small monthly average Gross Income. Let's pretend the org is making $5000 a week. And let's further assume that 10% goes uplines. So COB's racket only earns $500 a week or $24,000 a year.

Even if the "ideal" org does 10X that amount, COB's racket only rakes in $240,000 anually.

ooh, you are just going to get this quant gurl all hot and bothered!

i've looked into the deets when digging into orgs whose names have come up for various reasons, and it looks for example like in places such as Chicago and Boston their rent is probably in that ballpark of a quarter of a mil annually -- with expensive utilities in those wintery cities on top of it. in Chicago i think they've rented the old building since the '90s, meaning they've effectively paid off the owner's 20 or 30 year mortgage -- and so could have just owned the buildings themselves if they'd have had the financial foresight. and i'm not sure that moving into an 'ideal' building where the systems are new and efficient -- and where presumably they could just close off a lot of areas they don't need -- is actually going to cost them a lot more than the inefficiency of renting old buildings.

and with numbers like that, no wonder we now get reports that many of the orgs now need monthly bailouts to meet their expenses. if it's not rent, the standard utility calculations for a 50k sq foot building run about $100k per year -- they may skimp on that in some climates, but in cold climates it's probably going to be more. but even if it were say double that in Chicago, it would still be cheaper than renting.

from talking to some peeps i know in commercial real estate, the biggest problem they have is that once they spend all that money to make a building 'ideal', they're almost never going to get their money back out of it (a very few locations where city center properties are still appreciating a lot, may be an exception). it's like the classic problem of driving a new car off the lot -- and then taking it right to a custom shop to have a lift kit and all sorts of other funky modifications done, no one else is ever going to pay anything close to what you spent customizing it according to your whims.

p.s. plus there's the problem that the CoS is a terrible landlord, and doesn't maintain its buildings properly once projects are done. and commercial buildings get to the point of needing to be gutted, rehabbed and remodeled every 20 years or so anyway, so by the time they finally get unloaded the idle orgs will mostly be worth the value of the land and building skeleton.