Forward from Cerridwen-- Report of the 17th Annual IAS event Oct 2001 Opening the Show was DM. He jaunted out to the podium and then stood there and soaked up the applause.

David was wearing the standard tux, nicely tailored and a bow tie.

He no longer has that summer blonde look, instead his hair has become quite dark. He also looks thinner and a bit ragged around the edges. He tried to come off as a friendly person in this stint instead of his usual " I'm in command" type valence. This was a kinder and gentler Dave. I'm sure it was just an act to go with this years theme.

Every event has a theme or "message" that Int management tries to get across. Sometimes the message is to push "GAT" or it could be to push Mission packages, or sometimes the overall message is pushing a new course.

Well, the "message" or "gimmick" as they call it in Scn was to join staff and/or become very active in the VM program DM started right in with giving us a little history about war and how it's always been there but Scn is here to save the day. He told us that part of the problem is that the world has become too consumed with MEST and specifically mentioned computers, rather than operating spiritually. I got the distinct impression he was saying that MEST, especially computers, nice houses etc. are BAD, and that you don't need to spend your money on STUFF, instead you should be giving your hard earned money to the C of S.
He then said that there is no way people do what these terrorists did on Sept 11 without there being both psych and drug involvement.

He then read the definition of Assassin, something like, 13th century Muslim that would be drugged with hashish and then told that this is what heaven is like but with lots of virgins and these guys would think that if they went and killed someone against Islam then they would go to heaven and be stoned and have lots of virgins. .

It was at this point that I started rolling my eyes and almost uttered out loud, What a fucking asshole," but I caught myself just in time so I expect no KR's will be written as I don't think anyone saw my eyes roll.

Davy said that in the present day, it's the same situation with the terrorists only worse. They not only are given drugs but they have an evil PSYCH as the right hand man of Osama Bin Laden. Of course he offered no evidence for any of this Jesus Christ, I can't believe I used to believe this shit.

DM also said that this event was the 17th annual IAS anniversary event, but in fact is was really a Mission briefing and we were all the missionaires.

So the briefing began.

Next up was head of OSA, but he was just introduced as Mr. Mike Rinder without any post title. Mike was also in a black tux but not as nice or as nicely tailored as DM's He had on a colorful bowtie and looked like a big dork.

Rinder started going on and on and on and on about the evil psychs and I stared to zone out as the evil psych stories always bored me even when I believed all the bullshit.

As I am spacing out I am looking at Rinder and thinking, geeze, he reminds me of someone. Then it hit me. ( Cognition) Rinder looks like a 45 year old Alfalfa!!!

All he needed was that cowlick that stands straight up.

Now for the European contingent, Alfalfa was a character in Spanky and Our Gang.

See http://www.rivalquest.com/ourgang/alfalfa.html Mike was jabbering on and on about psych's and then got into the Awards and Proclamations for LRH and all I remember is that he said the Queen of Spain issued one to LRH..

I was still stuck in my Alfalfa thoughts so didn't get the whole thing, but I do remember them flashing up a very fuzzy graphic of something, looking like a proclamation and thinking well,shit that could be anything. They're probably making it up.

It should be noted that this is a 180 degree turn from how I used to think. I would attend these events and believe every word out of their mouths. Now I figure they are lying most of the time.

I can't recall much of what Rinder had to say as I so entranced by the Alfalfa images.

Oh ya- Rinder mentioned that there was an article in a Magazine called "Business Age" and this article discussed a certain European country investigating all the drug treatment programs of that country ( I can't remember which country. It may have been Denmark) and how the author of the article endorsed Narconon as being the most effective.

I wonder if anyone could check that out.

He also talked about how the C of S brought and won 5 law suits against the Russian government for falsifying criminal charges against the Cof S and the Russian prosecutor had to pay the court fees.

He then said that the study tech courses- or I think it was a course on Scn- are now offered in all Russian Universities.

GAWD He's a boring speaker. I wish they'd bring Heber back, He was at least entertaining, if you find buffoons funny, that is.

Rinder then introduced the first Freedom Medal Winner. It was the ED Narconon Italy, Felicie (Sp?) Cantu. They did a 10 minute video on Mr. Cantu and I zoned out again and was looking around the room to see if I could get a count on the number of people there.

Sorry, I'm not gonna give the count to you as it would locate where I was watching the event but I would say it's an average attendance for that particular Church.

I can't remember if it was Rinder or another speaker that did a presentation of the opening of the Jenna Elfman mission in San Francisco. They had interviews with each of the Celebs there including Tom Cruise, Juliette Lewis, JT, Jenna, Kristi Alley and a few others. This was a "special:" message from each Celeb to us peons sitting in the audience. The message from each kept with the "theme" of the event which was to become active either by joining staff, opening a mission or doing VM work and of course, getting yourself up the bridge. Jenna was particularly gung ho.

Next up was Karen Hollander in a black evening gown with some shoulder skin showing. I always thought of Karen as an attractive woman with shiny gold hair.

She looked awful. She looked old and tired. Her gold hair was a dull blonde/gray. She looked like a hardened woman.

Karen was there to do the ABLE spew and showed a video of the grand opening of Narconon Arrowhead with interviews of government officials. They give no names but instead put up a graphic while the official is speaking. An example would be, Dir.

of Culture and Education of India or Inspector of Scotland Yard.

Each government official spoke glowingly of Narconon being the solution to the worlds drug problem. I believe the IAS paid for these individuals from all over the globe to attend Karen then showed a video of a new property they bought for the New International Headquarters of Applied Scholastics. Its a place called Spanish Lake which is in or near St. Louis. They purchased a monastery and a big hunk of land. It's up on a hill and overlooks the Mississippi River.

