Registered Agent for Ups & Downs?

Update: Mr. Jenkins was NOT aware he was listed as agent of record. We dislike this woman now; we've been giving her too much credit.

First and foremost, we do wish to apologize to Mr. Willson Jenkins for any errors in two earlier posts. What is a registered agent? We took this from Wikipedia...which may not be the most reliable source, but our Black's was in the cleaners:

In United States business law, a registered agent, also known as a resident agent[1] or statutory agent,[2] is a business or individual designated to receive service of process (SOP) when a business entity is a party in a legal action such as a lawsuit or summons.[3] The registered agent's address may also be where the state sends the paperwork for the periodic renewal of the business entity's charter (if required). The registered agent for a business entity may be an officer or employee of the company, or a third party, such as the organization's lawyer or a service company. Failure to properly maintain a registered agent can affect a company negatively.[3]

Mr. Jenkins says "inaccurate" blogging led to two people asking that he and the  board be investigated. He is in error here since we have done nothing but stress that the board, with the exception of the manager, has had nothing to do with any possible irregularities.

Mr. Jenkins also feels we were wrong to infer he was paid. We're not sure why it was wrong to infer this. We inferred what he did was work (see above) and one should be paid for work done. For those who don't know, attorneys are expected to do so much pro bono work each year. Most of our attorney friends do this work for animal charities, but perhaps Mr. Jenkins is not one of these. We hope he will reconsider in the future. We've never known any animal to use the bad grammar or faulty logic found in most posts by those attacking this charity.

Mr. Jenkins is no longer agent of record for this charity, and again we apologize. If he has reported this change, it has not shown up on the Secretary of State website as of earlier today. (After rereading his comment, he says "if" he agreed to be registered agent in the first place. If he didn't agree, we've done him a service in bringing this to his attention.)

Now we ask Mr. Jenkins similarly to recant that we have ever said the thrift store manager should not be paid. We certainly have not, and it was implied in his post. Again, see above as to our thoughts on payment. If one works, he/she should be paid. If he wishes those who don't understand this basic principal of being paid to perform permanent work for a charity, he needs to post his comments on one of the three or four sites currently bashing the charity's board without provocation or basis.

Special: Sign Ups & Downs Petition, but Use Your Head

There is a petition circulating to audit/investigate the Ups & Downs Thrift Store (We had mistakenly been identifying it as Ups N Downs). We encourage you to sign the petition, but want to address one issue with it: The petition is non-specific on whom will receive it. Will it be the IRS? The Alabama Department of Revenue? The Attorney General of Alabama? Someone else?

*****

Now a very important second issue. Many who have signed the petition have stated reasons, most of which have been unrelated to the petition and some of which have been downright vulgar. This does not help getting anyone to read the petition. Think about this: You receive a petition asking you to investigate theft by deception, but the first five or ten reasons you see are personal attacks on the alleged thief, what would you do? We would probably set it aside as being the ramblings of ill-educated or deranged minds.

Some of the "reasons" people gave for wanting an investigation:

* Mgr is overweight
* Mgr is promiscuous
* Mgr is an alcoholic
* Mgr is rude
* Mgr says what she thinks
* Mgr refused to give back a donation - operative word there being "donation" 
* Two members of board are attorneys (Not true)

Does anyone, anyone at all, think these are reasons to investigate for theft? Why would anyone think this makes the mgr a bad businesswoman, as was also stated (other than she's not a people person)?

*****

There were two we noted who thought the board should also be investigated. There was no logic for this other than "two are attorneys." No, they're not.

The board consists of the manager, one attorney, and one realtor. A second attorney is the agent of record, for which we're sure he's paid. His name is Willson Jenkins (usually misspelled by those who mentioned him in the petition). An agent for a corporation, whether charity or not, is totally separate from the board. We hope someone has contacted Mr. Jenkins already about this whole debacle.

