The point is, you know very little about the CSG. All your babble here is born of speculation just as every CSG debate has been on Galus Australis. Ranging from the debate regarding the photographer who intended on coming to Australia to “document” the shules of the world to your arguments regarding a CSG black list. And I thought there was no lower. Now I see this article and am amazed yet again.

As soon as the brochure was sent out and that article appeared in the Leader I knew some little rat would use  both of these to criticize the CSG.   “And when the lights go out, where do the vermin hide?”. And voila! I was not mistaken.

When I attend shule, the CSG member are in my thoughts and in my prayers. G_d bless such dedicated individuals.

Leave the CSG alone. There is no intention more pure than wanting to protect the lives of the members of our community.

Your stupid debates regarding accountability and scrutiny exist to make your life have some meaning. And so you post your little arguments here in the name of drama.

Do something useful, such as joining the CSG. If you can that is. I’m not in the CSG however I imagine it’s beyond your league- it probably requires a level of determination which transcends beyond the power of sitting behind your keyboard and pressing buttons- which is what you do best.

Remove this article, every single CSG debate on Galus Australis and leave the CSG alone! They don’t need this criticism from within their own community. The threat they deal with is real enough without needing to worry about a lack of support from the community they make a pledge to protect.

Think to yourself carefully, what have you truly achieved with this post?

Leibler Yavneh College head of administrations David Fisher said the sessions were for security staff to become familiar with school grounds because “there’s a real risk to Jewish state schools”.

“We are acting prudently. However, the school decided to suspend training forthwith, as the relationship with neighbours is of paramount importance.”
…..

Caulfield police said they were not aware of the training sessions.
All the more reason that such matters be put under very careful, and accountable scrutiny, as I  originally suggested.
 

It seems odd (or perhaps just stupid) that they would be doing these type security exercises in public view.

When institutions (such as a police force or a military branch etc) conduct public security drills, it is usually for propaganda purposes, more so than genuine training.

However, in the case of a school, well I’ve got no idea what they were thinking.

This post is initially about the provocative tactics used by CSG in their brochure appeal; their use of extreme images and scary statistics designed to garner an emotional response. The anonymous writer doesn’t approve. This could have been an interesting topic for a post.
However, without even a hint of irony, the anonymous writer then goes on to pose a series of provocative questions attacking the CSG designed to garner an emotional response from the post’s readers. His use of provocation is ok, CSG’s is not.
The writer even later admits in a comment to being deliberately provocative:
“I was pushing it a bit in my original post”.

It is this kind of anonymous provocation that undermines the legitimacy of web publishing. Trying to be controversial in order to generate interest in your blog simply works against you. It makes it easy for skeptics to dismiss you as not serious, and in this case makes the writer look lazy and irresponsible.

“There is no public information available on a number of issues…”

This should in fact read: “I checked their website and googled them and couldn’t find this information easily. Instead of phoning the organisation and asking a real person these questions, I decided to turn this into a blog post that I knew would generate some controversy.”

Turns out information is available publicly at meetings, as a comment finally explained, it’s just not available online. This post’s heading should really be: “CSG lacks decent web presence”. Not so exciting.

Lastly, the almost vindictive tone of the post had me thinking there was something more to this. A subsequent comment by the writer confirmed for me that s/he has their own issues that are at play here:

“A reason why I am not going to ring the CSG is because I have no confidence that my inquiry about its governance will be kept confidential and not treated as ‘problematic’ and end up being inappropriately shared or put on a little list.”

Whilst I always have some concerns for secret organisations, I wish to share with your other readers my experiences in this matter, and in particular that I have nothing but the highest regard for the work that is undertaken by CSG, the commitment, integrity and dedication of not only a number of the founding members that I know but also many of the present personelis awe inspiring.

we should always keep an eye on all organisations but in this instance our full support should be offered to this group

As I see it, there is either a serious potential risk or there isn’t. You want to know whether or not CSG are worthwhile? Weigh up the worst-case scenarios. If there is no risk, then the worst case scenario is that you have a bunch of guys who spread concern throughout the community and who obstruct people from comfortably going to shul. Not so positive, but a great deal better than the worst case scenario if there is a genuine risk and we don’t let them do their job.