FUDDY-DUDDY CURTAIN-TWITCHERS? I THINK NOT!

Our meeting at the Oxenford Youth and Community Centre is coming up on Tuesday 11th May at 7pm – if you have wondered what Neighbourhood Watch is all about and pondered whether you’d benefit from attending our quarterly meetings, then here’s a little background.

NHW is both a philosophy and an approach to working together as a community to reduce crime and enhance community safety. NHW has been operating in Queensland since 1988 and encourages residents to join together in small informal groups for the purpose of improving the safety of their families and other people who live, visit and do business in their neighbourhood. It also encourages interaction and a shared sense of responsibility between individuals, neighbours and communities for preventing and reducing crime.

Traditionally NHW has focused on improving home security, reducing the fear of crime and reporting suspicious activity to police. As NHW has evolved, groups like ours here in Oxenford have become involved in broader community safety issues - working together to identify and address local problems such as graffiti and honing or speeding on certain roads.

As an Oxenford resident you are – by default – a member of one of the largest and most effective NHW groups in Qld. Your Area Coordinator has recently won a state and a regional award for her work with Oxenford NHW and is also the new Interim Community President of the recently re-launched Neighbourhood Watch Queensland project.

Meetings are held four times a year and are a great place to glean local information. Our two Police Liaison Officers Sgt Doc Newman and Sgt Andrew Lake discuss local crime statistics and trends at every meeting and Cllr John Wayne updates us all on local improvements and plans for the area – so you get to hear all this news first and from the horses’ mouth so to speak. The speakers are always interesting too and at our next meeting we will be shown how to perform CPR – an incredibly useful skill to learn or brush up on.

To promote that all important feeling of community, our meetings are always followed by a social get-together at which free refreshments are served – this is a great way to network and meet your neighbours.

So, if you thought that NHW was all about fuddy-duddy curtain-twitching people – you were wrong! :)

And if you’re curious to know more about this group and your neighbourhood, I invite you to come along to our May 11th meeting – don’t worry, you won’t be roped into anything – we have a large and well-oiled committee! So just come along and listen, learn, then share it with others...

To contact Oxenford Neighbourhood Watch call email oxenfordnhw@email.com.