The board for Shoals Area Families Foundation probably meets four times a year and approves large expenses, etc. We sincerely doubt that either of the other two members had any idea there were problems with this charity. After all, the manager made the reports at the meetings. Would she have said, "Oh, by the way, I've been stealing the charity blind?"

*****

One final thought; we noticed those who called the mgr a fat, drunk whore were all men. Ex-boyfriends?

*****

Sign the Petition

Judge Jackie Hatcher's Crush/Written on the Wind

The crush? It's Candy Crush. It seems several witnesses in the Chris Martin murder trial are willing to testify that Jackie Hatcher was playing Candy Crush on an I-Pad while the trial was in session. Was she? If any of our readers have had a similar experience while testifying in Judge Hatcher's courtroom, please contact us.

Supporters of Chris Martin are also taking on conduct of District Attorney Bryce Graham and the Quad-Cities Daily. We'll have more on this later.

No matter how long we publish here, it seems some think one person writes all the blogs. Yesterday we published three separate opinions from three separate critics of Muscle Shoals High School. Regular readers know we are happy to publish your comments, from short to blog length. Your opinions do not have to be ours, just keep it civil.

One comment was from a person related to a recreation league basketball team coach. While we have had close associates connected to the NSA, we've never had any connected to the NBA.

While it probably does little good in some cases, we ask that you look at the top of each article, or at least the signature line, to determine who is writing what. Let's hope that will clear it up for most of our readers.

As we write this, we lack approximately a dozen likes having 6,000 on Facebook. We realize that many have more than one account. We also realize that, sadly, in the length of time we've been posting our blog links to FB, some of our fans have passed away. On the other side of the coin, approximately one-third of our readers don't access our blogs via FB, but do so directly or through e-mail.

We usually have around 3,000 readers each day and appreciate each of you. We give you a voice. We may not be able to solve your problem, but we can let you publicize and vent.

Sincere thanks to all of you.

Problems at Muscle Shoals High School

From Reader No. One:

Beautiful Day for a Walk? It's obvious Muscle Shoals City schools have plenty of money when they pay three bus drivers and the cost of expensive buses to carry high school students from the high school across the street to the vocation school. There were three buses picking up the students and driving them across the street.

They do the same for the football children.

Example of more money than common sense?

*****

From Reader No. Two:

Title IX? Are Muscle Shoals Schools possibly violating Title IX with all the funding the football program receives, and the softball and baseball don't even have their own fields to play on? They don't have dress out facilities where they play. Are they not being treated differently/unfairly-possibly discriminated against? 

I have heard it mentioned second hand the Athletic Director has said they are on their own, that the only sport he's concerned with is football. Heard he even made a great baseball player quit and focus solely on football... The softball kids have to fund raise for all their needs, yet how much does football program get every year, and has for several years? I've heard $250k... 

Softball/Baseball play on borrowed fields from Shoals Community College, which I've also heard the superintendent doesn't even want them using, so where does he expect them to play? The rec (RUSTY WHEELES) isn't very hospitable in its use of the fields for the middle school ball teams now, hate to see having to use them for High School too....talk about taking 3-4 steps backward!! The rec dept even tried to make the school pay to use the field about three years ago, but enough fed up parents complained to city council to stop that. Again it was Mr. Wheeles behind that! That's a whole other story...as big of a city as MSC is, our rec complexes are way outdated!!! They could bring in so much revenue...just hope he gets run off with this last fiasco hes gotten into!! 

We are a 6A school system, and we don't have our own baseball/softball facilities...the city should be embarrased!!!! Even most of the small county schools have their own facilities. The research I've done, I believe we may be in violation of Title IX...

Put this out there to get others looking into it also, its time our city antes up for the kids' sports other than football!!!!

