Back on line and Volunteers

We have had a bit of a problem getting into the blog, hence no updates for a dew weeks - but as you can see whe are back on again. Hopefully there will be no repeats!!

You may have seen it advertised about volunteers working for the Police. This is not Special Constables, but members of the public, who once checked out, can work with us. We have a volunteer for the Safer Neighbourhood Teams for Northam, Newtown and St Marys. Her name is Helen and she is a student at Southampton University. Helen comes in for about 4 hrs once a week and helps us out with administrative tasks. She will do things like the vulnerable vehicle letters, juvenile nuisance letters and updating some our IT records for visits and engagements, compile our newsletters and other stuff. It’s very interesting for students who are doing courses in law or similar. If you would like to volunteer, details are on the Constabulary website.

Talking about the vulnerable vehicle scheme, I can explain that. When the team are out on patrol, they will keep an eye on cars and if they see a car with items on display, they will take full details, what the item is, type and registration of the car, time, date location etc. When they get back to the station they will complete a check to identify the registered owner and write a letter to them, explaining what they have seen. Just to give you an idea, we have sent over 450 letters in the last year. In fact I was at a local residents association meeting last month when a man mentioned he had received one of the letters. As his sat nav kept falling off the dashboard, he had glued it on. On receiving the letter, he realized the potential risk and removed it – so that was really positive feedback. We also send out letters for people using their mobile phones and for abusing the traffic directions in Northam if we cannot stop them.

PCSO Dave Wright has been really busy recently with his engagement at City College. He started off with a weekly surgery there on Thursday lunchtimes. This progressed into some sessions in class where he could tell students the roles of PC and PCSO and it’s now moved on to talking about the whole legal system. He has just come back with some great photos of a presentation he did with some students who have learning difficulties. The students had the opportunity to try on the body armour etc and really enjoyed themselves. We are starting to do a lot at the College and that’s helping to break down many of the barriers between the Police and some students.

Another new initiative is working with the Society of St James and their female refugee group. The Society do loads of stuff to help the ladies integrate into British life and have asked us to pop along and give an input about policing. This will be great for us, as some of the refugee communities, particularly the female side - are very difficult to engage with.

That’s about it for this week, and a bit different from the normal meetings, meetings and more meetings – I can mention them again next time! Have a great Easter.

Cheers

Dick