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Bulletin Board Issue 10JULY - AUGUST 2008 FROM THE DESK OF ROGER EYNON Kia ora and welcome to the 10th edition of Bulletin Board. In this edition we celebrate the recent successes of our organisation locally and nationally. Once again, it has been busy time with visible progress on how Neighbourhood Support New Zealand is positioning itself with an eye on future community benefit. My first six months in post have whizzed by and I am fortunate enough to make new acquaintances nearly everyday - whether it's within the organisation or with key partners. I can say that our relationship with New Zealand Police and Crime Prevention Unit goes from strength to strength and we look forward to discussing our organisational requirements at the highest levels. So - what can we all do to ensure we remain in a position of strength? Read on. You can contact me on: roger.eynon@police.govt.nz or ddi - 04 470 7022. This Bulletin Board is designed to give you a brief update on how things are progressing with Neighbourhood Support throughout the country. PLEASE PASS IT ON TO YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD SUPPORT CONTACTS Welcome on boardNorthland District - Selma Taylor has stepped into the delegate post for her district. I had the good fortune to meet Selma in Waitakere within weeks of my start date and was able to greet and welcome Selma to the board at the August meeting and Annual General Meeting. Selma has many years experience in Neighbourhood Support and is a returning board member. She also has a link with Auckland City Neighbourhood Support and we look forward to working further with her. I would like to thank Jan Maunder for her recent work in this post and look forward to reading about her further in her role as Coordinator. Jan will continue as the Secretary to the NSNZ Board. Current campaign - "TogetherNES"7th July meeting and update. NSNZ took the opportunity to work alongside Nescafe, who are running a "TogetherNES" campaign from May 2008 and it is envisaged that this will be a 3 year campaign focusing on renewing neighbourhood ties and relationships, thereby, reinvigorating community spirit. Communities will benefit from being both the nominators and beneficiaries of local projects. NSNZ has been viewed as an ideal partner to promote the benefits of community cohesion. District Co-ordinators received information packs so that they had a good understanding of the campaign in general. Visit http://www.nestle.co.nz/togethernes/ to have your chance to nominate a local project or even register you and your neighbour for a cash prize draw. Focus should be on things that get neighbours together and meeting each other - like street parties etc. It is well worthwhile them applying with a great, realistic, community idea. Submit a project: https://www.nestle.co.nz/togethernes/project-form.aspx A reminder may be timely. It's all up for grabs but all nominations must be in before the end of September 2008. I posted the media coverage summary on the national site and it made for interesting reading - purely community based newspapers - reaching a now updated combined circulation of over 900,000 households. All indications suggest that this will continue to be an excellent partnership with Nescafe and the "TogetherNES" campaign is planned to continue to 2010. I was invited to participate in the early stages of planning for the 2009 campaign. Nescafe flew me to Auckland to be part of initial strategy and planning around the next phase of the campaign. I am happy to report that all parties have been extremely excited by the partnership and that we committed to working together for another 12 months, taking us to 2010. ReportingMonitoring pilot - August 2008 Following on from this same topic in the last bulletin, Eastern and Bay of Plenty and Canterbury and have been really helpful in putting the pilot in place within their districts. This is a crucial part of how NSNZ reports the good work that is being done. All districts have now been provided with the initial pilot template that provides a simple reporting method that satisfies the needs of our funders and partners. We have a contractual obligation to provide reasonably frequent figures that represent our membership. I would like to emphasise that the consistent reporting measure is in households and that is how the Crime Prevention Unit and Police measure our success. Please be aware of this when completing your reporting statistics. Joint Conference - CPNZ & NSNZThis jointly held conference was ground breaking for a number of reasons. Both organisations co-exist and work to achieve the same goals - by reducing crime, the fear of crime and making communities safer. We do it in different ways but behind the scenes are very similar with good working relationships and support from NZ Police and Government. There isn't another joint conference planned until 2011 at the earliest due to CPNZ already having plans in place that are fairly well advanced without NSNZ as a key partner. NSNZ intention is to ensure the delivery of a seminar with training opportunities for our members. The NSNZ Chair, Executive Committee and National Manager will continue to work with the CPNZ Chair and Executive Committee in order to explore the potential for joined up working and to ensure that Police resources etc do not have to attend 2 separate events and take further time out from front-line policing. Workshop ResourceIf anyone would like to know more about the Business Plan presentation, send me an email: roger.eynon@police.govt.nz - and please include your address in case your email provider limits the