From: "Volunteer Department" To: Subject: [cherubsadvisors] BOH Date: Sunday, February 25, 2007 5:35 PM I'll try to sum this up as best as possible... (and remember, what is said here, stays here!) Some of you may remember that I had to boot out Elizabeth Doyle 3 years ago because she couldn't get along with other members. She had several warnings over a couple of years and then the final discussion was about abortion I believe (correct me if I'm wrong... after a while it all blends together!). Now, Elizabeth is a high-strung person and very dramatic. That's not an insult to her just trying to describe her personality. At one point Elizabeth and I were very close friends - she visited my dying sister in the hospital several times and Judi and I were to be co-Godmothers to her son, Noah. We went from close friends to well, I'm more evil to Satan to her since I had to kick her out of CHERUBS. Friendships aside, CHERUBS comes first with me and I did warn her several times and she was just fighting with so many different people over so many different things it was just out of hand. Ok, that's the beginning of that drama. Since then, she's blasted CHERUBS and me personally on our listservs as well as in personal e-mails to other members and on her own listserv, Breath of Hope (BOH). Not just little digs, but just outrageous stuff like I cheated my ex-husband and I steal from CHERUBS, etc (of course none of which is true). Then she started, and still is, visiting my company site and clients site sometimes 100's of times a week. She's had at least 3 different known aliases and joined our lists - twice causing more drama on our lists and bashing CHERUBS and fighting with another member. The last incident was as Elise this past fall. Before that and since then, she's posed as Anne Poore but her slip started to show when she e-mailed me and signed it "Elizabeth". Now, I've been checking IP addresses and found at least one more alias. Each time, she makes up cherubs and posts and gives advice. In the beginning, I just wrote her off as immature and vindictive, but after 3 years, she's just gotten louder. When she started BOH, I didn't mind. There are other CDH support groups out there and I am all for as much support as possible for CDH parents. We work with Onno's group in Holland (well, we did until Onno went AWOL and we never hear from him) as well as work with the Shands groups in Florida. But BOH had one motivation for starting - Elizabeth was mad she was kicked out of CHERUBS and has tried to bash us since. Her membership is over 200 members now. Yes, I do see e-mails from that group because we have some loyal members here who don't like CHERUBS bashed. Now, it's evolved into so many members and Elizabeth is giving out medical advice. No matter what it is, she knows everything about everything. I'm really concerned for some of the newer parents. Once, she e-mailed me blasting me for doing "illegal" research (the surveys) and giving out medical advice (have never done that - you all know how I disclaimer everything!). Now, BOH is doing both. Cafepress items, stories, listservs, prayer lists, chats.... well I suppose imitation should be the sincerest form of flattery but if CHERUBS is so bad I don't understand why she's trying so hard to recreate it. It's not about helping CDH parents - it's a personal vendetta, it's a fan club for Elizabeth. And maybe by saying nothing, I'm just as guilty for any bad advice our members might get over there. But now, it's not just Elizabeth. Some of her moderators are CHERUBS Volunteers, including Reps. They are now recruiting for BOH within our membership. Our lists are quiet but BOH is very vocal. Most of our old troublemakers are on that list and apparently, they have drama over there. Some of our older members are now bashing us. BOH does not have non-profit status, it's just a listserv and a web site address. But they quote us on their site and offer all the services we offer. We've been accused of stealing their ideas even. Some of our private posts on our lists have been forwarded to BOH, as well as private e-mails I have sent to members. It's just exasperating and infuriating at the same time. If these old members spent half the effort into volunteering for CHERUBS that they do for bashing services they've received from us for free... well, you can tell I get upset writing about this! I am proud of the fact that not once have we bashed BOH or Elizabeth publically. We've taken the high road this entire time. I had hoped her own behavior would do this mess in and the drama would stop but it's just getting worse and now we need to maybe stand up for ourselves? Once the new site is up, the lists will disappear, we'll use the new site and I can see who posts and doesn't post. A lot of the site will be passworded. If I can get this programmer to finish up we'll go live this week. But I'm about to strangle him today (working on this today with him). So our current issues - What do we do about these old members bashing us? What do we do about our volunteers recruiting from CHERUBS for BOH? Do I talk to the Volunteers about BOH? Do I post once and for all about BOH on our lists? I have a lawyer who will send Elizabeth a cease and desist order, a restraining order, or whatever we want. But will this just make her louder? I don't want to get into a cat fight, that's just not me and I don't want CHERUBS rolling in the gutter. But maybe taking the high road and not responding has given the impression that Elizabeth's lies are true? I'm not sure what to do. But I feel like CHERUBS is my child and there is a bully on the playground and I'm tired of trying to explain why people shouldn't bully and am ready to just deck the bully! Enough is enough. I just don't want to make things worse. So that's the short version of everything. Below are just a few of her current e-mails and posts. Dawn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (e-mails removed from this post) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`