Churches to raise money to fight gay marriage - Salem News
PORTLAND, Maine — Scores of Maine churches will pass the collection plate a second time at Sunday services on Father's Day to kick off a fundraising campaign for the lead opposition group to November's ballot question asking voters to legalize same-sex marriages.
Between 150 and 200 churches are expected to raise money for the Protect Marriage Maine political action committee, said Carroll Conley Jr., executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine evangelical organization and a member of the PAC. Conley is also trying to drum up support for the Maine campaign from religious leaders from around the country.
It's unusual, but not unheard of, for churches to take up collections for political causes. Maine's Catholic diocese says it raised about $80,000 with a designated collection in 2009 in its effort to overturn Maine's same-sex marriage law, which was passed by the Legislature that year and later rejected by voters. The Catholic church isn't actively campaigning this time, instead focusing on teaching parishioners about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman Father's Day, June 17, seemed an appropriate time to kick off this year's fundraising campaign because of the day's focus on family, Conley said. Additional collection-plate offerings at churches are expected in the months ahead.
"The messaging we're using is that those who are seeking to redefine marriage in Maine believe there's no difference between moms and dads," Conley told The Associated Press. "We believe those differences are relevant. We don't think the differences in the genders are societally imposed roles, and we believe that children benefit when they're in that ideal environment where there's a mom and dad."
Protect Marriage Maine has been in contact with about 800 churches across the state and expects 150 to 200 to participate in the Father's Day collections, Conley said. They include Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, Nazarene, Church of God, Wesleyan, Evangelical Free, Advent Christian and other denominations.
While many churches are joining the campaign against the referendum, others of various denominations are working to support the ballot measure.
Some churches have hosted phone banks where congregation members have made calls in favor of the referendum, said the Rev. Sue Gabrielson, the minister at the Sanford Unitarian Universalist Church. Other churches have held educational forums and training sessions on door-to-door canvassing.
The referendum, she said, is about inclusion, a "loving God" and being nonjudgmental and compassionate.
"What we want is for people to know that this is a religious issue," she said.
Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who created an international uproar when he became the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican church in 2003, is coming to Maine in early June on behalf of the campaign in support of gay marriage. He will appear at three screenings of the film "Love Free or Die," which depicts his life, in Portland, Lewiston and Ellsworth.
Churches in Maine and elsewhere have raised money from parishioners for political campaigns in the past on issues including gay rights, doctor-assisted suicide, abortion and gambling.
Federal law prohibits churches and other 501(c) (3) charitable organizations from supporting or opposing candidates running for office, either through financial contributions or endorsements, said Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a Washington advocacy group that supports separation of church and state.
"But they can, with near impunity, support issues and causes, including same-sex marriage referenda," Walker said.
Supporters of Maine's ballot question have said they expect to raise $5 million or more for their campaign. Opponents have said they expect to raise far less, but collection plate offerings will go a long way toward helping fund the campaign, Conley said.
Conley has been in Washington, D.C., this week at a pastors conference organized by the conservative Family Research Council. There, he met with other gay marriage opponents from Minnesota, Washington and Maryland, where same-sex marriage ballot initiatives are being debated.
Minnesota will decide in November whether a ban on gay marriage should be part of the state constitution. Maryland and Washington are expected to have ballot measures seeking to overturn same-sex marriage laws that were recently passed by their legislatures.
Conley's also seeking endorsements from well-known pastors who might be willing to record video and audio clips that can be played at churches taking part in Maine's collection-plate drive, he said. Those clips would also be sent to the state's Christian radio stations as public service announcements.
Conley said he realized churches should play a central role in the Maine campaign after being in North Carolina earlier this month when voters approved an amendment to the state constitution affirming that marriage may only be a union of a man and a woman.
"I was impressed with the coordination I saw among the faith community in North Carolina," he said.
Is it time for a shared payroll strategy between finance and HR? - HRmagazine.co.uk
What is different about this big bang is that it involves sharing HR services between not just those two councils, but with a third for part of it, neighbouring Kingston upon Thames borough council, which will include the payroll chunk.
