I did go in the end and it was much as I expected. With the exception of the two coppers in attendance and me all were over 50 and mostly 60.
The male copper went first because he had to go somewhere else. He showed a video off 'Police Camera Trash Action' or one of these other identikit ridealong-a-cop dramas. He fired up Windows Media Player and I could see that the volume was set to about 20%, but he didn't work that out so he bent the microphone thing (they were using the council chambers and had these 'press to talk' microphone units) right over the speaker.
Said video involved two coppers struggling with a scrote, lots of flailing about. Male copper asked what we thought. People said 'seemed a bit much', or 'they don't seem very well trained' and so on.
Male copper said 'ah but what if I told you what happened to the criminal, would that make a difference?'. It was revealed that said scrote was subsequently convicted of drug dealing or some such. One of the assembled OAPs then opined that that changed his mind and made the force perfectly justified, in retrospect, because they caught a criminal. Ok.
He then passed round a dozen or so laminated cards which was apparently some sort of crib sheet describing police powers of force, etc., based on the various laws. He made out that this was 'for our eyes only', and he was counting them all back and so on. Some of the assembled octogenarians got quite excited at this.
This then transmogrified into a discussion about bludgeoning burglars. One of the people in attendance, a British Chinese lady who appeared to be the energy behind the whole thing, in terms of setting up the various NHWs locally, said 'I keep a baseball bat by my bed, what if someone came in in the middle of the night and I killed him' and 'I'm a very paranoid person you know'. Male copper had a bit of a 'coppers are always right, even when they are wrong' attitude, and said 'well that would be up to the court.'
Eventually this discussion came to an end. Relevance to NHW unclear, I think the male copper was doing the same presentation at work so brought it round rather than waste time on a new one.
The chair, a nice, slightly Kenneth Williams, chap then talked about the new elected crime commissioner and his powers. Only elected the day before I think, so somewhat limited.
Moved on to a discussion of 'e watch', which is the NHW groups that had collected email addresses and emailed around Trading Standards & NHW notices. One person complained they were too long and how could they print them all out and pass them to neighbours without printer? People didn't seem to keen on this internet nonsense.
There was then discussion of local police panel meetings. Apparently only 1 or 2 people turn up at these, could people please turn up? Disdain then expressed about 'twitter panel meeting', what a ridiculous idea (because 1 or 2 people in person is so much better). Female copper/PCSO/something then spoke. Apparently she was leaving the post tomorrow, failed exam or something. She didn't like Twitter much. So someone else was going to be in her role soon.
Then a lady came on to talk about old people online. 'Ah, ipads for the elderly, help them get on Facebook and connect with their grandchildren, what a good idea.', I thought. Er, no. This lady had apparently made a social network, from scratch, for the elderly. She also was apparently getting old computers and generally helping people get set up on this. Seemed to be working very hard on this. Apparently EU, council funding, etc. Didn't like to ask her what was wrong with connecting to the billion people already on Facebook, just kept quiet. Some person said 'you just watch out, you are taking these people's email address, and with their emails online they will be scammed and ripped off'. Lady quite bemused by this. Person insistent that old people having email addresses would cause them all to be ripped off, or something.
Eventually meeting came to an end, only an hour behind schedule (lots of rambling irrelevant discussion about bludeoning burglars and so on). Why don't more NHW coordinators turn up, asked the Chairman? 'Only 25 here out of around 200', he said. I hung around at the end to speak to Kenneth Williams chappy, to wonder what he wanted of me. He said 'thanks for coming'. I said 'did you have a goal in mind inviting me here?' 'No, I thought you might like to see how it works. Did you find it interesting?' he asked. 'Oh yes, very interesting.' I said.
Ok then.
The male copper went first because he had to go somewhere else. He showed a video off 'Police Camera Trash Action' or one of these other identikit ridealong-a-cop dramas. He fired up Windows Media Player and I could see that the volume was set to about 20%, but he didn't work that out so he bent the microphone thing (they were using the council chambers and had these 'press to talk' microphone units) right over the speaker.
Said video involved two coppers struggling with a scrote, lots of flailing about. Male copper asked what we thought. People said 'seemed a bit much', or 'they don't seem very well trained' and so on.
Male copper said 'ah but what if I told you what happened to the criminal, would that make a difference?'. It was revealed that said scrote was subsequently convicted of drug dealing or some such. One of the assembled OAPs then opined that that changed his mind and made the force perfectly justified, in retrospect, because they caught a criminal. Ok.
He then passed round a dozen or so laminated cards which was apparently some sort of crib sheet describing police powers of force, etc., based on the various laws. He made out that this was 'for our eyes only', and he was counting them all back and so on. Some of the assembled octogenarians got quite excited at this.
This then transmogrified into a discussion about bludgeoning burglars. One of the people in attendance, a British Chinese lady who appeared to be the energy behind the whole thing, in terms of setting up the various NHWs locally, said 'I keep a baseball bat by my bed, what if someone came in in the middle of the night and I killed him' and 'I'm a very paranoid person you know'. Male copper had a bit of a 'coppers are always right, even when they are wrong' attitude, and said 'well that would be up to the court.'
Eventually this discussion came to an end. Relevance to NHW unclear, I think the male copper was doing the same presentation at work so brought it round rather than waste time on a new one.
The chair, a nice, slightly Kenneth Williams, chap then talked about the new elected crime commissioner and his powers. Only elected the day before I think, so somewhat limited.
Moved on to a discussion of 'e watch', which is the NHW groups that had collected email addresses and emailed around Trading Standards & NHW notices. One person complained they were too long and how could they print them all out and pass them to neighbours without printer? People didn't seem to keen on this internet nonsense.
There was then discussion of local police panel meetings. Apparently only 1 or 2 people turn up at these, could people please turn up? Disdain then expressed about 'twitter panel meeting', what a ridiculous idea (because 1 or 2 people in person is so much better). Female copper/PCSO/something then spoke. Apparently she was leaving the post tomorrow, failed exam or something. She didn't like Twitter much. So someone else was going to be in her role soon.
Then a lady came on to talk about old people online. 'Ah, ipads for the elderly, help them get on Facebook and connect with their grandchildren, what a good idea.', I thought. Er, no. This lady had apparently made a social network, from scratch, for the elderly. She also was apparently getting old computers and generally helping people get set up on this. Seemed to be working very hard on this. Apparently EU, council funding, etc. Didn't like to ask her what was wrong with connecting to the billion people already on Facebook, just kept quiet. Some person said 'you just watch out, you are taking these people's email address, and with their emails online they will be scammed and ripped off'. Lady quite bemused by this. Person insistent that old people having email addresses would cause them all to be ripped off, or something.
Eventually meeting came to an end, only an hour behind schedule (lots of rambling irrelevant discussion about bludeoning burglars and so on). Why don't more NHW coordinators turn up, asked the Chairman? 'Only 25 here out of around 200', he said. I hung around at the end to speak to Kenneth Williams chappy, to wonder what he wanted of me. He said 'thanks for coming'. I said 'did you have a goal in mind inviting me here?' 'No, I thought you might like to see how it works. Did you find it interesting?' he asked. 'Oh yes, very interesting.' I said.
Ok then.
