Saturday 24th July
10 a.m. until midday

We recorded the Zoom meeting from Saturday 24th July to enable people who were unable to attend on the day to view the meeting at their leisure and benefit from the presentations and discussions. The recording lasts 2 hours 15 minutes but if you just want to view sections you can easily drag the bottom scroller to the following times:

1. Welcome: Chair of NottsWatch, Paul Macey - including introductions from team and delegates
2. Neighbourhood Watch Network: CEO, John Hayward-Cripps (18 minutes 20 seconds)
    Head of Membership & Community Engagement - Cheryl Spruce (27 minutes)
3. Practical Demonstration of Neighbourhood Alert’s Member Tools: Mike Douglas, VISAV (59 minutes)
4. Cybercrime Unit: Sue Sambells on behalf of Kirsty Jackson (1 hr 15 mins 30 seconds)
5. Nottinghamshire Police: Inspector Simon Riley (1 hour 19 minutes 35 seconds)
6. Opportunity to join Nottinghamshire Neighbourhood Watch Association (1 hour 41 minutes 30 seconds)
7. Q & A plus Feedback – all (1 hour 42 minutes)

Agenda and updates from the meeting:

1. Welcome

Chair of NottsWatch, Paul Macey

Paul spoke about the importance of community and how, during the pandemic, the need to support the vulnerable had been very important. He explained one of the purposes of today's meeting was to support      existing, and encourage new, coordinators for Neighbourhood Watch schemes.

2. Neighbourhood Watch Network:

(Central Support Team)

CEO, John Hayward-Cripps - Overview of NWN Support

Click to view John's Presentation slides detailing the Central Support Team's five year strategy and the work they have been engaged with.

Head of Membership & Community Engagement - Cheryl Spruce

Role of Coordinator

Brief overview

Tools available

Support available

Scheme Management Tools (V3 & V4)         

Role of MSA

Brief overview

Tools available

Support available

    Other volunteer opportunities

3. Practical Demonstration of Neighbourhood Alert’s Member Tools: Mike Douglas, VISAV

Mike Douglas, NottsWatch Trustee and VISAV Ltd Product Director, demonstrated coordinator and MSA tools within the Neighbourhood Alert system.

4. Cybercrime Unit:

Kirsty Jackson, Cyber Protect & Prevent Officer provided presentation slides describing how and why to report suspicious emails and texts to Action Fraud.

The Cybercrime team are a small team that works towards a national 4 ‘P’ strategy. Using the data collated from Action Fraud they:

1. Protect - Investigate cyber offences
2. Pursue - Engage with all cyber-crime victims to offer protect advice and work proactively to respond to the trends they see from the Action Fraud data.
3. Prevent - Offer an early invention scheme called ‘Cyber Choices’ to mentor young adults and children away from crime and towards a career in Cyber Security.
4. Prepare - Support businesses become more resilient to help avoid Cybercrime and Fraud.

If you would like to attend a presentation on how to protect yourself from Cybercrime please contact Kirsty by emailing: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

5. Nottinghamshire Police:

Inspector Simon Riley, representing county neighbourhood policing teams

Simon admitted engagement between Neighbourhood Policing and Neighbourhood Watch had previously been one of the casualties of reduced teams as a consequence of austerity but assured the delegates, local, neighbourhood policing had now returned to an engagement focussed model from a demand focussed model. He spoke of Nottinghamshire Police's use of Neighbourhood Alert and admitted its  limitations but a re-vamped ‘Notts Matters’ digital engagement campaign is to be launched soon to encourage more people to sign up to receive police alerts and will train at least one officer per beat team to send alert messages.

Helen Ridley, Partnership Team, attended the meeting and updated that she was particulary involved with rural crime.   

6. Opportunity to join Nottinghamshire Neighbourhood Watch Association 

Paul extended an invitation to join the board and that his role would likely be available soon as his personal plans are to leave the country. This is an exciting opportunity for a person who has a heart for community and the vision and time to lead and build a team to achieve the aims of the organisation.

Opportunity to become a Coordinator or MSA - If you are interested please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

7. Ask the Panel of Speakers

We finished the meeting with an opportunity for those interested to know more to ask questions and make suggestions.

IT support courtesy of VISAV Limited