It is the culmination of two years of work on a masterplan for HR shared services across Sutton and Merton, which Shoesmith reckons will save each borough £250,000 every year. A governing board comprised of Shoesmith, finance representatives from all three councils and representatives from HR, payroll, appraisal and recruitment, have together drawn up their shared vision, agreed on a payroll provider - which also has a seat on the governing board - and bashed out who is responsible for what.
From 1 April, payroll will be run from one platform across the three councils, governed by both HR and finance across the trio. Could this shared solution provide a way out of the perennial confusion as to who owns payroll, and a path through the myriad accountability, reporting and legal burdens payroll presents?
The oncoming auto-enrolment legislation is a microcosm of the challenge contained in this collaborative approach. A survey of 103 payroll, HR and accounting professionals, conducted this February by the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP), found 27% of employers would be asking payroll, HR and finance to collaborate on overseeing changes to payroll necessary to comply with auto-enrolment, which goes live this October. A little over 23% of companies said they would put auto-enrolment solely at the feet of its HRD and just 9% would hand it entirely over to finance. Bluefin, the employee benefits advisor, has suggested departments as far away from HR as IT, or even legal, should play a part in rolling out the new pensions responsibilities.
Payroll is a financial function, but pertains to employee salaries and links to employee benefits. Politically and practically, how can HR and finance be organised to share payroll?
Finance directors, for their part, like the idea of sharing payroll. It sings to their interest in streamlining and making cost savings, but it can be a battle for hearts and minds. Narin Ganesh, group FD at relocations company Crown Worldwide since November 2009, says that while his predecessor outsourced payroll, he recently tried - and failed - to make a case to his board for bringing it back in-house, as part of a project to re-define the relationship between finance, payroll and HR. "We do retain a payroll administrator function in the business, which sits as part of the finance function now, but was part of HR before. HR didn't want it, so it ended up with me," Ganesh says.
"The in-house payroll administrator is intended as the interface between company and outsourced provider - but in practice, we actually have pockets of payroll work going on in HR anyway."
Despite having identified that the outsourcing arrangement was dysfunctional, because it lacked clear objectives from the outset, the company decided not to have in-house collaboration between HR and finance. It instead chose to draw clearer lines between HR and finance, keeping payroll off the HR mandate. "The outsourcing provider was not being held up to the right level of scrutiny and work ended up being done in-house to cover for its deficiencies," Ganesh says. "I set about re-defining the relationship with the outsourcer - even having to withhold payment in one case - but its performance improved dramatically and we now draw on more services. At the same time, we are re-defining the scope of work that needs to be done in-house and removing payroll from HR as far as possible; the latter is over-burdened with stuff that isn't adding value."
He admits demarcation between HR and finance is "blurred" and that he spends a lot of time working out the issues between them. "The functions should collaborate - payroll straddles both teams, so collaboration in my view is pure commonsense."
The lack of a shared payroll strategy raises the risk of compliance issues. Payroll ends up delivering compliance with employment law by virtue of its role - and as payroll is still, more often than not, reporting into finance, compliance risk lies with staff who are not trained in those laws. Auto-enrolment is an opportunity for companies to address that compliance risk on a more systematic basis, and to take a shared HR-finance approach.
"HRDs and FDs can be ambivalent about payroll, because it is often seen as not adding any real value to an organisation. Many see it as just a function that needs to be undertaken," says Paul Rains, director of Transact HR, a performance measurement company. "Though traditionally payroll reports into finance more than HR, some savvy HRDs with control over payroll have harnessed the analytical skills of payroll professionals to provide them with management information about the workforce, which assists in strategic planning and the resolution of operational issues. A uniform approach to auto- enrolment makes good commercial sense and needs to be planned jointly by HR and finance to be effective."
