US Nationals Fan Breakfast to Benefit Alysa Liu

[Japanfan]

I want to see a GoFundMe page for Alysa and make a contribution. I love the fact that her parents are wealthy attorneys and the family has money. I don't care what their needs are, and if there are "those less privileged". I want to support a girl, who is talented and who has a family of ACHIEVERS and "breeding of success".

The article doesn't state that the mother/surrogate was an attorney as well.

Social Darwinism rules! strongest survive...

Wealth, power and even talent do not = strength.

How do think the disadvantaged move up in the world?

And money is not always indicative of success, though people tend to see it as such. Just take a look at your idiot President, who went bankrupt on daddy's money multiple times.

 

[Sylvia]

Phil Hersh's feature article on Alysa Liu was published yesterday (December 21): https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2018...3-is-using-the-present-to-avoid-future-shock/

About Alysa's father, Arthur:

He got bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Chinese universities and left China at age 25 for California, where he went on to an MBA at Cal State Hayward (now Cal State East Bay), a law degree at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law and a career as a legal general practitioner. He also is a single father of five children ranging in age from Alysa to 9-year-old triplets. They were born to two surrogate mothers through anonymous egg donors.
Liu told Alysa about the circumstances of her birth about five years ago, when she asked, “Why do I look different? Why don’t I look Chinese?” She had met the woman who bore her before knowing of the link between them. They have visited each other since.
“Alysa and a friend had almost figured it out on their own,” Arthur Liu said. “So she wasn’t surprised when I told her.”

(Cross-posting this article here and in the U.S. Ladies thread.)

 

[Tinami Amori]

Wealth, power and even talent do not = strength.

How do think the disadvantaged move up in the world?

"strongest" is relative.

 

[kwanfan1818]

Trust me, the earmarked skaters get the money. I have the receipts and thank you notes to prove it.

Although I haven't done this often, same here.

 

[Carolla5501]

thanks for the update.

 

[Carolla5501]

Thank you for telling me how I feel about things. I never would have known otherwise

If someone is raising money to help a skater, it's not trashing the skater or the campaign to ask questions about it. People have a right to know where their donations are going and whether the skater needs the help.

Had you done that we would have no problem. Instead you posted the comment below.

I understand that you are trying to raise money for this skater, and that you don't want to publicize her family's financial situation. But "her dad isn't wealthy because my relatives doing the same job aren't wealthy" is not really a credible argument.

Where is the question? All I see is you basically saying you don’t believe the OP due to your own views

 

[sjs5572]

Deleted

 

[Japanfan]

I'm not really comfortable with this board being used as a direct means of solicitation for skaters, TBH.

 

[sjs5572]

I'm not really comfortable with this board being used as a direct means of solicitation for skaters, TBH.

Deleted.

 

[sjs5572]

Several posters have requested information on how to contribute to Alysa's training fund. Please private message me with your email and I will forward you a donor form. Thank you.

 

[DimaToe]

On heavily moderated Golden Skate, there are several fundraising solicitations in the Fan Fest section. This is nothing new and I am responding to the requests made in this thread. Thank you.

The thread that you started, I can see why @Japanfan is not a fan.

@sjs5572 in one of your recently deleted posts you also stated how those donating money could make a “recommendation” to which skater their monetary donation should go to but that it wasn’t quarenteed that it would go to the skater themselves. Which is kind of shady.

 

[sjs5572]

The thread that you started, I can see why @Japanfan is not a fan.

@sjs5572 in one of your recently deleted posts you also stated how those donating money could make a “recommendation” to which skater their monetary donation should go to but that it wasn’t quarenteed that it would go to the skater themselves. Which is kind of shady.

This is required on donor form for IRS compliance. I am a fan trying to support a talented and deserving skater. Sometimes I feel that fsuniverse.net should be changed to nogooddeedgoesunpunished.net.

 

[Japanfan]

Where is the question? All I see is you basically saying you don’t believe the OP due to your own views

No, the poster was questioning the logic put forth by the OP.

 

[Japanfan]

This is required on donor form for IRS compliance. I am a fan trying to support a talented and deserving skater. Sometimes I feel that fsuniverse.net should be changed to nogooddeedgoesunpunished.net.

