Southport Homewatch Association has been busy again since we published our Winter newsletter in March.
Our Facebook page is gradually increasing its audience. This is very important as Facebook is one of the first places people look when seeking information eg. if they move to a new area. The sheer volume of posts from our partners means that we are moving towards a model where we try to summarise what has been posted rather than re-posting each individual item.
Lockdown is still proving difficult… we are gradually re-introducing the distribution of starter materials to new Scheme Leaders and we are starting to have some doorstep conversations.
In the last newsletter we talked about some plans for the future. Here is a summary of where we are up to:
Reaching out to Scheme Leaders…
With the assistance of the Citizens In Policing unit at Merseyside Police HQ we managed to issue a postal newsletter to 400+ Scheme Leaders. We have had a lot of responses confirming that schemes are still active and updating contact details. If you have already responded… thank you!
We have also had a number of resignations and a small number of notifications where the named Scheme Leader has, sadly, passed away. Thank you to all those who have responded. Your past contribution is greatly valued. Thank you, especially, to those bereaved who took the time to respond and advise us of their circumstances. We are extremely grateful for your time and effort.
Unfortunately, we have a significant number of non-responses. Some of our schemes have been running for over 20 years so it is inevitable that some will have ceased operation without our being aware of it. We have not yet determined how we are going to go forward with those schemes.
Electronic communications and social media:
Electronic communication has become the default method of communication since the pandemic as we have been unable to produce and issue any physical newsletters. We will still provide paper documentation to those who need it but it needs to be as part of a new communication strategy.
Southport Homewatch Association website:
Our Southport Homewatch Association website is now live: www.southporthomewatch.org.uk
It contains news about the association, information about how to join / set-up a group and lots of links to other useful resources. It also has a Contact Us facility for enquiries. Most importantly, it will allow us to be found by people searching on Google.
Other news…
How to contact us:
The association has a presence in Southport Police Station and there is an associated telephone number: 0151 777 4019. However, this telephone is NOT manned. There is an answerphone and we pick up messages when we visit the station but this is unlikely to be more than weekly and, due to personal circumstances, can often be a lot less frequent.
Similarly, mail addressed to:
Southport Homewatch Association
Southport Police Station
Albert Rd
Southport
PR9 0LL
will be collected on an “as and when” basis.
Are you interested in helping us shape Southport Homewatch Association? We are always looking for dynamic volunteers to work with the committee to help us come up with and implement strategies to make the association more effective….
Please get in touch, ideally via email (contact@southporthomewatch.org.uk) or the website if you have any comments, questions or anything you would like to discuss. We would love to hear from you.
Keep watching for further posts…
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