*****

From Reader No. Three:

Rigged JV Try-outs? A relative coaches an AAU girls' basketball team for a local league. This league is managed by some of the best athletes to ever come out of the Shoals area. The team has 9 players from 4 different schools. Three of these 6th grade girls attend Muscle Shoals (my own child doesn't go there so I am not an angry parent). JV basketball tryouts for MSC are this week. Two of these girls aren't trying out because it doesn't matter their skill. It doesn't matter that they have attended group lessons by Rayfield Ragland. It doesn't matter that they have played Rec ball, travel ball and now AAU basketball. 

None of this matters, because according to these girls they have no chance of making the team. They make the statement because their parents don't work at MSC or because they don't have the right connections that they will never make the team. It is a shame and disgrace that 12 year old girls already know how the system works and will never be given the opportunity to play for their school although they posses the talent needed to make a great team. 

Rayfield Ragland is in Lauderdale Co Sports Hall of Fame. One of best athletes to ever come out of this area. He isn't the only one that works with this league. Scott Wallace, Chad Sears, and the Wallen triplets are among others that train/coach children in this league. I just find it odd that these children were able to make the cut to play for the league, but according to them they have zero chance of making a JV team. As far as watching, if tryouts there are like other schools they will be closed. This means only coaches and potential players are allowed in the gym during tryouts.

Welcome to the Shoals' Newest Attorney!

Have you been a victim?

* Has you neighbor run over your pet rattle snake with his lawn mower?

* Has your boss hit you on the back too hard when he promoted you?

* Has the meter reader stolen your dog's affections?

* Has Mickey D's shorted you on chicken nuggets?

* Has a Russian hacker taken over your Twitter account?

* Has the local political blogger announced to the world that your name really isn't Alf, but Alfonse?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be entitled to a large cash settlement...that is if you can find the right attorney. And, boy, do we have the attorney for you.

That's right, we're being allowed the exclusive privilege of announcing the arrival of one of the Southeast's premier personal injury attorneys. Yes, he's come all the way from Ethridge, goat cheese and all, to set up practice in Colbert County with his city slicker cousin. Remember you heard it here first!

 

How to Cook the Books

Our title today may be slightly misleading. We're writing this blog due to one woman's comment that all the directors of a crooked charity are responsible for theft of donated funds. Are they?

They certainly are if they know what's going on, but what if they don't? Yes, a person sitting behind a counter eight or nine hours a day with very few customers has plenty of time to cook the books...to create false expense receipts in order to embezzle.

What else could they do? With that much time, it would be quite easy to create a totally false set of books. That would mean one set with the real income/outgo and one with totally fictitious numbers. The fraudulent set of records would then be taken to the quarterly board meetings. 

We've been told that a certain suspect charity uses a paper ticket book for many of its transactions. What could be easier to falsify each night at home? Simply take the store's book with its original receipts and copy each one using different pricing. Voila! You have embezzlement!

No, don't blame directors who were cajoled into helping a worthy cause. Blame the person who created the scam and pockets the money! 

*****

A word to the wise: Never let the person who writes the checks balance the checkbook. We once mentioned that to an employee of an entity at which we volunteered. "But," the person said, "Agneathetta Crookshank does it all. She's totally honest." "Yes," we replied, "but what if someone stole a blank check from Ms. Crookshank, forged her name, and she didn't notice it?" Our friend's reply? "I'd like to see the person who would dare steal anything from Agneathetta Crookshank." 

Ah, so there is value in being an old biddy...

Special: More Hacking!

About an hour ago, our FB account was again hacked; this time it was definitely accessed by someone whose first language isn't English. So why would a "ferner" take our blog so personally? We'll take a very educated guess it's because of the link he posted to a registered sex offender's site.

This link lists a lady who lives in Killen who has made one post here--about child rape. Seeing a trend here? Yes, this lady greatly offended Derek Logue with a national post she once made, and of course since she lives in this area, she must blog for us. Uh, no, Derek, she doesn't. She is welcome to at any time, and we believe she may have something to say about all this. 

So, until we get all the passwords changed, pst, Jason, keep the terms of endearment to a minimum!