Friends 1st has the gall to call me.

I hope that I have at long last got rid of "FRIENDS 1ST". I wonder if they communicate with each other as I made me thoughts on them crystal clear, yet a man phoned me and left a message saying the cheque had a arrived and how was my membership coming along. If I had any questions I could phone. 

I emailed them about this saying I had made my thoughts about them clear in my letter and

1) Never call me again
2) Do not send me any more literature
3) Take my contact details off their data base.

I think the whole thing is set up to do nothing but make money, and when you make it clear that you want out and then take steps to force the issue, then they drop the mask and you see them for who they really are.  Their target is your money.  Members are not people they are contracts.

They are highly manipulative in the language they use in their emails.  I utterly despise that.

To anyone reading this, if you ever see their adverts, I am warning you, throw it away and stick to reputable web sites even if you do not feel like it. 

A web site usually does not lock you into a contract and is therefore cheaper and what you see is what you get.

Friends 1st. I am out I hope.

having paid a heafty price, I should now be free of Friends 1st.  My bitter experience of this so called christian dating company has reminded me that not all is as it seems.

The founder came from a Roman Catholic background, is now a member of the Church of Enland, but is married to a Roman Catholic and in one of her videos suggested in a positive way when considering dating profiles that a Roman Catholic may not be what we expect.  I beg to differ.  I Roman Catholic would be exactly what I expect. Someone who adds doctrines to the gospel and so believes a falsehood.  I do not see one spark of testimony in what she says so I have to conclude that she has fooled herself into thinking that she is a christian

I found that when, I made it clear that I was leaving and would not discuss the matter that the true face of Friends 1st emerged.  She held me to the contract. I wanted to see if she would.  For all their public face efforts to serve members, the reality was that I was no more than just a contract.  Someone she wanted to bleed as much money out of as she could.

As their lunch events sell out to women, I think that the company probably suffers from a lack of men  It seems to me that they get as many men to attend the lunch as they can to balance numbers. It you think about it, then it is a massive blind date.  I did not got the lunch I said I would because by then I had decided that the sort of women in it were not the sort of people I was looking for and as the company is headed by a Roman Catholic ( which in reality she still is even though she is in the church of England), I could not continue in fellowship with this company.

All their services are about one thing, making money. They do not really care about people.  If they did they would realise that people make sacrifices to be in membership, and they are profiteering out of other peoples private grief

I am too long in the tooth to be fooled by some of the things they say in their magazine called, "Cloud Nine".  There was a short article about one of their staff who left to go and work for her cousin in a cafe.  She had decided that administration was not for her, but she would miss the members.  Somehow I do not think that she would miss the members.  She evidently hated the job and left at the first opportunity.  Then someone else came along who was given the job, but then decided that she did not want it.  One has to wonder why.  What sort of atmosphere makes a new start decide that she is not going to go on.  I did that once myself in my 20s, so I know what I am talking about.  Something struck that woman about the office that made her realise that working there for her would be a bad idea.

A lot of the articles in the web site go like this.

Friends 1st is wonderful, I met someone and we have been going out for two months

OR

Friends 1st is wonderful because they gave me so many profiles to keep me busy contacting people

OR

I paid £75 for a blind date and it was wonderful because we had so much to talk about.


None of the above are success stories. they are just common experiences in life. None of the above guarantees a life partner.

Evidently they have had people who met and married, but they never give details as to how many.  They also claim to be the largest off line christian dating agency but that does not tell me how many off line ones there are, nor does it tell me the true size of Friends 1st.

My suspicion is that it is much smaller than they imply.  Most of the population of the UK do not go to church, so straight away the pond for fishing in is small.  Also there are so many web sites that I think most people would go to first as they are either free, or paid for by monthly subscription and one can stop when one wants, unlike Friends 1st where one is locked into a contract for a year and at the end of that year, they do not notify the member of their upcoming departure but go on taking money from then and I wonder how many members found to their cost that they stayed over by a month or two and it is their responsibility to give Friends 1st 3O days notice.

For me, it has been a bitter experience.

I say to anyone, do not get involved in this company and do not trust them.

they will keep making you offers to persuade you to give them more and more money and that is in my view the sole object of Friends 1st.  All thoughts of being a ministry to help people meet their needs are a by and by.  Money talks.