Payroll outsourcing is common, but there are many employers that want to control the process and are looking to in-house shared services for that. Defence multinational Thales implemented a shared finance and HR service platform in 2009, incorporating an in-house payroll shared service, for its entire UK business. Management and governance of the process is the responsibility of HR, but the over-arching strategy is set collaboratively by finance and HR for their respective teams.
The driver was governance controls across the group; HR 'owns' payroll production and reconciliation, finance runs the general ledger, budget control and does costing projections. A payroll service delivery manager curates the payroll piece with a team of 10 payroll and finance specialists looking after 8,000 paychecks.
The result? "Excellent payroll controls, with effective segregation of duty, minimal payroll error rate, credible 'one version of the truth' HR information," says Joe Ales, director for HR shared services at Thales UK.
How did the company deliver that? Sort out the politics first, draw the battle lines, agree terms, and draw up the plan with all parties involved.
"Strategically, it was decided payroll would be directed by its main functional customer, HR. But the business recognises payroll is a critical operation within finance as well, so we invested time in defining clear 'lines of sight', as well as the segregation of duty and where responsibilities for activity actually sit," Ales explains. "While the governance and direction of payroll is managed through HR, finance is a key stakeholder in the process; there are clear 'hands-offs' in the payroll production, payment and reconciliation between both functions."
Sutton and Merton's Shoesmith concurs. He appointed Sutton the 'lead' borough of the trio for HR shared services, with its director of resources heading the governance board. The roadmap for delivery was written by HR at Sutton and Merton (which under his leadership had already merged into one team). A shared HR and payroll platform is in place.
The governance board appointed an outsource payroll bureau for the shared service, but a shared payroll client team has been formed out of Sutton as the lead borough.
This was particularly prescient, given the introduction of auto-enrolment this October. Jes Turner, programme manager at payroll provider ADP, doesn't see how payroll can do auto-enrolment at present, and says that company HR departments should be responsible - though HR sees auto- enrolment as a payroll job. "HR passes the information, but payroll determines the contributions. This argument is falling between the cracks for some employers," says Turner.
As always, the devil is in the detail. Sutton was running a small in-house payroll client and outsourced payroll processing out of finance; Merton had an in-house payroll team sitting in HR. Each team had different suppliers, contracts and cultures.
With contracts too expensive to terminate, Shoesmith was pragmatic. "To embed a shared service approach on a single platform with one way of running payroll, we had to align contracts we were tied into with some mini contract extensions that run until we can switch to a new provider," says Shoesmith.
"We have had to agree on key protocols between HR and finance and each borough, so we know the outsourced provider can run our plan in a simple way, and we have agreed we will do things the way of the system - rather than what often happens, which is that people invest in a system, then later try to tailor it to the way they work."
A common chorus comes out of FDs and HRDs that have enacted payroll shared services: it's a partnership with particularly acute need for clearly defined leadership. "I would recommend anyone thinking of doing this to manage design and implementation using effective project-management and change-management disciplines, to clearly define the business case, scope and who owns what aspects of the payroll process," says Ales.
But it is Shoesmith who sums up the risk and the reward: "You need a common language between finance and HR. Thus far, we have ironed out most problems," he says. "But the proof of the pudding is in the eating and it boils down to personalities - the ability to problem-solve, compromise and find solutions." That should be something with which HRDs can assist their financial opposite numbers.
Facts and figures
- 20% of employee salaries are processed by outsourced payroll services
- 30% of total HR costs come from payroll and personnel costs
- 'Visible, measurable' payroll costs around €200 per employee
- Switzerland has the lowest uptake of payroll outsourcing (1% of businesses), while Denmark and Belgium have the highest uptake at over 80% of businesses in both countries
Auto-enrolment in a minute
From 1 October 2012, legislation will start to roll out, meaning that, depending on the size of the organisation, by 2017 every employee aged between 22 and state pensionable age, earning above the income tax personal allowance threshold, must be automatically enrolled by the employer into a qualifying pension scheme, to which both employer and employee contribute (the employee can later opt out if they wish).
