Some things have been weighing on my mind and I recognise that genuine supporters have genuine questions about what the heck is going on. This is for you! This is not for the ‘haters’ and mainstream media who don’t care what the actual truth is.
I did a long-form interview with Rukshan recently. I was able to address most of these topics so if you want more context.
After reading this or watching the video, you’ll have the full picture of what happened to RDA, why it happened, and what’s next.
How can I afford to go to Portugal when RDA is running out of money?
This is a genuine question which I will only answer ONCE more. Monica Smit and RDA are two separate entities. I, Monica Smit, was very successful in selling house and land packages before COVID. I bought investment properties and flipped vacant blocks of land for profit. During COVID, I sold my largest asset and have been living off that. Some close friends also helped me out financially to fill the gap. I lived with my parents throughout most of COVID. They didn’t charge me much for food, rent or expenses. They support the work I do and that was one of the ways they’ve contributed.
I have $45k left from that asset. I’ve decided to spend most of it to travel around Europe because I believe the networking and growth will be worth every penny. Even if I come back broke, that doesn’t concern me. God will look after me. My book is coming out soon and hopefully I can finally make a living from that.
RDA has been paying me $500/week which is not enough to live off. I can’t depend on my parents forever so obviously I’ll have to make some life changes if nothing eventuates.
What am I doing next, what will I do in Europe?
My mission for the European tour is to leave a trail of community groups behind me. I will host small events all over Europe. They will create a group via email or another platform…and I will move on. I believe small community groups are the best thing we can do now. If we have support around us, we are less afraid and more resilient to tyranny.
Considering my new path and the fact RDA might be slowing down, I’m going to start building my own profile that is brandless and just me. You can follow my personal pages.
Website – www.monicasmit.com
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/monicasmit88/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/monica_smit88/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/monicamsmit\
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZQfAr7NkGO-8ri9E1Bu_Hw
Sometimes it feels like I can’t be myself because I have a brand to consider. If I’m being completely honest, I’ve almost forgotten who I am because RDA has been my entire life for almost three years. It sounds cliché, but I need to ‘find myself’ again.
I hope people support this journey I’m on because I plan to be more vulnerable and open. It might be a rocky road, but I’m gonna give it a go.
If it isn’t already clear, my engagement ended almost a year ago. I purposely didn’t talk about it online because it was personal and quite frankly, no one’s business. It was also hard, and I needed to go through it privately.
Why did RDA run out of money, and what happened to the legal fund?
My biggest regret is that I didn’t do this 12 months ago. We were still helping a lot of people, but not enough. I should have realised our services weren’t as needed much earlier, and either came up with new ideas or wrapped up sooner. I wasn’t looking at the monthly emails from my bookkeeper properly and didn’t notice how quickly we were going backward.
Another regret I have is using some of the legal fund money to keep RDA operating. I truly thought I could turn things around…but failed to. I hired a full-time and part-time lawyer, which I told donators about. I don’t regret that because we were able to help hundreds of people for FREE…but it left me with nothing for my own legal cases. I used $80k fighting the warrant case, that was a complete waste because they dropped the warrant straight afterward. Luckily, I don’t need money for my legal fight because Reignite Legal is helping me for free. I’m also quite capable of representing myself if I have lawyers helping me prep.
What did RDA do to justify all the financial support?
Look at the 2021 newsletter. People might forget, but we were producing a lot of content, growing community groups, giving free legal advice, creating, and promoting initiatives and resources every day. We were working tirelessly and had a lot of staff. One year we paid $460,000 in wages (and mine was only $26k).
When lockdowns ended and mandates eased, I should have re-evaluated the organisation straight away. However, I can say, hand on heart, that I always had the best intentions every step of the way. Am I the best business operator? NO. I’m a big ideas person…details and management are not my skills.
Do I want to save RDA, If I can?
RDA isn’t going anywhere, it’s just changing. I am also not going anywhere. You’ll see, I’m not slowing down at all…just pivoting I want the RDA website and self-services to remain as is. I will continue to post semi-regularly and we can pick up where we left off if a crisis happens again or we’re needed.
If we can manage to keep the business directory and RDAconnect open, we still need at least 5-8 hours admin per week, website and app maintenance and a bit of bookkeeping. So, there will still be costs, but not as much and hopefully we can keep operating like that for a while.
We will still support and promote important events and initiatives whenever we can, but we can’t promise it either.
The services that will remain are;
- Business directory
- RDAconnect
- MP lookup tool
- Together we can database of Australian freedom fighting groups.
So, there you have it. You know it all now. Thanks for all your support so far…the journey is changing path, but we’re still walking TOGETHER…till the end!
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