It looked pretty expensive. I gather it was purchased with IAS donations. Or at least Karen thanked the membership for the grant to get this property. It is not yet renovated so they showed some artists renderings of what it was going to look like.

Now I wanted to put in a note here that if you've ever attended any of the Int Events, you know that the camera is almost always on the podium. But when the speaker gives a win like the New ASI Headquarters, then it calls for a standing ovation at which time the camera pans the front row of the audience, which happened to be filled with all the previous Freedom Medal Winners.

I've been going to these video events for ever and this is something that is always done.

Jeff Pomeratz and "Andrike" are always in the front row, hamming it up for the camera.. Cheering overzealously and generally overacting. It's really disgusting. Jeff Pomeratz always wears the same white scarf around his neck with his tux. And Jeff is such a smuck!!! Gawd, I had a hell of a time not saying something out loud..

Karen also told of an IAS grant to the Country of Gambia to get Study tech into the schools there. It appears Gambia has a 70 percent illiteracy rate and is too poor to purchase the study tech books and pay ASI to deliver. So the IAS made a grant and now every teacher ( all 5,500 of them) is trained and uses study tech in Gambia. Obviously not too many people have computer there either so it's a good place for the C of S to get a foot hold in as they can't read and therefore can't get critical data about the C of S.

Karen then introduced the next Freedom metal winner and that was Dr. Oliver Hseung or maybe its Hsueng, I'm not sure.

Dr. H is from Taiwan and quit being an MD to open up 6 or 7 Missions in Taiwan. I guess there aren't any critical web sites in Taiwanese either.

Dr. H is a real go getter and allegedly has some great stats but they didn't tell us what they were.

It should be noted that DM is the one to put the Freedom Medal ( which is hung on a red white and blue ribbon/necklace) around the person's neck. In the past there's been a few funny moments because DM is so short and some of the Freedom Medal winners were really tall.

Anyway I think they must have picked short people to win the medal this year as everyone was the same size as DM. Or at least it seemed that way. But then again I noticed that the Camera angle is different when he puts the medal around their neck and then stands there for 15 seconds for a photo op. The angle is from the ground up rather that shot straight on. I also think that there may be a ramp with a slight grade in it. The freedom medal winner may be standing on the ramp and DM is at the top of the ramp giving the appearance that he is taller than he actually is. I have not proof of that but it seems a reasonable speculation.

Next up was ED Int. This guy never gets a good fit on his tux. It always looks like he got it from an older but smaller brother.

He speaks with a fairly heavy French accent but it's gotten a lot better over the years. The first few years he spoke at these event I could barely understand him.

ED Int briefed us on the latest Campaign. It seems they do an international survey every year to find out what people are worried about ( finding their ruin) and then put together a campaign showing how Scn is the solution to that worry or ruin.

He went over the last few "successful campaigns" including Think for Yourself Find out for Yourself Learn for Yourself Now the latest Campaign Slogan is something like THERE "IS" SOMETHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

I may have the sequence all screwed up here but I believe next ED Int introduced the VM video and the next 3 Freedom Medal winners. The 3 Freedom Medal are John Carmichael, GO/OSA PR NY and I think he has a national title as well, Bunny Dubin and Sharyn Runyon.

Each gave a short prepared speech and Sharyn Runyon made sure she gave a big ACK to COB.

The VM video shows VM's in action in NYC and the video also had about 10 interviews with fireman, policeman and officials from Rescue organizations all extolling the wonderfulness of the C of S.

VM's were interviewed as well and all were happy to be using Scn and making Scn well known and well thought off. The VM's didn't actually talk about the devastation, the loss, the horribleness of it all. NOPE. They talked about expansion and wins.

So these three above get the Freedom medal from DM and Carmichael is tall but there didn't seem to be any problems and I don't think Davy had to get on his tiptoes for this one.

Then we finally get to what the BIG NEWS that was PR'd for why every Scner had to attend.

A New New New Updated and revised Volunteer Minister book was released. EVERYONE has to get it and enroll on the NEW VM Course. This all has to be done by Dec 31, 2001 because on Jan 1, 2002 the New Campaign is going to go into full swing The New Campaign will have billboards, ads etc. that say something like:

Are YOU tired of worrying?

THERE "IS" SOMETHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

CALL 1 800 HELP 4 YOU.

A volunteer Minister will be there to help you.

They will also post the new URL ( which they did not give us) for the NEW Volunteer Minister Site.

This site will be the new cookie cutter site.

After a Scner completes his VM course ( and everyone has to do the course) then he gets a CD that he installs on his computer.

This CD will allow the VM to set up his own personalized cookie cutter page as a VM.

People looking to talk to a VM can go on the web site and see who lives near them or call the 1800 help 4 you line and get referred.

The plan is to get people calling VM's with their problems rather than go to the psychs and make talking to a VM the thing to do!!!!

What was not mentioned is that each new VM is sure to get a NEW and upgraded net nanny at the same time. A lot of Scio's don't have a net nanny because many Scner's installed their on line cookie cutter page on one of the orgs computers OR have since purchased and upgraded with a new computer or OS and never installed the net nanny on the new system.

If anyone ever gets a copy of the new CD it should be tested for the net nanny.

So that's about it for this report. When the Int Mag comes out in the next month or so I'm sure they'll be more to report on that I forgot about.

I'll post a follow up this when the mags come in.

Cerridwen

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