amount of data coming in to your email in-box. The feedback from practical application of the business plan contents has been great with a number of groups or areas benefiting from a simple but well thought and logical approach. ResourcesMorris Cheer continues to update existing and produce new fact-sheets in line with community needs and requirements. A new fact-sheet entitled Handbag Theft - PUBQ280 and is available now for ordering. We receive significant interest from other agencies and bodies such as Ministry of Social Development, Department of Internal Affairs, Masterton District Council, Counties Manukau Council, NZ Post and Nescafe who have all utilised our information in whole or in part. However, NSNZ Security Checklist fridge magnet has been exhausted and will not be replaced - PUBC300. Please be aware that this item will now be removed from the resources screen and is not available to be ordered anymore. Next NSNZ Board meetingWe have attempted to set the dates for all of 2009 but as our first choice venue at Police College is already fully booked going into 2009, we are looking at other choices and will confirm dates as soon as possible. This will include the AGM for 2009. Department of Internal Affairs7th August 2008 - Inter Departmental Meeting. Following on from our presentation to the Senior Citizens Advisory Committee, Morris Cheer (Community Support Manager, National Community Policing Group) and I have now been invited to address the inter-departmental meeting feeding into the Positive Aging Strategy. This is a frequently held forum and it is normally attended by 20 different central government agencies. It is quite something to be invited to address such a diverse audience of community focused representatives. Morris and I attended the meeting as guest speaker and I presented on Neighbourhood Support alone for 55 minutes - with many questions from a diverse departmental make-up. It was pleasing to receive the amount and degree of interest that Neighbourhood Support deserves and as a holistic organisation - it was interesting to see how some of the attendees realised that NSNZ has many other strengths other than just plain crime fighting. Emergency management and the relationships that can be formed to help older persons regain their confidence and independence after a life changing experience. Significant events in my calendar since last bulletinNSNZ Board Meeting - 1&2 July (minutes posted on website) Crime Prevention Unit meeting 4th July 2008 (progress report) Visit to Auckland - Nescafe meeting 7th July Readynet meeting - 18th July (organisational database and emergency management) Datadot meeting - 5th August (home security product) Visit to Tauranga, Rotorua and Taupo - 13th August Bay of Plenty Board Meeting and AGM - 14th August Meeting with head of Crime prevention Unit -18th August (progress and discussion around supporting funds for organisational development) Masterton public meeting for Neighbourhood Support establishment - 18th August NSNZ Board meeting and AGM - 19th & 20th August (minutes & posted on website) Presentation to Community Constables at Police College - 26th August Simon Power - National Party28th August 2008 Simon is the National party speaker on Justice (amongst other subjects). I was fortunate to have me some of his valuable time so as to listen to my submission on how NSNZ is performing at the moment and how we wish to position ourselves in the future. I and our aims were well received and Simon wishes all of our members to know that they are fully supportive of what Neighbourhood Support stands for and is achieving. Simon noted the complete support given by the current government and added that continued support by a New Zealand government is a crucial requirement for Neighbourhood Support to progress further. Events ListThis is where I would like to include your contributions to the bulletin. It would be wonderful to list all the local activities and initiatives that NS groups get involved with and put them here. So - get typing and tell me what is going to happen, when and where. When it's all done - let me know what the result was and I will post it as soon as I can. It is a good idea to let me know of media interviews, planned events and good examples of working together with other like minded organisations. Neighbourhood Week - 1st - 9th November Taupo - 15th November 2008 Party in the Park 10am - 2pm at Tongariro North Domain. Attending organisations include Civil defence with their rescue trailer, Taupo Fire Service, Community Patrols, Victim Support and Police along with family activities and nibbles. Good NewsI've been regularly posting items on our website - so - keep them coming but here are a couple that are short and sweet or of significant interest: Canterbury "Our Neighbourhood Support is very involved in caring for the elderly living alone as well as keeping them safe. Having hosted frequent functions together, we now know everybody in our street. Recently an elderly lady living alone had a fall. Her doctor needed to contact her daughter who lives and works away from our area during the week. The doctor's surgery contacted her neighbour to get information because the elderly lady involved was unable to supply her daughter's contact phone number. The neighbour who keeps her Neighbourhood Support contact list by the phone was able to give the correct telephone number and therefore the problem was resolved. This list is very valuable and is used frequently. Neighbourhood Support is alive and well in our area." And again -Canterbury "On the 7th June 2008 snow began to fall, which was a sudden reminder of June 12th 2006 to many folks.
