Three years ago, a local lady in our area of Conwy came up with a fantastic idea to help the children from Syria who were now refugees in Lesbos in Greece. She decided to set up a Facebook group asking people to donate any children’s clothes, from this she formed a group of volunteers with other mothers in the area calling themselves ‘Syrian Sisters Cymru’ and it wasn’t long before councillor Julie Fallon Smith joined the group; Syrian Sisters Cymru really became quite big in the area by getting a lot of publicity from social media and also from the local papers.
I believe Councillor Julie Fallon Smith joined this group for one thing only and that was to help promote herself. Can I make it quite clear that all the volunteers worked really hard and didn’t know what was going on behind-the-scenes, Cllr Fallon Smith knew exactly what she was promoting and what she was getting up to. All the clothes donated by the community had to be sorted & then put in bags and then stored in a warehouse in Mochdre; the Syrian Sister’s Cymru group decided to do some charity events to raise funds to send a 40-foot container of clothes to Greece, they even got local schools involved.
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/syria-donations-llandudno-junction-appeal–10011957
A Just Giving account was also set up for people to donate money, they raised money by selling off designer & expensive clothes by doing a catwalk style sale ‘swish’ charity night with cash donations.
Councillor Julie Fallon Smith, your favourite saying to the volunteers and schools was “I’m a councillor, my husband’s a Police Officer and we have lots of influence in the area”; you don’t have Julie, people have seen right through you now for what you really are. The Just Giving account was set up by Julie’s husband PC 2364 Mike Smith, cash donations were collected in by Julie from the schools and at any charity events, she was in charge of the money. This all seemed a marvellous and fantastic idea until someone from the group approached Julie and asked could they have the money raised to give to ‘Syria Relief’ so they could pay for the transportation of the clothes container. Julie refused to hand over the money and said, “oh no, that’s not what we are using it for now, we’re going to use it for something else”. One of the senior members of the Syrian Sisters Cymru group was livid and fuming at this, so she contacted some of the local schools, telling them not to give the donations to Julie, she was told it’s too late… Councillor Julie Fallon Smith had already been and had the money.
Some of the group went along with it, leaving Julie in charge and some were livid as this campaign was set up for one reason only, that was to raise funds to pay for the container to be sent to Greece to help these children. None of us can speculate, we don’t know what Councillor Fallon Smith has done with that money, she may have paid her own mortgage with it or she may have donated to another charity, we don’t know.
I’m asking you councillor Julie Fallon Smith, on behalf of our community and on behalf of Syrian Sisters Cymru, please can you tell us where the £1800 has gone?
Please see the pictures of the volunteers loading the container
Above are pictures of the volunteers who worked extremely hard putting clothes in to bags and loading the container; please see the pictures below of Julie Fallon Smith with a group of mothers ‘Syrian Sisters Cymru’ where they are asking the community to help raise £1000 to transport donated items to Greece. I have blacked out the mother’s faces, it’s just Julie’s face showing, you can also see the Just Giving Page with the logo of Llandudno FC on it, with pictures of the mothers again telling the community that so far at that time, they had raised £605. I’m a little surprised here, why Llandudno FC’s logo is linked to Syrian Sisters Cymru fund raising, is there something Cllr Fallon Smith is hiding, as her favourite saying is “I’m a councillor, my husband is a Police Officer and we have a lot of influence in the community”.
After various people telling me that something dodgy was going on here, I decided to investigate thoroughly and through some hard work I managed to locate the receipts dated 27th of October 2015, where it states the wagon loaded with the container left unit 1C, Commerce business Park, Colwyn Bay, LL28 5HX and proves that Syria Relief paid for the container, not Syrian Sisters Cymru.
I then contacted the Syria Relief on 0161 860 0163, I spoke to Mr M Hameed, explained the whole situation to him and why I was sending him the receipt; this information was sent to him on 13th October 2018, he called me back later in the day and said all the information has been passed over to Mr Ade Arogundade, the finance manager to investigate.
Could you please read Mr Ade Arogundade’s email back to me, it’s quite clear Cllr Julie Fallon Smith never paid any money to Syria Relief for the container.
Now read my email back to Mr Ade Arogundade:
All we can do now is ask Cllr Julie Fallon Smith what she’s done with the money, Julie I know you’re reading this site along with your family, can you please tell the community where their money has gone to? You may say it’s gone to another cause, I don’t know, I can’t answer your questions. Syrian Sisters Cymru raised that money for no other cause, that money should’ve been forwarded to Syrian Relief to pay for the transportation of the container.
Finally, Councillor Julie Fallon Smith you may fool your community that you represent, but you won’t fool me.
This story continues, part 3 will be shown in a few days.
JFT96 -YNWA
