The Glenvista Community Forum (GCF) was founded in January 2008. It has grown slowly by methodically and very often painstakingly knocking on doors, sending countless alerts and informative emails and SMS’s and has prevailed by getting together a group of people dynamic enough to make it work.
It is very important to note that whilst we are on good terms with all the major security companies, we are not one. Nor consequently are we a response unit. We are however continuously exploring avenues whereby we can communicate more effectively. For instance meetings with Perumal Naidoo and the local task teams and superintendants at the local police station in the area, has led us to identify many disjointed components in the industry as a whole. Criminals are exploiting these gaps and getting away with it.
Community/Security forums spring up all the time and very often just fizzle out. This is very often due to resident buy in, or should we say the lack thereof. GCF’s plan is to include the residents in what we do, not always involve them. This resident inclusion is really our core focus. It is NOT our intention to squeeze residents for their participation requiring them to spend 8 days a week, one hour a day doing stuff, nor is it our intention to squeeze hundreds of rands out of them every month. But without them we cannot succeed.
Our greater plan is to involve more businesses who are willing to plough money back into the community. In addition to this we invite residents who run their own businesses, to advertise their companies, this we will place on the web site and or we will distribute a “White page” list of companies to all residents. Small but affective and is working very well for the SUIDEROORD SOUTH COMMUNITY FORUM. We estimate circulation to be in the region of 5 000 residents (watch this space)
1: OUR MISSION IS TO BECOME AS SELF SUSTAINING AS POSSIBLE…..AND….
To partner technology companies to develop, test and deploy technologies that will assist in protecting our environment and its residents from criminal actions or threat, or from circumstances that make us vulnerable to threat. This mission statement recognizes criminal action is the primary threat to our nation and the quicker we send out alerts the closer we are to achieving our objective.
We are also more than just a “Security Forum”, but a “Community Forum” as well. We want to act as intermediary to servicing the area, pot holes, street lights, water main leaks, sewer leaks etc etc. We have very good contacts in the community (SOJO)
The percent of residents who we communicate with versus those actually contributing, is currently on about 2%. We need all residents to assist us by contributing R20 per month for one email address and one cell number by debit order by logging in your details with us for information of happenings in the area. Eg: GCF Events, Robberies, Hijackings, Syndicates etc. By contributing it will assist us in our costs involved in the day to day running of the GCF making Glenvista a better place to live.
We are far short of a fully populated database and we will never fully achieve our objective if we do not get more residents to buy into what we are striving for.
Until the business plans kick in, our intention is to ask residents to pay no more than R10.00 per email address and R10 per cell number per resident pm. We do not want to ask residents to pay more than that.
For administrative purposes we prefer going the direct debit route – admin much easier. However, if you prefer to pay manually, you could arrange with your bank to do an automatic transfer, using your street address as a reference.
We have a direct debit facility in place which we prefer residents to pay by. (Application to be submitted upon request)
The details reflecting on your bank account will show up as Netcash…i4u on the 1st of every month.
Residents will be kept constantly up to date as we believe that transparency is of utmost importance. We will be communicating with residents on a quarterly basis informing them exactly where their monies are being spent.
Should you still wish to do the transfer yourself we would appreciate it if you would arrange with your bank to do an automatic transfer, using your street address as a reference. Alternatively, deposit to account
Bank details ……………………………………….
NEDBANK - THE GLEN
CHEQUE ACCOUNT
ACC NO: 1010517708
BR CD: 19876500
2: COMMUNICATION
We all know that the fastest way for information to pass from one person to the next. Or from one source to many sources is by SMS. The alternate communication source is obviously email.
We have just introduced an “SMS Alertz” system whereby residents send an urgent SMS to one of three cell numbers. Before the SMS is sent to all the residents in the community – AND THE POLICE - the SMS unfortunately has to be vetted by the Chairman or Vice Chair of the Glenvista Community Forum, who will then determine whether in fact it is an alert and requires onward submission to all residents and SAPS.