The Regional Street contact of South Canterbury Neighbourhood Support Pleasant Point realised that it was starting to get very heavy so rung her deputy and they immediately got on the phone and rang all the Street Contacts in their area who then rang all their members. They made sure every one would be okay if the snow kept coming. They were able to identify where the vulnerable were if they did get snowed in. They checked that the Civil Defence headquarters was ready to go and together they worked as a great team of volunteers making sure that they were ready if there was a repeat of the snow of 2006 which caused loss of power and phones.
I was so impressed when I heard all this, as this was really neighbourhood support in action and volunteers doing what volunteers do, looking after one another."
Denise Langrish Coordinator of South Canterbury Neighbourhood Support Timaru Kawerau "In June 2007( I had been in the job about a month ) on a Tuesday I got a ring from a Medical Centre here in Kawerau to say one of their elderly ladies was frightened in her own home and was too scared to go to the letter box.
So I asked the Medical Centre staff to ring her and ask if I could go to see her on Neighbourhood Support business. I told them what sort car I had so she knew it was me when I arrived.
After a meeting with her and knocking on the doors of seven other neighbours, of which 5 were ladies on their own over the age of 70, I set up a meeting for the Friday night with one of our local Police Officers, we had a good turn out of 12 neighbours.
From that meeting I set up a group that included members which were also frightened to be alone.
What was happening is at the end of the street there was a house with young men in that wore red bandanas, smoked what appeared to be drugs and intimidated everyone close to their home. After dark they would tap on windows, run a knife along the side of the house, during the day they would ask for money and make rude comments and take underwear from the clothes line. This was happening to 7 of the ladies but 3 were too scared to report it.
After meeting these older ladies on the Tuesday I came back to my office and distributed some leaflets that helped provide information on what to do if you witness suspicious activity around the area, and put 2 in the trouble house.
I did another drop (only at the one address) once a week for a month.
Within 2 weeks things had become very quiet and here we are 14 months later and all is good, I see the ladies out in their gardens and getting their mail, I still pop in now and again to have a chat, which they love.
The Burglary Control Police Officer told me 2 months ago that those boys were always being picked up by them, but they haven't been at the station for 12 months.
So Police and Neighbourhood Support do work well together and that's my success story."
Les Kawerau and District Neighbourhood Coordinator Mount Manganui "On 30th July Mt Maunganui (as did the rest of the country) experienced some really shocking weather. A mini tornado was called in at about 10.00am resulting in about 6 houses being damaged to varying degrees. Some had smashed windows, others had lost parts of their roof, fences, trees and other structures were torn apart. Part of our response, to ensure that everyone in that neighbourhood was ok and accounted for, was to contact Neighbourhood Support coordinators in that area. Rachel (Walker - Community Constable) was able to telephone and speak with some people as well as leaving messages for others. This was a really effective way of getting round a lot of people and asking them to check on their neighbours as well.
The response has been really positive and we have received numerous emails and phone calls expressing gratitude that the Police really do care. .This was a very practical way to use the information provided by Neighbourhood Support. I am hopeful that this also gave some neighbours a chance to interact and maybe further develop their relationships.
We also included a volunteer to door knock and do checks as well. He is part of our community policing centre volunteer group based at Bayfair. He also received positive feedback."
Senior Sergeant Tania Kura Mount Manganui. Camden Street, Christchurch: Neighbourhood Support group "We formed our Neighbourhood Support group in December 2007 and since then we have been active in providing helpful assistance to people within this area in a unique variety of ways. We recognise this is a distinctly complex area as there are a number of folk of various ages and, also from differing ethnic cultural backgrounds. As well, several households are currently feeling an ever-increasing financial burden (like many others in New Zealand at present).
Since our first neighbourhood meeting our membership has increased and we have introduced a street newsletter “Camdencruz” which is delivered to all letterboxes in the street.
Communities are made up of the most important people of all. Families, Mums, nanas, kids, schools, community workers and doctors.
I enjoy living down my street Camden Street I smile, wave and chat to my neighbours on a regular basis. I often have a giggle at how many adoptive nanas and aunties a little boy can have down one street.
It reminds me of when I lived on the Coast. I was seven months pregnant when I moved here and with a baby. Then adding three lambs, a rooster and a vegie garden - this is a busy community.
