Gloria Jeans and Mercy Ministries part 3

This is part 3.

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

So this is a final response to Gloria Jeans. I don't expect a response back - Jean's have already indicated that they're not going to move on this.

I was absolutely mystified by the repeated Hillsong references - while I already know the nature of their Hillsong links (their founders Nabi Saleh and Peter Irvine are prominent members of this church and Saleh appears as a listed Elder on their website) it wasn't what I was complaining about.

Having said that, it wasn't beneath me to bag Hillsong in my email.

Dear Dianne,

Thank you for replying to my email.

I must admit to some confusion reading your email, and some anger as well, as it did appear to me that you cut and pasted a standard prepared statement that had minimal relevance to the email that I originally sent.

For example, you initially started by referring to Hillsong Church, which I did not refer to in my email. I should perhaps clarify that I am happy with Gloria Jean's statements up to this point regarding links, or lack thereof to Hillsong. I should further remind you that Hillsong was not the subject of my email - Mercy Ministries was.

The rest of your email appeared to be irrelevant guff, referring only obliquely to the points that I raised about your sponsorship arrangement with Mercy Ministries.

Somewhat strangely, you referred me back to the media statement made by Mercy Ministries which I will remind you, made me quite angry due to the fact that it, and I'll quote myself here, "doesn’t even contain a shred of sympathy for the women in question, nor does it suggest any action that the centre will take to ensure that such mistreatment doesn’t happen again."

Part way through this, you point out that you will only take action after due diligence has been undertaken. Dianne, organisations such as Bunnings, Rebel Sport and LG Electronics promptly cut off the organisation the next day after the allegations surfaced, and while everyone is entitled to a presumption of innocence, the fact that so many organisations have terminated their sponsorship arrangements suggests that your due diligence process is either deficient, or wilfully ignorant. Indeed, the loss of corporate sponsors appears so embarrassing for Mercy Ministries that they have deleted all mention of who their sponsors are from their website.

Then for no apparent reason, you mention Hillsong Church again, once again denying links with this church.

I'm reminded of a popular misquote from William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." I don't mean to sound blunt but I don't really care what kind of (non-)relationship you have with Hillsong Church, although for some reason, Hillsong reminds me of the goings on in a Californian church called Peoples' Temple, before their leader, Rev Jim Jones packed everyone up and moved to Guyana in South America. I'm sure that you don't need me to remind you how successful that turned out to be.

If I might quote you from the end of the email:

"The religious affiliation of our management, staff, Franchise Partners, charity partners has absolutely no relevance to how we operate our company."

If this is truly the case, then you will have absolutely no problems terminating your sposorship arrangement with Mercy Ministries forthwith. I expect that this is all talk but this much is clear: the ball is firmly in your court.

I would like to add to my initial complaint that I am unhappy that you chose to respond to my initial complaint with a prepared media statement bearing minimal relevance to my listed queries.

Yours sincerely, Dikkii.

So I'm going to completely avoid Jean's for my coffee requirements. I think you'll agree that I'm fully justified.