What you don't seem to understand is that this forum is not generally used to directly solicit funds. IIRC there have been links to Go Fund Me pages, but not direct solicitations. I do realize that you are probably unaware of this.

We as members are not allowed to put permanent links to our personal/business websites in all of our posts. That would be solicitation.

Posting funding requests for skaters is kind of in the same category. If it was allowed, the board could be inundated with such requests. As has been pointed out, many skaters are in need of funding.

Although I can't speak for the members of this board, I don't think that is what we want as an online community. We come here to talk about skating and many other things. Not to be directly solicited for funding. If you had just invited Alysa's fans to a breakfast hosted by her fan club, it would have been a different thing entirely.

When I open Great Skate Debate, I want the titles to denote news and conversations about FS. I don't want to read the new funding requests of the day as I sip my morning coffee.

 

[el henry]

Yes, this forum is used to directly solicit funds.

All. The. Time.

Let’s see, I’ve seen ones for Sean Rabbitt’s mother, for Kaitlyn and Jean-Luc, and for all sorts of folks. ETA:what the heck is the difference between that and saying I’m the person who set it up? None, zippity do dah, nada. And thank you @sjs5572 for telling us about this

And personally I’m just fine with this kind of thing as I sip my morning coffee. God knows I’ve seen way worse on FSU, and when I do, I choose to ignore it.

And as an attorney for a nonprofit, not shady, although yes, the direct funding is an issue. Anyone here have better qualifications to opine?

 

[kwanfan1818]

Although I can't speak for the members of this board, I don't think that is what we want as an online community.

Is that the Royal We, or are you speaking for the members of this board .

 

[Japanfan]

We as an online community. But I said I "think", because I don't know for sure. And I made a presumption that others felt similarly. That presumption may have been incorrect.

If El Henry is correct in the post of above and direct solicitations for funding are made on this board 'all the time', I guess I've not seen them. Which is strange, given how much time I've spent on this board for many years, but I certainly don't want to argue about it. To clarify, I don't consider postings such as 'come support such-and-such skaters at such-and-such event for _ $' to be direct solicitation, as we FS fans commonly spend money to attend events and are interested in information about events.

Just because "I" was uncomfortable with the fundraising request for Alisa in particular - and the notion of using this board for fundraising in general - does not matter if the community at large feels differently. If the poster deleted the form because of my post, he/she certainly did not have to.

I really wish I'd just not said anything because this is really not very important to me at the end of the day. I wouldn't have even paid any attention to the thread, if it hadn't been discussed in SS.

What I said was just IMHO.

 

[el henry]

I appreciate that folks may feel differently about fund raisers, and I do not spend as much time on FSU as I do elsewhere. It just seemed to me that this was far from the first GoFundMe type of post I’ve seen here, and I actually appreciated that the person behind the GoFundMe identified themselves.

My hackles did go up with the word “shady”. Not being involved in this particular effort, I will say I have no idea if *this* one works as far as the IRS is concerned, but that’s a far cry from “shady”, which I associate with the “homeless guy and the couple in NJ” scam. Direct funding is an issue, as I said. But greater minds than mine may have figured that out.

 

[Frau Muller]

For many conservative Americans, the lifestyle choices described in the Alysa Liu story (Mercury News article, link below) are not those that they would espouse.

Why donate to uphold these values? Why give hard-earned money to a professional who chose to acquire five children in an unconventional manner through processes that cost so much money (egg donors, surrogates, etc.), no matter how talented one of the kids has turned out? I also find it somewhat disingenuous that someone with a partner in the household — as the Dec 2017 article linked below states — is describing himself as a “single dad”...So his partner doesn’t help around the house? Has the pre-Nationals scenario now changed?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12...hmond-girl-be-figure-skatings-next-big-thing/

 

[sjs5572]

We as an online community. But I said I "think", because I don't know for sure. And I made a presumption that others felt similarly. That presumption may have been incorrect.

If El Henry is correct in the post of above and direct solicitations for funding are made on this board 'all the time', I guess I've not seen them. Which is strange, given how much time I've spent on this board for many years, but I certainly don't want to argue about it. To clarify, I don't consider postings such as 'come support such-and-such skaters at such-and-such event for _ $' to be direct solicitation, as we FS fans commonly spend money to attend events and are interested in information about events.

