BOGNOR REGIS POLICE SECTOR
NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH ASSOCIATION
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on 27th June at 6.30 pm in The Gordon`s Centre, Canada Grove, Bognor Regis
1. Selection of Meeting Chairman
It was agreed that David Norton would Chair this meeting. We have now been three years without a Chairman and we need someone with enthusiasm and genuine interest in the local community. A past Bognor Regis Mayor has been approached and we are awaiting his decision.
The 2016 AGM minutes were circulated within the NHW community and there are no matters arising.
2. Present
David Norton, Drew Millar, Claire McGarrigle, Mary Wells, Peter Wells, Saundra Trebble, Peter Trebble, Neil Deverill. Police Inspector Marc Clothier.
3. Apologies were received from
Zana Bramall, Linda Jackson, Vivienne Argent, Tim Croad, Gwenda Keate, Phyliss Keane, Ian Bull, Clive Morge, David Booker, Janet Swatridge, Sue MacKenzie.
4. Talk by Elle Ford
Unfortunately due to family circumstances Elle was unable to attend but she provided a list of the Arun District Council Community Safety Team staff and a flyer introducing the 24 hour anti-social behaviour and graffiti reporting line. It is worth noting that there are two ASB caseworkers based at Bognor Regis Police Station (Jenny Mcmann & Lee Matthews ) who have access to all the incoming 101 and 101 E-mail reports.
The ASB reporting line is 0808 141 2800 and the E-mail address is .
Both Elle`s documents will be forwarded to the 227 Bognor Regis Police Sector street coordinators.
5. Talk by Police Inspector Marc Clothier
Marc spoke about the changes to the Local Neighbourhood Team ( ArunandChichester) organisation some of which have been implemented and are scheduled to be fully in place by the end of 2017.
(a)The area PCSO`s have been reduced in number and are now task oriented and deployed to locations of concern across Arun and Chichester as opposed to being designated to specific areas.
(b)Police are working closely with the Arun ASB unit.
(c)Police are actively giving public presentations on Fraud`s and Scams which target the elderly and vunerable members of the public.
(d)Resolution Centre was introduced in December 2016 ( receiving 101calls ) attempting to find solutions to reported problems prior to referring to PCs
(e)No reduction in the number of Response PC`s who respond to emergency incidents.
(f)Specialist investigators have been and continue to be recruited.
(g)Community Engagement, here there will be a reduction in the amount of community engagement work they are able to undertake.For examplethe Chichester Police Open Day on the 15th July will not take place next year.
(h)New Prevention Policing Model of working however will be introduced addressing community engagement, working with partnerships in the community and employing enforcement officers when required.
The ACC Laurence Taylor`s power point presentation “ Sussex Police in 2020” given to Sussex NHW Federation on the 14th June 2017 will be forwarded to the 227 Bognor Regis Police Sector street coordinators.
6. Acting Secretary`s Report (Drew Millar)
6.1 Managing the inventory of our street coordinators
At last year`s AGM our Secretary, John Holman, and Deputy Chair of Sussex NHW Federation, Derek Pratt reported that the police Broadcaster communication system was being shut down in May 2016 and it`s data transferred into the Alert Bulletin database used by the NHW Federations. On completion of the data transfer a data verification exercise was initiated by the Sussex NHW Federation of the resulting 25,000 entries of which 5,000 were considered to be Sussex NHW street coordinators.
In order to assist in the verification process our Secretary and Treasurer volunteered to perform the verification of the 240 Bognor Regis street coordinators and undertake the administration of the same. This was accepted and a brief Alert bulletin database training was given in September 2016. The unexpected Secretary`s resignation shortly afterwards in October 2016 has resulted in the verification exercise taking longer and is still not complete. The districts Bersted Tree Estates, Hotham and Orchard are still outstanding primarily due the absence of area coordinators.
The Treasurer, Drew Millar, attended a day`s formal Alert Bulletin database training on 11th April 2017 which has enabled the administration of our section of the Alert bulletin database to be carried out in a more effective manner and use it for sending messages to street coordinators .
Compared to our spreadsheetswhich documented 240 street coordinators we now have only 227 street coordinators in the database receiving regular Alert bulletins from both the Police and NHW. Since Sept 2016 we have only received 5 street coordinator resignations but have registered 26 new street coordinators. This illustrated that the spreadsheet numbers were significantly inaccurate, primarily due to discrepancies between the police Broadcaster records and our spreadsheets, people leaving the area, out of date E-mail addresses and the loss of area NHW coordinators in Middleton, Bersted Tree Estates, Marine, Orchard and Hotham maintaining contact with their local area street coordinators.
6.2 Failure to recruit area coordinators
There may be a number of reasons we have been unable to attract replacement area coordinators but we believe there are at least two prime factors.
(1)The areas for example such as Middleton, East Felpham, Bersted, Marine are geographically large and contain a significant number of street coordinators. In particular the Bersted and East Felpham housing has expanded considerably over the last five years. People are therefore reluctant to take on the area coordinator role.
