Six of One hide financial problems from membership.

As discussed HERE, Six of One refuse to divulge their accounts and bank balance, announcing in their Society "Terms and Conditions" that:

"As the society operates on no other formal basis, it has no annual general meeting or formal accounts and should be regarded as carried on upon a basis of trust and for the mutual benefit of members and the society's co-ordination."

Many members of the Society in recent times, however, have questioned this "basis of trust" and the finances of the Society. These questions have been ignored by the coordination team (click HERE to read an example).

This came to the fore again in 2023 when respected Society magazine editor Dave Coffey, and fellow coordinator Nadine Coffey, resigned from the Society, viting financial irregularities.

Click HERE for more on this and to read their statement in full.

Whilst true in 2023 also, the history of the deliberate hiding of society funding issues from members dates back several years. The following are extracts from a coordination email sent by Roger and Karen Langley (keepers of the Society accounts) in October 2001, just 2 months before the yellow document was sent to members, which paint a less than rosy view of the Society's future.

"As the present subs being received are so few, in this quarter we will barely be able to afford the October mailing."

"Of course if things do worsen, the only option for us would be to scale down the mailing content or quality, or make them less frequent (unless some fundraising occurs)."

"The cost of £300 or so for colour and £150 for the Brain Bash, with the statement, would add £500 to the October usual mailing costs and we do not really have enough funding for more than the basic mailing."

"What we are saying is that if (and there is no way of predicting this) a large percentage of the October and January groups do not renew, we are going to nosedive. Thus without giving a false picture, we want to encourage as many members as possible to renew".

So in an email to their fellow coordinators, the Langleys state that there is only enough money to cover the next mailing (many members had already paid for the next 4) and that the Society will "nosedive". Yet in material sent to members, this is not disclosed!!

Note also this extract from the Langley's communication to the other coordinators:

"Anyway, as there is nothing the team can do about the society's finances (except by some means of fundraising) we can at least as a team put a positive spin on things. i.e. there is no point in spreading an entirely gloomy message."

In other words, "let's lie to the membership about the finances".

The Langley's handling of Society finances have always been questionable. Due to their arrogance, however, no-one else, even other coordinators, are permitted any responsibility into this, as confirmed by the following letter from another coordinator to the rest of the team as early as 1996!

Not only this, but the Langleys often seem to be spending Society members' money on totally frivolous expenses, without the consent or knowledge of other coordinators, as noted by another excerpt from the above mentioned letter:

Another letter from this period also shows the Langley's total ineptitude at handling members' money. Here are 2 excerpts:

In addition to all of the above, in recent years Karen Langley was purchasing items from ebay, and then selling them on at a profit to members via advertising/sales flyers accompanying the magazine and on a Six of One eBay account. If this is merely private enterprise, then she is totally entitled to do so. However, who is paying for the printing of these flyers? Why are back issues, owned by the Society, also included on these flyers, with any monies sent to be paid to the Langley's private "Escape" bank account?

In addition to these flyers, another was sent out to members in outlining sales of original Prisoner costumes at Bonham's auction house in London. Perhaps this could be viewed as Prisoner news which members would want to know about, and thus justifying the expense of an additional flyer. Perhaps, until one realises that the seller of these items is a Mr Roger Langley of Ipswich.

Click HERE to return to the main page, where details of many other dirty deeds can be found.

This page updated Feb 2023