Employers are required to either make a 3% contribution towards a defined contribution scheme, the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), or to offer membership of a defined-benefit scheme that meets certain criteria.
Preparedness is patchy. In March, a Northgate Arinso study of 100 senior decision-makers responsible for auto-enrolment found seven in 10 worried about the additional workload and new processes required to comply. Nearly half don't understand what the new legislation requires of them. Worse, the cost of amending payroll systems in a business with 7,500 staff is thought to be as much as £300,000.
Forex Income Map Review And Bonus For Piet Swart's New Program Revealed - PRWeb
Forex Income Map by Piet Swart
Houston, TX (PRWEB) May 25, 2012
Piet Swart, a full time Forex trader, is releasing his training program Forex Income Map on May 30th and his training is already receiving raving reviews. After only a months time his Facebook fan page has close to 2,000 raving fans and the comments on his blog are even more after he gave away his PipKey Indicator.
A Forex Income Map review shows that this is one of the few training programs that actually has physical materials that are mailed to your door. Piet Swart's is not a fly by night type of operation. He will mail you 4 training DVDs, a printed manual plus there will be a private membership area on the Internet as well as live webinars and video training. Of course there will be question and answers with full time customer support at one's service if they invest in Piet's program.
One can go here to see if the free tools and trainings are available.
From http://ForexIncomeMap.org , a reviewer states, "Only 5% of Forex traders actually make money but with Piet's simple but proven system, he is on path to help increase those numbers. He normally charges $500 per hour to advise traders, so this program is definitely a big savings! This program should normally sell for $2499 but the Forex Income Map price will be much lower than that. With Piet's easy to learn system and great track record, there is no reason why any serious Forex trader should not get it. He's even offering a money back guarantee."
Even Forex Income Map reviews from Piet's site are postive. An example comment, "This tool is marvelous. Just watching the Piet's webinar two days before, I have won 6 trades of each 0.5 trade size (multiple pairs) without a single loss, worth $736. Yesterday night the two winning trades were unbelievable as without this tool I wouldn't have predicted the swing, " state Don R. from New Zealand.
For those who wish to learn more about the program and to get a complete review should visit: http://forexincomemap.org/forex-income-map-review-piet-swarts-program-work
For those who wish to buy Forex Income Map and get access to the training should go to the official site here.
FOREX-Euro off near 2-yr lows, but seen struggling - Reuters UK
* Euro gets a respite, still on track for weekly losses
* EUR option barriers at $1.2500; stops at $1.2480
* USD/JPY supported by importers, short-covering
By Anirban Nag
LONDON, May 25 (Reuters) - The euro inched up from two-year lows against the dollar on Friday as bearish investors took a breather from a sharp sell-off this week, but worries about a possible Greek exit from the euro zone and risk of contagion would make gains fleeting.
The euro traded 0.3 percent higher on the day at $1.2575 , pulling away from $1.25155, its lowest level since July 2010 plumbed the day before. Traders cited a reported option barrier at $1.2500 that could check losses with offers around $1.2600 and stop-loss orders above $1.2620.
Despite the bounce, the common currency has lost more than 5 percent against the dollar so far this month and is on track for its fourth straight week of losses.
Those losses came as macro funds, real money and institutional investors ramped up selling of the currency, as concerns about Greece leaving the euro zone rose after an inconclusive election left the country at risk of bankruptcy and a possible exit from the currency bloc.
Greeks are voting again on June 17, with polls showing a close race between parties supporting and opposing terms of the country's international bailout, keeping markets on tenterhooks.
"The euro is a bit higher today, but I will be surprised if it takes stops above $1.2620. The medium-term prospects are not good," said Geoff Kendrick, currency analyst at Nomura.
"We think if Greece does not exit the euro zone, the euro will see a gradual decline to $1.23 in coming months. But if it does, then we see the euro falling to $1.20 by the end of the second quarter and $1.15 by the end the third."
Investors are just not rattled by the fallout of a Greek exit. They are also concerned about the health of the Spanish banking sector, chances of a deep and damaging slowdown in the euro area and the lack of any aggressive policy measures to address the escalating debt crisis.
