Report of the Annual Coordinators’ meeting

St Mary’s Church Hall, Highdown Road, Lewes

22 November 2008

The meeting was attended by about 30 people, mainly from Lewes but also from the rural communities and was well supported by the police.

The theme of the day was encouraging neighbourliness and building closer communities

There were presentations from Inspector Jon Greetham on Neighbourhood Panels, Mark Rendall on his new role as Neighbourhood Watch manager for Sussex Police and David Kibble showing the new version of the web site.

The next hour or so was given over to Rosetta Lenton who led an interactive workshop on confidence building. We learnt that when communicating verbally, 55% of the information transmitted is through non-verbal communication, including body language, 37% was transmitted via how the words are spoken and only 8% through the words themselves. A number of people were brave enough to stand up and through role-play act out various meetings between two people and were the given feedback on their performance.

We were then asked to say what makes a good community and a range of ideas were put up including:

· People knowing each other

· People willing to get involved

· Good public facilities such as street lighting

· Existence of local shops/post office

· Knowing who to complain to and how to complain

· Being inclusive towards young people

· Knowing your PCSO

· Having an effective parish council

· Opportunities for social contact

· Having an attractive environment in which to live – green spaces, well lit walkways, a place with a feeling of safety

· Visible police

· Zero crime – a place which aims for utopia rather than accepting the status quo

· New housing and other developments planned for a safer community

The final session was spent in small groups discussing those issues on the above list, which were in the control of Neighbourhood Watch/individuals. The following set of ideas was created:

· Use the ‘broken window theory’ – a place with broken windows will lead to deterioration in social behaviour – fix the windows and stop the downward trend

· Individuals have responsibilities – pick up litter or contact local council to get areas cleaned

· Do things because you care

· We should reach out to young people; NHW needs to listen to young people. We should consider giving talks in schools. Set up junior neighbourhood watch schemes. In general, we need to find ways of engaging with young people. An example of good practice was the building of facilities on the side of the local sports pavilion in Wivelsfield Green

· Police in setting up neighbourhood panels should ensure they include young people

· The Association should draw up a list of relevant grant giving bodies and place this information on the web site

· The Association to put a list of contacts, such as various parts of the local, district and county councils, on the web site

· The police in conjunction with the Association to produce a leaflet on intelligence gathering based on the idea of ‘what is normal in my street?’

· Members to inform David Kibble of any improvements/additions to the web site since it is a resource for coordinators and we need to make it as relevant as possible (use the contact button on the home page on the web site to get in touch with him).

Our thanks to all who helped make this an enjoyable and valuable day and to Waitrose and Bills for their generous support in enabling us to provide lunch at the end.

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