I also thought that some of the advice they give was appallingly bad.  They encourage people to travel all over country as they would do to see family at Christmas.  That is not comparing like with like.  Christmas only comes once a year.  it is far better to be sensible and stick to a managable area and budget for it than run all over the country.

The only thing that I found exciting about Friends 1st was leaving it

HOORRRRRAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!

Bank Holiday

On Saturday, I went to the Cosford RAF museum. It was a spectacle to behold.  Free Entry and I strongly recommend it

On Bank Holiday Monday I went to the Blists Hill Victorian Town Museum by Iron Bridge. I had not been there for a number of years.  I see that they had a couple of new attractions such as a lift that goes up a hill and a train that takes you into a clay mining simulator.

The final assignment

The final assignment for "An Introduction to the New Testament" is finished.  It is also in on schedule.  Hooooooray.

canal at the Mailbox.

tardis at the mailbox

At the mailbox.

PASTOR CHRIS OYAKHILOME IS A LIAR WITH HIS GANG OF FAKE PASTORS

The mailbox

I am going to the mailbox tomorrow.  I was due to meet people from Friends 1st for lunch, but I just could not bring myself to pretend that everything is ok and that I love their service.  I had intended to see the TV studio and then meet them at 1.15, but I have to be honest and tell them that the founder if she thinks she can be a christian and be married to a Roman Catholic and encourage others to do likewise then she is sincere, but sincerely deceived and I can have no fellowship with them. I have also in a small way started doing what I told them I would do. I am when the opportunity arises doing my best to deter other people joining them. 

I intend to enjoy my tour of the mailbox and not be watching the time to leave the studio as I would have to have done if I had been meeting fellow victims, opps sorry members of Friends 1st.

friends 1st

2012 WINNER of the 8th Annual Business Award
for Running a business that positively impacts the community
Awarded by Wisdom for Women International and Keep the Faith magazine
("A woman who fears the Lord shall be praised" Proverbs 30:31)

The above seems wonderful and it was awarded to an off line so called Christian dating agency which I joined and bitterly regret.  I discovered too late that the founder comes from a Roman Catholic background, is a member of the Church of England and is married to a Roman Catholic.  My contention is that there are many dear and deceived people in that church.  However it is not a church, it is an organisation that purports to be a church.  A church has people in it who have had a conversion experience and they depend on Christ alone to get to heaven and nothing and no one else. The Roman Catholic church do not accept this and the add their own doctrines and traditions so that people trust in the church, not Christ.

I therefore strongly recommend to anyone that they have nothing to do with friends first.  There is no account of any convertion experience among their staff which no longer surprises me.  The following is a letter I wrote to them

To Friends 1^st

I joined Friends 1^st, because I was having an episode where I was tired of the web sites.  I realised that joining Friends 1^st was a risk because it means handing over control of selecting profiles to someone else, who is likely to make assumptions about what one is looking for that may be wrong.  I also specified that I would travel up to two hours. 

When the first batch of profiles came, I was very disappointed.  It contained a large number of people well outside two hours and with one exception, clearly not the sort of people I am looking for.  I attempted contact with a few, most of whom turned me down on seeing my profile.  This does not surprise me as I wrote one that is a clear statement of where I stand in matters of faith and I wrote it the way I did so that I would not be pestered by unsuitable people, so to that extent it had the desired effect.  However two of them did make contact.  One of them was charming, had already found a man, but gave me some advice that included joining Christian Connection and accepting what providence God brings.  This I knew immediately was sound.

The other did not have a high opinion of Friends 1^st as she also had the distance problem.

When I emailed about how many of the profiles were outside of the distance I specified, I did not get a response even though I emailed two or three times. Indeed in one video Katherine advises to treat it like Christmas.  One may travel a long distance at Christmas and at the time I emailed yet again to say one only travels once at Christmas and that is to see family and so she was not comparing like with like and it really comes down to bread and butter issues such as spend a lot of money on petrol traveling to meet people for whom a relationship may or may not occur at the sacrifice of life essentials.  I think that is foolish and I will not do it.  However being ignored on the issue was very annoying and when the second batch of profiles arrived, once again I found that I had been ignored and when I got it down to about half a dozen possibilities, on distance alone I decided not to contact any of them as I could not see anything in the remaining ones that grabbed my attention.  On the contrary I saw things to put me off. 