Spanish lender Bankia, which was part nationalised this month, was set to ask the government for more than 15 billion (US$19 billion) on Friday to bail it out.
All of which has seen the euro being sold off on rallies with many analysts and traders now expecting it to drop below $1.25 and $1.20 to its 2010 trough of around $1.1875 in the coming weeks.
"If the euro didn't have enough to contend with as Greek exit speculation persists, the economic data points to a clear worsening in economic conditions," said Derek Halpenny, European Head of global markets research at Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi.
"The ECB will soon have to act again to ease its monetary stance by probably cutting the refinancing rate and this can only reinforce euro downside pressures."
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Global manufacturing PMIs: link.reuters.com/byv24s
German IFO and GDP: link.reuters.com/bum65s
Asset performance since Greek elections:
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DARKENING PICTURE
European Central Bank data showed 35.4 billion euros of net direct portfolio investment flowed out of the euro zone in March, as investors shunned the region's assets.
Investor skittishness is well-reflected in the options market, where euro/dollar one-month at-the-money implied volatility spiked to 13.13 percent, its highest in more than four months.
With the euro on the backfoot, the dollar has been the big winner with its index against a basket of major currencies edging up to 82.411, its highest since September 2010.
Against the yen, the greenback was 0.1 percent higher at 79.65 yen, supported by Tokyo importers and short-covering ahead of the long weekend in the United States. Sell offers around 80.00 yen are poised to cap any further gains, traders say.
The euro was flat against the Swiss franc at 1.2015 francs, having jumped to 1.20769 francs on Thursday, its highest since mid-March on market talk the Swiss government is going to impose a tax on deposits and chatter that the Swiss central bank initiated a short squeeze in the pair.
Traders say the Swiss National Bank has been buying euros in the past few weeks to protect the floor at $1.20 francs, but some investors are still piling on bets through the options market that the peg will be breached in coming days if the euro zone crisis escalates. (Additional reporting Antoni Sladkowski in Tokyo; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Someone's making money in Greece: Burglars stealing cash stashed under mattresses after families take it out of banks - Daily Mail
- Andreas and Emilia Karabalis, both 80, had €80,000 taken from island home
- Billions of euros hidden in cupboards and under floorboards across nation
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Warning: Greeks are being urged to keep their money in the nation's banks and not to stash their cash at home (file picture)
Greeks are being urged to keep their money in the nation's banks and not to stash their cash at home - as thieves continue to profit from the country's economic uncertainty.
Police say brazen burglars are making off with hundreds of thousands of euros, on an almost daily basis, as they raid homes where money is hidden in cupboards or under the mattress.
Andreas and Emilia Karabalis, both 80, are just one of the many victims targeted by unscrupulous robbers.
The couple took out €80,000 and hid it in their home, on the island of Lefkada, because they thought their bank would collapse. But days later thieves came in the night.
Emilia said: 'We were sleeping. The two masked burglars came to our bed and tied us up. They hit us. They robbed us - they didn't leave anything, it was torture.'
Husband Andreas added: 'Our life is black now. They took our life's savings. We lost everything.'
No-one knows exactly just how much cash lies stashed in Greek homes, secreted in cupboards, at the back of the ice-box, beneath the floor or under the mattress.
But by any guess it is well in the billions, and burglars are after their share of loot which is both highly portable and virtually impossible to recover.
Greece's debt crisis has plunged it into five straight years of economic contraction, thrown half of its young people out of work and may see it ejected from the eurozone.
Civil disorder: As well as the targeting of homes, there has also been violence on the streets of Greece in recent months
In the past two years, Greeks have withdrawn from banks more than €72billion - or close to €7,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. And much of that has been taken in cash.
Police say gangs who may have once eyed 'hard targets', - like the banks themselves, or jewellers - are now going after homes of ordinary people, where there is far less risk and often large stashes of cash freshly withdrawn from savings accounts.
