Bulletin Board August 2007

FROM THE DESK OF NEIGHBOURHOOD SUPPORT NATIONAL MANAGER, INGRID STONHILL

WELCOME

Welcome to the 4th edition of Bulletin Board. This Bulletin Board is designed to give you a brief update of how things are progressing with Neighbourhood Support throughout the country. So I welcome your feedback!

National Community Policing Group Up-date

We have been working on a communication strategy for the community policing group over the last couple of months. From that strategy have come some action points. One is to regularly up date you on community policing issues. So from now on I will be including those in this Bulletin Board. They are as follows:

Each member of the community policing team has been assigned key police groups to liaise with - and I'm yours so there's a surprise!
We have now completed our District visits which were really successful. It was great meeting everyone and thanks for the hospitality!
For the first year the community policing team will be seconding an area commander into the team for a month. Our first "victim", I mean Area Commander was Inspector Paul Dimery from Whangärei. We had great opportunities to discuss some real issues and Paul has some fantastic insights to add. We hope Paul will come back and visit us!
This month we have Inspector John Spence, Area Commander from Kapiti Mana. We are enjoying his wisdom, experience and sense of humour! Plus he has a wicked golf handicap!

Timaru AGM

Bill and I had the opportunity to travel to Timaru to address their AGM. Denise Langrish and her team are doing a fantastic job there and we met about 60 street and local contacts. It was neat to see such great enthusiasm for Neighbourhood Support. It was nice to be there to see Timaru honour, Les Howard who has been the local chairman in Timaru since 2001. We had a great cup of tea and sandwiches too, thanks to the team for those. Bill and I were also lucky enough to be interviewed by the Timaru Herald, which made a great good news story on page 2!

Nelson's Holiday Park

Congratulations to Kim and the team in Nelson, who have just launched a neighbourhood support group in the local camping ground/holiday park. The park has some very long term residents and they have seen the benefit of commencing their own neighbourhood support group to look after each other. It's a great initiative Kim, and deservedly made the front page of the Nelson Mail.

Neighbourhood Support/Ready net Database

Well you will all be pleased to know that the Memorandum of Understanding has now been signed by our Chair and Ready net. The software writers are just adding the final touches and we can expect the new database programme to be ready to handover within the next month. I will be in contact again shortly about timing, but if you are ready for it now please contact me as soon as possible. It will come with instructions on how to move your existing data over to the new format.

Wellington District AGM

I was delighted to attend the Wellington District AGM with Inspector Morris Cheer. Ron Clear runs a very good meeting and is working hard to have the whole of Wellington District engaged with neighbourhood support activities. It is a continual frustration that Wellington City Council is not as supportive as they could be of Neighbourhood Support in the capital city.

Welcome to the NS Family Masterton

Whilst the ride over the Rimutaka Ranges was eventful, it was great to go and meet with such a keen group, who want to get neighbourhood support up and running in the Wairarapa! Kevin Brown is working to put together the start up team and I am sure they will be off. I travelled to Masterton with Inspector Morris Cheer and Wellington District Chairman Ron Claire, who has been working with Kevin for a while now to get the Wairarapa up and running. Great to see!

Congratulations Matiu Ratana and Welcome Mangere

Congratulations to Constable Matiu Ratana who has just held the first public meeting to engage with Mangere Bridge. With 120 residents at the meeting, Matiu is sure to have a great committee going in no time! I believe he already has a motivated volunteer to help co-ordinate the groups. Really good work and we look forward to working with you!

Local Media Contacts

Thanks to almost everyone for getting back to me with the local media contacts. We are hoping that we can start communicating some good news stories to your local media too, and create opportunities for you to comment! I will ensure that we run things by you first if we are putting something out to your local area.

NSNZ AGM and TRAINING DAY, LEVIN, SATURDAY 13TH OCTOBER

Preparations are almost complete for the NSNZ Training Day and we are looking forward very much to welcoming our Australian Guest Speakers to Levin. Make sure you have booked your place; the registration form is on the ns.org.nz web page. It is really important to have as many people there as possible to get some new ideas around engaging with your communities.

If you are having any problems accessing a registration form then please give me a call or email me.

It's Not OK to do Nothing

You will all have recently received an email from Stephanie Edmond, MSD regarding the Family Violence Campaign about to be launched nationwide. We all have a really important part to play in letting our households know that if they suspect that family violence is taking place next door, then, it is not ok to do nothing. Please read the information Stephanie has sent and don't forget we have our own fact sheet. It would be a good time to put something in your local newsletters during this campaign.

Stay Safe and keep that feedback coming!

Ingrid