Data Link Bottles I
carefully charged my camera battery the night before, breakfasted on my toast and
marmalade in the morning, and prepared myself for aforesaid meeting. I arrived early – it was a very sunny day – and pensively awaited the arri- val of PCSO Gilham who, to her credit, was 5 minutes early. Worryingly, she was carrying a bag stuffed with lots of rattling/rustling things, but her smile, and that of her colleague, allayed my fears and we all duly assembled in the resi- dents lounge at Drapers Court in Hornchurch where we were presented with a cup of surprisingly tasty coffee.
D O
rapers Court contains some 58 separate dwellings, originally built by a retirement
home group but now marketed to older people for ‗Independent Living‘. It has no full-time warden service but there are central alarms and other self-help facilities provided as part of the lease arrangements. Importantly, there is no on-site help at night, so residents have the same concerns as those of people who live outside in the community. For this reason it had been chosen as one of the 1st places for the Police to target in their borough-wide programme.
nce the audience – unfortunately only a small number on this sunny day –
assembled, PCSO Angela got down to work., whilst I sat back and basked in contented ano- nymity. Great care was taken to explain the benefits to all of the content of our bottles, and Angela even went to the extent of offering to complete the forms for everybody if needed. At a later time she even wrote down all their names, phone numbers and individual addresses and promised to make visits in the very near future to ensure that everything was in place and the system could operate at it‘s maximum efficiency. Nobody was going to get away without her making sure they had got the mes- sage!
F
inally, aforesaid rattling/rustling bag was opened to reveal a whole number of
‗goodies‘ currently being given out by the Police to help with people‘s safety.
A
t this point the meeting concluded. It was agreed that a further two retirement areas
would be targeted in Hornchurch within the next few weeks which I hope to attend, and the internal Police process of spreading the word out to other Safer Neighbourhood Teams would be developed. I expressed an interest that Brunswick Court in Cranham – an old peoples home which Rotary has supported in various forms in the past – be ‗targeted‘ as soon as possible. More follows on this matter (providing my Editor greases my palm appropriately).
T
o summarise – I was one of those people who had ‗doubts‘ about the effectiveness
and possible benefits of PCSO‘s., but now having had close experience of working with them and seeing their proactive approach to reaching out into the community on a prevention basis I am convinced that the system offers a significant benefit to the community as a whole. I offer it my own support, and I am sure that of fellow Rotarians. I commend this to Rotary, in the
knowledge that we are all getting older by the day…….
"Where do I claim my expenses?" Story supplied by Jim Haines
32
This included window alarms, key chains to secure ladies purses and keys to their bags, personal alarms and even windscreen covers for frosty nights (what that has to do with security is currently beyond me but I am sure I will learn one day)…
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