I am not the sort be drawn to church as an institution with coffee and cakes and the anorak brigade.  I believe in vision and passion for it in reaching the lost and not just locally. 

When I phoned the office upon joining, some of the things I put in the profile were repeated including what I said about the sort of person I am looking for. Being in missions is demanding and it is no good just tolerating it as that attitude will put a strain on any relationship and I also said that I knew couple who are very pastoral in their gifting and the man once said to me that he had met couples where the wife told him that missions was her husband’s thing, not hers.  In the course of the phone call I was told that I was over thinking it.  Upon hearing that, I knew that I was being ignored. There is no such thing as overthinking it.  One has to enter into missions eyes wide open to the consequences that will follow.  I assure you that anyone who marries a vicar knows that as the vicar’s wife there will be consequences.

I think that Friends 1^st put such heavy emphasis on reassuring people that they have no idea how to do anything else and they just go into reassuring mode and do not really listen to people.

Then there was the video where Katherine stated that that a Roman Catholic may not be what we would expect.    She meant this in a positive way and that alarmed me more than anything else. It caused me to do what I should have done and failed to do which is look at Friends 1^st more closely.  I typed in Katherine’s name and found what I was looking for about her coming from a Roman Catholic background; being married to a Roman Catholic and sometimes she goes to his church.  I bitterly regret not doing my research first. It I had seen that, I would never have joined Friends 1^st. It proved to me that Friends 1^st have no real grasp of the gospel.  I should never have joined.

Christ died and rose from the grave to pay for our sins to honour his heavenly father.  In a christening there is no exorcism of original sin as the Roman church teaches. Christ is not in the bread and wine again and again as Rome teaches.  Mary is not a go between for us between the son and the father and there is no purgatory for it is appointed man once to die and thereafter the judgement. Anyone who is in any way involved in Rome needs to seriously ask if they are truly saved, for we are warned that not all who say lord lord will be saved but only those who do his will which is to believe in the son of God.  That means to trust in him and to trust in him alone. The Galatians were adding circumcision to this and that was a damnable doctrine which the apostle Paul spoke out against at great length and so now the Church of Rome also adds to the gospel so that it is no longer the gospel and if one trusts them, then one is in great danger of finding out too late on the day of Judgement before the lord that one has been deceived.  Paul warned that if anyone preach any other gospel, let him be accused and I take that very seriously indeed.  I have known people from a Roman Catholic background who are fully aware of the errors of Rome and have renounced them when they were saved.

There was also the hard sell of the “Finding someone Special tool kit”. From the letter you sent and the video, it became self-evident to me that Friends 1^st is manipulative.  Such a kit trades on peoples insecurities, expecting them to part with hundreds of pounds to turn themselves into something they can never be.  It one does want to make some improvements there are many blogs or inexpensive books that will give very helpful advice without the massive expense of the tool kit.  I also was very offended when I got an email about my profile that stated that my uniqueness did not come across and that a discerning person like me knows that making a good first impression is so important and that for £75 I could have a phone call and an enhanced profile.  I am very good word smith. I could easily have written a more pleasing profile. Again the use of the words, “Uniqueness and discerning” I found manipulative. 

I therefore very gladly cut my time short with your company. I am terminating my relationship with you immediately. I will never trust anyone to make my choices again and I will never recommend you to anyone, and it asked I will warn people off.

                                                                                                                                                Yours Faithfully

                                                                                                                                                George Falconer

Bottom of Form

polling day

Today, is polling day. The United Kingdom elects a new government.  If the polls so far are proved to be correct, then no party will have an overall majority.  If that happens then there will be haggling to get a group together capable of commanding the support of the commons.  I did what I always do on days like this. I got up, got washed shaved and dressed and went to the polling booth before breakfast to cast my vote.

The Publisher has come back to me.

The publisher has now come back to me with a lot of questions and the edited draft of my book. I have told them that I will get back to them in detail after the 20th of May.  Right now I need to put time into study of the New Testament.  I did however tell them what title I would be willing to go with.  They suggested three titles and I selected, "Gods Kaleidoscope", with the sub title, "Mission in the red light district and beyond".

Things are moving now.  I am excited.