(2)In accordance with our NHW Bognor Regis NHW Constitution an area coordinator must also become a committee member.People are comfortable taking on an area role covering say 10 street coordinators without the added responsibility of being a committee member
In an attempt to address the failure to attract new area coordinators at a recent NHW committee meeting it was agreed to revise the Constitution so that area coordinators are not required to be committee members and that the larger areas could be subdivided, for example Middleton has been divided into four smaller geographical NHW areas and we have succeeded in attracting an area coordinator for three of these smaller areas. In addition to maintain a committee of 9 members which can include street coordinators.
The constitution will be formally revised and adopted after the revised NHW/Police Service Level Agreement is issued in November 2017 but the changes in principle are already being implemented.
6.3 Location of street coordinators
For information the current breakdown of street coordinators by area contained in the Alert bulletin database is as follows :
East Aldwick: 46
West Aldwick: 17 ( includes Craigweil Private Estate )
Bersted : 16
Felpham East: 38
Felpham West: 16
Hotham: 8
Marine: 15
Middleton: 39
Orchard: 8
Pagham: 9
Pevensey: 15
Out of a total of 227 street coordinators there are only 46 within the Bognor Regis Town wards which is only 20% and demonstrates that Neighbourhood Watch is successfully supporting communities that are in areas of predominately privately owned houses or private housing estates. In the inner part of Bognor Regis the spread of rented housing makes it more difficult to maintain a community spirit in a street/neighbourhood.
6.4 Police/ NHW interface
As recorded at last year`s AGM the position held by PCSO, Michelle Davies, as the Bognor Regis based Public Engagement Officer was terminated in July 2016 and the role was assigned to Laura Marmalejo, who is based at Chichester Police Station and covers both Chichester and Arun. Our point of contact is now Sgt Daniel West who is also based in Chichester. The lines of communication are still good and we are getting extremely prompt service in obtaining police checks for new street coordinators.
6.5 Promoting NHW and engaging with the local community
In terms of NHW publicity we decided against having a stall this year at the Hotham Country Fair, though well attended by the public, the cost of £40 per day for a stall could not be justified. Three Bognor Regis street coordinators have volunteered to man a NHW stall at the Chichester Police Open Day on Saturday 15th July. In order to raise our profile we attend the quarterly Bognor Town Council Community Engagement meetings which were initiated in November 2016 and through contact with councillors haverecently identified seven streets close to the town centre interested in forming new NHW schemes.
As stated in the Treasurer`s report 40% of our income last year was committed to raising the profile and visibility of NHW by installing new coloured street signs and refurbishing older signs that in some cases are badly faded. This exercise is time consuming and will continue well into 2018. Sussex NHW Federation have also recognised in need to improve NHW visibility in the streetsand have granted us 26 new coloured street signs (approximate value of £600) which we are expecting to receive this summer.
Saundra Trebble, committee member, created our Facebook page which she is now regularly updating and reports we have approximately 500 readers.
ww.facebook.com/Bognor-Regis-Neighbourhood-Watch
Barry Ashdown, committee member, is looking into upgrading our Website which currently has no hosting agreement.
7. Treasurer`s Report ( Drew Millar)
We started the financial year, 1st May 2016, with a bank balance of £1016 and ended the year, 30th April 2017, with a bank balance of £1239.75.
As per last year we were again supported by grants from the Bersted and Felpham Parish Councils and in addition grants were received this year from Bognor Regis Town Council and their Community Engagement Committee. In the summer of 2016 we were advised by Sussex NHW Federation that they had received funding from the Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner all Sussex NHW Regions were advised to submit applications for funds. Our application was successful and £400 was received from the Federation in this financial year.
Unlike last year when we spent 50% of our income purchasing the NHW “Stay Safe” booklet to be issued across our area this financial year 40% of our income has been spent on NHW street signs and associated fixing details. Though the mileage expenses for this year are higher than last year this is partly due to expenses occurring prior to 1st May 2016 being paid in this financial year. We anticipate mileage expenses in the forthcoming year will be significantly reduced.
The committee agreed a £50 donation to the Woodlands Trust charity in memory of a former NHW Chairman Andrew Evans who represented the NHW areas of Marine and Hotham.
The accounts were circulated to those present and adopted.
Taking into account that this AGM is being held at least one month later than usual it is important to note that during the month of May 2017 an expenditure of £400 was committed to purchase new street signs and sign overlays to refurbish faded signs over the next 12 months.
8. Election of Executive and Committee Members
Chairman: No nominees
Secretary: Drew Millar
Treasurer: Saundra Trebble
Additional Committee member: Barbara Piedot (who was previously our Treasurer)
Two other street coordinators had shown an interest in joining the committee but had not confirmed this prior to this AGM.
Note: The revised constitution enables street coordinators to be committee members, which including the three executive positions makes nine the maximum number of committee members.
9. AOB
David Norton advised the meeting the NHW Federation funded eleven solar powered Security lights he had installed within the Aldwick area, primarily at the homes of elderly and consequently vunerable persons. It was agreed that if the Federation were able to provide more security lights to us and if so street coordinators would be requested to nominate recipients.
David also advised that in the order of eighty up to date “Cold Calling” signs had been installed within the Aldwick area which have been funded by the Aldwick Parish Council. More signs if required can be purchased for installation outside Aldwick Parish but this would require other parishes to fund them.
Street Coordinators to be advised.
10. Close of Meeting.
Meeting closed at 19.45 hrs
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