'Many people have withdrawn their money from the banks fearing a financial crash, and they either carry it on them, find a hideout at home or in storage rooms,' said national police spokesman Thanassis Kokkalakis.
He said: 'We urge people to trust the banking system, leave their money there, or at least in a safe place, not hide it at home, where they must anyway take the basic security measures.
Little wonder: But with shares in Greek firms plunging, and the nation's banks having to be bailed out, many think keeping their money at home is the sensible option
'Some people don't even lock their doors and windows.' The unexpected bonanza is attracting foreign crime networks, he said, including two from ex-Soviet Georgia which police dismantled in recent months, blaming them for 300 burglaries.
Crime is just one hazard for people storing unusually large hoards of cash, most of which are not insured.
GREEKS HIT BY UNCERTAINTY OF ECONOMY, AND NOW BY THIEVES
Carpenter George Psychogios, 30, withdrew his savings of €8,000 and kept them in his house at Arta, a small town 200 miles from Athens and known principally for its Byzantine stone bridge and a 13th-century church.
He said: 'I hid the money in two different places before leaving for a trip. When I came back it was all gone. They broke into the house through a balcony door and they took it all.
'We used to sleep outside with the doors unlocked. Now we don't feel safe even when we lock up. They break into homes, shops, businesses. There is a surge in robberies here.'
In Iraklion, a working class neighbourhood of Athens, local people say some thieves have become so brazen they often prowl in broad daylight, even when a family is in.
'We were sitting on the front veranda chatting when they jumped from the roof to the back yard and got into the house,' said pensioner Mattheos Michelakakis, 61.
Before he realised what had happened, they had made off with his family's gold.
'Burglars hear that people are scared and withdrawing money and they hit homes randomly hoping they will be lucky,' he said.
'I feel like I've been naive. We always used to leave all the doors open; we had nothing to worry about.'
There are tales of savings going up in smoke in fires or, as in one case, being lost when a pensioner withdrew his life savings - then died suddenly, before telling his family where they were hidden.
Theft, though, seems the biggest risk and the crime wave has spread far beyond the big cities into rural areas where robbery was little known.
According to the central bank, Greeks withdrew €72billion from bank accounts between January 2010 and March 2012, leaving just €165billion behind.
Since then, withdrawals have accelerated further after an inconclusive May 6 election led EU leaders to talk openly of Greek exit from the single currency.
Some of that money was wired abroad and some spent, but much of it was hidden in homes, either in cash or converted to gold. If Greece leaves the common currency area, any money left in Greek banks would probably be turned into drachmas worth a good deal less. Euros stashed in a box at home would still be euros.
'People have already taken their money out of the bank. The rest are doing it now because they are afraid we will be kicked out of the eurozone,' said one police officer.
Among cases he said he had come across in the past week: a man reported €30,000 in cash and gold stolen from a storage room next to his house and an elderly woman had her life savings of €100,000 stolen from her apartment.
That woman's home also happened to be packed full of cartons of long-life milk and boxes of pasta - in case, she explained, the economic crisis led to food shortages.
Stashing cash is as old as Greece. The countryside is dotted with archaeological sites where the ancients squirreled away their silver drachmas to hide them from marauding armies.
Greek museums are rich in treasure whose owners never made it back.
'Hiding valuables - small or larger amounts of coins, golden, silver, even bronze - was very widespread in antiquity, especially in times of war, crisis or difficulty,' said George Riginos of the Association of Greek Archaeologists.
'Sometimes the owner would perish and this is how they reached us, hidden in the ground, in holes in the wall, small vases under the floor or leather bags.'
Future archaeologists may yet stumble on some of the buried treasure of the euro zone crisis of 2012. A senior banker tells the story of a family on the island of Rhodes who recently visited their local branch, trying desperately to figure out how much their late father had withdrawn before he died.
Not trusting the bank, the old man had taken out his life savings. But he hadn't told anyone where he hid it. His children were searching everywhere, tearing down walls in the house trying to find it, but with no luck.
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