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WHAT could they have been THINKING??

You are going to love this one dear readers! woo boy. Sit back and settle in and you're going to hear about the
ONLY person
.......EVER........
to get kicked out
of the International Violet Wand Guild. I would say Murlach (Dan) didn't get kicked out, so much as he broke in, stole and ran, and they locked the door after him. This girly, she had to be forcibly helped out the door.
The Guild is a good bunch and a very worthy organization. Not only does it provide information to members, but it certifies violet wand demonstrators and repairpeople. It attempts to set standards among demonstrators and vendors and repair people alike. Sure, like all organizations they are always in motion. And they have good days and bad days and phases. (Since they require you to be an ACTIVE member to learn their upper level information, people who just read a forum post or two don't have a clear picture of their mission, so there are also misconceptions floating around out there. I advise you if you WANT to know about the Guild, you go to the GUILD to find out any answers to your questions.) Usually, even where guild member vendors/businesses have made mistakes, when they are members of the Guild, they work to correct their mistakes. After all, that's part of what the Guild has been doing, setting standards. And usually, those mistakes are NOT intentional nor purposefully devious.
Lady Shimla was a minor, basic registered member of the guild. She got those vw dollar signs in her eyes though, and while the guild was undergoing its problems with Murlach, she was a-hatching some plans. You can't really fault a commercial company such as hers for spotting an opportunity to step in and try to take over. She could have made her nice little wand store in the wake of the Guild's setback and rebuilding, and made her membership with the Guild as a vendor, legitimate, as their other vendor-members do. That probably would have worked out for her. After all, if you want to sell violet wands, wouldn't you WANT TO STAY ON GOOD TERMS WITH THE VIOLET WAND GUILD?

That's where your customer base would be, wouldn't it? But..you and I know how this greed thing works..they get those dollar signs in their eyes. We've seen it before.
Lady Sham might have gone unnoticed, especially as the Guild was rebuilding its membership... but she made a fatal error. She created a Violet Wand Guild group on Fetlife. This raised eyebrows, as Ms. Sham was not a Guild officer, not a certified demonstrator. She wasn't a violet wand Master. She wasn't even.. a guild -anything-. She wasn't authorized to make a Guild group to speak for several hundred people or represent them anywhere. So the Guild asked her to stop, quite nicely in fact. The Guild merely asked her to transfer ownership of the Guild Group to an officer of the Guild. This was a good opportunity to fix her mistake. She could have stayed on good terms, and gone about her business doing business anonymously behind the scenes, and pretending to be a contributing guild member. But she didn't. She refused.. and continued to use the Guild name without authorization.
In fact, she went to an event. She told the event organizers she represented the guild so she could get on the agenda. And in that seminar, she promoted her business instead. Trusting event organizers thought they were going to get a quality Guild seminar. Trusting attendees thought they were going to a guild event. Instead, they got...Sham Spam.

And in refusing the Guild's polite request of her as a member, she alienated violet wand guild members..her potential customers.
And she alienated Guild officers..her potential supporters.
Nothing quite like saying 'fuckoff' Ill do what I want.'....to a whole organization that is made up of potential customers, is there? Its ballsy, for sure.
So now they had to take a good look at her. And what did they find?. First, Ms Sham had been spamming members. She was using the guild to send out spam to its members. Well, anyone who visits any website anywhere knows spam is a no-no. A legal no-no, in fact, so they had to look even closer at her. They looked at her spam. She'd left too many breadcrumbs in her spam, so they knew the names of her compatriots.
The web makes research easy:
Lady Shamla's main site
Lady Shamla's blog (sir sparkalot, the registered site owner and whom lady sham has called a 'principal' for her store. But I think he's more like Macbeth and is a hapless participant to her scheming. lay low for a long while, sir sparkalot. I dont think you knew what was going on.)
Lady Shamla's something else, which Im guessing the registered owner is a sock puppet sister or something. But why would you drag a sister or friend into your machinations?
As of this writing, these details are still on the web, even if they are made private later. Not to worry, there's always a copy somewhere.
Sirsparkie's twitter page
There's more than one Sir Sparkalot out there in the scene (I know one in UK and one in Texas) so make sure you don't shun the wrong one. This is the Macbeth.
It's no big deal to copy an idea for a blog, (anyone has a right to blog) or steal someone's tentative name for a business (that's business). Or disparage your competitor. (even though thats a wrong way to do business.**) Or name your brand to hope to confuse it with another, successful brand. Oh wait.. that's against the law, but its neither here nor there, as we all know, since this only underscores the fact, that the violet wand world is nasty. really..really... nasty. And go to an event, and claim you represent an entire organization of a couple of hundred people to the trusting organizers of that event so they would put you on the agenda...just so you can trick trusting buyers into thinking you were a guild representative, just to get them to buy from you.....
....that's beyond nasty.
oh yeah.. she has sockpuppets. And a scotty dog who is also a vendor who makes more sock puppets ...and they go about posting fake bad things about their competitors. A lot of what you may have seen on fet boards bashing violet wand vendors recently has come from their cute little puppet-y plays. I urge the little doggie to run away and play with more legitimate associates.

Stay on the moral end of business, little doggie! Its not too late for you!
**Business people and politicians who can not find anything good to say to promote themselves, resort to having to say bad things about their competition.
I've had people tell me I dont seem to have a nice word to say about anyone, but what is there nice to say about this? I seriously would have nice things to say, if there were any. GIVE me something nice to say, I dare you.
Lets see if we can find something, dear readers.
Lady Shimla...
..........................................Lady Shimla...............................................um....................
.................er....................maybe..................................................................................
....................................................................................................................................she
,...................................................................................................................................
The Guild has had enough of the greedy thieves trying to misuse it and take it over in one way or another. The Violet Wand world has had enough of the back-stabbing and stealing and lying about competitors. Enough already. The Guild is working to stop such nonsense, lets all give them a hand in support of their efforts to reduce and hopefully eliminate it. People..focus on what's good about your business and market that, why don't you? Maybe, its because there IS NOTHING GOOD THAT YOU CAN SAY ABOUT YOUR OWN BUSINESS.
BOYCOTT this one, if you have any sense of belonging to the fet community at all!
Ps. I have one mail that asks what Lady Sham could have done different to compete, when the guild vendors are doing better business? Duh. She could have made the most out of her guild membership, and followed guild guidelines, and BEEN a vendor working with the guild.
Ps.s. And from the Lady Sham herself...any regret? Not a one. She's fine with it all.
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