We forget about all the great things that are happening. Like the neighbours who have lived in the street from 20-30 years, and the celebrations of birthdays and balloons, and when Santa walked down our street at Xmas putting lollipops in everyone’s letterboxes. Communities helping each other out - saving libraries, parks etc.
The little but important people like you helping to ease the stress and pressure out of everyday life. I know we all just want to stay in our fences and get on with it. But I thank my community for saving my sons life. I have three children. Two are boys who have autism. A challenging, but rewarding job for me. It keeps me on track to remind me as to why do we always have to have all these rules and regulations. Ok I do understand that some standard of living rules and regulations apply. But I know I wasn’t the only one with that suffering feeling. So when I heard about Neighbourhood Support I thought “Oh yes a meeting for noisy nana knitters who chat about whom and what.” Boy oh boy was I wrong. Young and old that night chatted and laughed. Drank tea ate muffins and laughed some more.
We spent our first meeting getting to know each other and discussed what are some issues people have and what skills they have, and things they would like to see happen in this community.
Currently working to have the alleyway down our street painted with murals for the kids, and also with working with the residents over issues with Housing NZ.
Our group shares stories - of first time great grandmothers in the street to recipes, buy/sell column and kids corners who receive a prize for their entries. It lets neighbours know what’s happening down our street. When we had M.P. Hon Clayton Cosgrove visited to hear residents concerns. He even removed his shoes in these homes. I hear he has been working hard sorting matters. I got to know a few neighbours down our street and was saddened to hear for some families a heater was a luxury that wasn’t in the budget of families living in one room to keep warm. I decided to begin a winter co-op to see what families needed assistance with keeping warm. I organized some funds and brought 2 trolleys full of gloves, hats, hot water bottles, heaters, etc. I sought donations from all over the community of warm winter clothing, firewood, etc.
 The day came 5th July 10am - down the end of Camden Street we put signs out FREE STUFF. It was cold and I had my eldest son helping along with families of Camden Street. We had a large amount of goods, furniture, household items and blankets that people dropped off to us. More FM came on board to let people know what was happening down our street. People came by foot, freezing, and left warm. We had people in cars dropping off heaters and things that day. The snow came and as my son and I sat in a van shivering wet and cold warming our hands on a hot pie, it was thick with snow outside. I knew it had been another great day."
Written by Tinna Dockerty ©
Local group newletters and E WatchFrom my visits so far, a frequent comment from members is that local group newsletters are a valuable source of information. I receive the odd one myself in my capacity as National Manager, but I know there are more out there, doing the rounds. So.......let me have a copy from time to time to keep me informed too. Newsletters and email bulletins received from:
You can subscribe to NZ Police Community Edition "10-1" by visiting:
NSNZ WebsiteWe are actively working to ensure that contacts and email routing are up to date. It does take a bit of maintenance to keep it correct and interesting. The site does reflect what is going on in the districts, how they do it and what the outcomes are. I also try and put a bit of best practice on there to help share what works well with all the groups around the country. Up to today - I have managed to post 30 newsworthy items in the last 6 months - which compares favourably with a total of 8 items in 2006 and 2007 put together. Please help me present NSNZ in its true light and let me know about your group and initiatives. We have a limited number of links to local NS group websites and now only have one page where all news is posted and the archived material is at the bottom of the page. Nice and tidy in one place. There are some new changes to be made and these will be done as soon as practically possible. CongratulationsTauranga Welcome to Lynn Morrison who has now fully taken the post of Coordinator for this area. We offer our best wishes to his predecessor Alex Pebbles and thank him for all his endeavours on behalf of Neighbourhood Support. Best practiceHow do we swap best practice? I hope it will be here as well as on the website. It may be that we take ideas from the good news stories or events list and results that are published, but feel free to offer gems that have a bearing on how we can do things better. If you are feeling left out because your story hasn't been included, simply send it in anyway. My aim is to share the activities of NSNZ around the country and let our audience know how we positively influence the community around us. The national site - www.ns.org.nz - carries frequent updates ranging from good news to best practice ideas. Please keep these coming! Thanks for reading and I hope there is something here for everyone. I choose to end with a quote from Hon Annette King, Minister of Justice. This being taken from a letter to the Chair dated 2nd September 2008 in which it was confirmed that we have been awarded supporting funds to develop and provide training to coordinators across the country: "I would like to take this opportunity to thank Neighbourhood Support for the positive contribution it makes in communities throughout New Zealand."
If you are feeling left out.....you know what to do! Heoi anö Roger |