Just because "I" was uncomfortable with the fundraising request for Alisa in particular - and the notion of using this board for fundraising in general - does not matter if the community at large feels differently. If the poster deleted the form because of my post, he/she certainly did not have to.

I really wish I'd just not said anything because this is really not very important to me at the end of the day. I wouldn't have even paid any attention to the thread, if it hadn't been discussed in SS.

What I said was just IMHO.

This thread was started to invite posters to a fundraising meal during Nationals Week. You just said you do not mind such posts. Replies within the thread asked how to donate directly. I was responding to these requests. Btw, there has been so much hand wringing on this board about the American podium drought for women on the Grand Prix and World Championships. Well, in my little way as a fan, I am trying to to address that. You want Americans to compete with the government funded Russian girls? Well, sponsor a skater that you feel has potential. In 2017, I saw an 11 year old girl on YouTube that dazzled me and I sponsored her to the tune of several thousand dollars. Why did I do it? For the joy of being a little part of an amazing skating journey. Stop being cynics and help keep US Figure Skating alive!

 

[sjs5572]

For many conservative Americans, the lifestyle choices described in the Alysa Liu story (Mercury News article, link below) are not those that they would espouse.

Why donate to uphold these values? Why give hard-earned money to a professional who chose to acquire five children in an unconventional manner through processes that cost so much money (egg donors, surrogates, etc.), no matter how talented one of the kids has turned out? I also find it somewhat disingenuous that someone with a partner in the household — as the Dec 2017 article linked below states — is describing himself as a “single dad”...So his partner doesn’t help around the house? Has the pre-Nationals scenario now changed?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12...hmond-girl-be-figure-skatings-next-big-thing/

SMH

 

[Frau Muller]

One can give, as I have for decades, to the USFS Memorial Fund:
https://usfsa.org/story?id=83999

 

[sjs5572]

One can give, as I have for decades, to the USFS Memorial Fund:
https://usfsa.org/story?id=83999

Oh, I didn't see where you can earmark your contributions to the Memorial Fund to skaters with "traditional families."

 

[kwanette]

Bottom line..give to whomever and however you want...for whatever reason..

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

Oh, I didn't see where you can earmark your contributions to the Memorial Fund to skaters with "traditional families."

Well, that's fascinating, though disgusting. I wonder who gets to interpret the definition of that phrase.

One can imagine that there are those who might argue whether the Liu family, which has been reported publicly as being composed of a single father with 5 children all born from surrogate mothers, would be eligible to receive funds from such a pool of earmarked contributions.

 

[kwanette]

Oh, I didn't see where you can earmark your contributions to the Memorial Fund to skaters with "traditional families."

It says that??

 

[BittyBug]

in one of your recently deleted posts you also stated how those donating money could make a “recommendation” to which skater their monetary donation should go to but that it wasn’t quarenteed that it would go to the skater themselves. Which is kind of shady.

There is nothing inherently shady about this structure - it's exactly how the NEAFS fund works, and it's exactly how donor-advised funds (a fairly prominent charitable vehicle) work.

If people aren't comfortable with the set up, then don't go to the event, hold back your scolding and the thread will quietly fall back to other news.

 

[dee342]

For many conservative Americans, the lifestyle choices described in the Alysa Liu story (Mercury News article, link below) are not those that they would espouse.

Why donate to uphold these values? Why give hard-earned money to a professional who chose to acquire five children in an unconventional manner through processes that cost so much money (egg donors, surrogates, etc.), no matter how talented one of the kids has turned out? I also find it somewhat disingenuous that someone with a partner in the household — as the Dec 2017 article linked below states — is describing himself as a “single dad”...So his partner doesn’t help around the house? Has the pre-Nationals scenario now changed?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12...hmond-girl-be-figure-skatings-next-big-thing/

Really? <edited to add ::eyeroll::>

 

[sjs5572]

It says that??

I was being sarcastic. Frau Muller negatively commented on Alysa's family structure.

 

[sjs5572]

Well, that's fascinating, though disgusting. I wonder who gets to interpret the definition of that phrase.

One can imagine that there are those who might argue whether the Liu family, which has been reported publicly as being composed of a single father with 5 children all born from surrogate mothers, would be eligible to receive funds from such a pool of earmarked contributions.

I was being sarcastic in response to Frau Muller's post about the Liu family.