The residents should send their 160 character Alert SMS to one of three numbers
First 0768988011
Or Second 0726001607
Or Third 0829003060
3: The Joint Operation Centre (JOC) for Glenvista.
Whilst the GCF has only been running for a year now, we felt, that what we have achieved and what we are currently doing is not enough for the community. We decided then that we needed a central location where residents can visit, can be counselled, can report incidents and basically where we the committee can be more visible.
Benefits of the JOC
· Community involvement
· Sharing of communication/information
· Creating awareness
· Info gathering and Statistics
· Counselling
· Quicker reaction service quicker communication
· Coordination of security
· Security resources
· Education of criminal activity and preventative strategies
· Relationship building
· Meeting place for the community
· Getting the police security and community working together
· Community pride and confidence
We have started applying for premises from the Council to house the JOC (Scout Hall cnr Vista and Van Beek). The JOC is initially to be manned by resident volunteers whose responsibilities will be to alert task teams, response teams who are supported by the SAPS to investigate suspicious activities in our area. Once resources allow it, we will employ permanent personnel to man the JOC
The establishment and operational effectiveness of the JOC will require the assistance of all members in the community, therefore we are using this as a platform to let the residents of Glenvista and surrounding areas know that we are serious about TAKING BACK OUR STREETS.
We will also be talking to SAPS about having a permanent police officer on duty.
Operating times - Initially during peak hours with the intent of being open 24/7
The success of the JOC is entirely in the hands of the residents themselves. If the JOC is to be successful, a lot more resident participation is required. We therefore have to encourage as many residents as possible to join.
Whilst the GCF has only been running for just over a year, our main priority was to get as many residents as we could to join our forum, not too much focus has been placed on getting residents to contribute financially. Up to now, resident contributions were only required to cover the cost of submitting SMS’s and emails.
Although we presently want to run before we are even walking, we recognise the fact that it takes time to obtain resident confidence in what we are doing. We are feeling the legacy of a previous exclusive security committee who took residents monies and did nothing with it for almost eight years.
Nor did they even communicate with the residents as to what their plans were.
We are constantly fielding questions from residents over this and we believe that the JOC presence, will secure resident confidence in us.
Naturally with the running of a JOC we are going to require either more residents, or we will have no choice but to request the residents who are paying, to contribute more.
Our whole aim is to partner technology companies to develop, test and deploy technologies that will assist in protecting our environment and its residents from criminal actions or threat, or from circumstances that make us vulnerable to threat.
With this in mind it should be noted that we are presently exploring avenues where we can obtain cameras and camera monitoring equipment. With technology going where its going and the greater and quicker availabily of bandwidth, it is becoming more and more possible for companies to go wireless and to be able to expand their capabilities. That way we are not limited either. This will be tackled more in our technological brief, not covered under this document.
4: VISIBLE POLICING – Another “Nishative”,
The Glenvista Community Forum (GCF) is excited to advise that our proposal for visible policing has been approved by the Provisional Police Department. Although we have achieved great success in our proposal, there is a lot of work and costs related into the full implementation of this initiative.
5: REPRESENTATION
It is important to know that the Glenvista Community Forum is a section 21 company and is governed by a proper constitution, where committee members are bound to act in accordance with a pre determined code of conduct. A section 21 company is also required to be audited annually.
The dedication and commitment to the residents of Glenvista is evident by the actions of the Forum Chairperson Nisha Singh who currently holds the following positions
- Chairperson – Glenvista Community Forum
- Chairperson - Sector Committee
- Committee member of the Central Policing Forum
The CPF is basically the controlling body and is overseen by the Mondeor Police Station Commander (JJ)
This will ultimately do away with the exclusive committees that fail to meet regularly and fail also to account for monies collected by them.
TEAM
(T = Together, E = Everyone, A = Achieves, M = More)
Thanking you
Glenvista Community Forum (GCF)