Below are the minutes of the 2017 AGM of the Pines and Hadleigh Neighbourhood Watch.

The meeting was held in St. Brígids Parish Centre, Beechpark Castleknock at 8.15pm  Monday 24 April 2017.
Attendance: Approximately 40 neighbours plus Garda Alex McDermott from Blanchardstown Garda Station.

Apologies were received from a number of neighbours who were unable to attend.

1.   Minutes 2016 AGM

The minutes from 2016 had been pre circulated to all members and were taken as read.

2.   Progress on items identified in 2016 for action

A.      Garda Text Alert

Has been in place with Sendmode for just over a year with approx 20 texts sent to members re break-ins, suspicious activity, AGM and general security awareness items.

B.      Neighbourhood Watch Signage

Now in place.

C.       Security Awareness

Locksmith assessments were conducted on 21 September for interested members who had missed out the previous year.

D.      Social

Golf and evening event held on 09 September in Castleknock Golf Club.   Weather was disappointing for golfers but a good night was had by the 70 neighbours and friends that attended in the evening.

E.       Scheme Improvements

Details of area co-ordinators names and phone numbers were distributed to all neighbours on stickers so they could be retained for reference.

F.       Voluntary Contributions

Contributions of €10 were collected from over 90% of households to cover 2016 and 2017.

G.      Post Office Account

This account was opened and has been operating as agreed. Separate update on finances to follow.

3.   Area co-ordinators report 2016/2017

Reported Incidents to the NW:

	2015/16	2016/17	Comment
Break ins	1	1	September
Car theft	2	0
Items stolen from cars	2	3	Jun – Aug
Attempted break-ins	3	2-3
Anti-social behaviour	2	0
Suspicious tradesmen / activity	Multiple	Multiple	One neighbour reported losing over €200.
Christmas trees	Lots	Later but still lots	Will work again with Fingal.

Text alerts and communications:

	2015/16	2016/17	Comment
Text alerts – Gardaí	0	5
Text alerts – NW Group	0	12
Text messages – NW Group	~6	~ 7
eMail messages	14	20

Social:

	2015/16	2016/17	Comment
Neighbours Golf	33	30	Castleknock GC
Neighbours Night	50	70	Vue Restaurant
Seasonal Swing	0	20	Castleknock GC
Locksmiths assessment	20	12	D15 & Lacey Locksmiths

A.      Crime

Some bogus tradesmen and leaflet drops reported. There may be a link between reports of bogus tradesmen and an apparent spike in activity two days later. We had one incident where a neighbour was scammed out of a few hundred euro where work was not done. There is a list of trusted tradesmen on our website . We will continue to add to this.

B.      Christmas Trees

We tried and failed on Christmas Trees. A different sign was used but it was ignored by some. Trees were dropped later than normal. It is a littering offence so we will look at another approach for 2017.

C.       Sponsors

A number of sponsors made contributions in 2016. They are all listed on the website, and we would like to express a big thank you to them.

D.      Gardai

We would also like to thank the Gardai, including Garda Alex McDermott (present), Sgt. Nicola Brady and Inspector Twomey for their support.
999 is the first port of call in the event of an emergency/issue. Can call the station also, but ultimately priorities are controlled by the dispatcher for the whole DMR division.

4.   Finances and budget for 2017/2018

Carmel Grogan,, Treasurer, presented actual revenue and expenses versus budget for 2016/2017, as well as the budget for 2017/2018, as outlined in the agenda.

		Budget		Actual		Budget
		2016/17		2016/17		2017/18
		€		€		€
Voluntary contributions		€    1,270	90%	€       1,290	91%	€          –
Muintir Na Tire Grant – one off				€          150
		€   1,270		€       1,440		€          –
Expenditure
Hosting Ireland – http://www.pineshadleigh.com		€        64		€           57		€         57
Wordpress – blog		€        13		€          13		€         13
Text alert – SendMode		€       250		€          351		€       351
Signage – Rennicks (One off)		€      300		€          405		€          –
Meeting rooms – contribution		€       100		€              –		€       100
Printing / Other costs		€         75		€              –		€          –
Total Expenditure		€       802		€          825		€       520
Opening Funds		€          –		€              –		€       615
Excess of income over expenditure				€          615		-€      520
Projected closing funds		€      468		€          615		€         95

Household contributions were €1,290, representing €5 per annum for 2016 and 2017 from 91% of households. An additional €150 was received by way of a one off grant from Muintir na Tire.
Expenditure of €825 was in line with budget, with the largest expense being a one off payment to Rennicks of €405 for signage. Text alerts sent by Sendmode cost €351 with the website and blog costing €70.
Total Income of €1,440 less expenditure of €825 leaves closing funds of €615. Maintaining approximate costs of €351 for Sendmode and €70 for website/blog as well as a contribution to the Parish Centre of €100 for the room used for the AGM amounts to €520, which will reduce projected funds to €95, which should be sufficient to fund the scheme until the next AGM.
The social events held were funded by separate contributions and sponsor prizes, to run at breakeven. We are therefore on track with initial contributions covering the first two years as planned.
It was suggested to the floor that we commence collecting voluntary contributions for the next 2 years (€10, being €5 p.a. for 2018 and 2019) in January 2018, ahead of the next AGM in April 2018. This proposal was carried unanimously by a show of hands.

5.   Plans for 2017/2018

A.      Continued communications and awareness

• Intend to continue collaboration with neighbouring NW groups – Deerpark, Park Avenue, College Grove, but the most important thing is to keep lines of communication open between neighbours.
• In terms of other areas who may wish to participate, we are not in rush to expand, but would support others who wanted something similar. It works well in a small group.

B.      Security

• We can organise locksmiths again if this is something that people would like.
• In terms of a security talk, Garda Alex McDermott advised that Sgt Brady has said she would be open to getting Garda Vincent Connolly to conduct a talk for neighbours.
• In terms of cctv and alarms, we would like to get some independent advice, but this is proving difficult without a sales pitch, so all suggestions are welcome.

C.       Social

•  Friday 08 September- save the date. Golf and social event. We will be in touch with more details.
•  Seasonal swing happened by accident, but we can organise again. Please revert to us if this is of interest.
•  There was a suggestion of organising a Clean Up Day and we had provisionally pencilled with Fingal County Council. The original intention was to get some younger people involved and have lawn edges etc tidied up. A show of hands didn’t indicate overwhelming support. Fingal have funding available for shrub and tree purchases. It was agreed that we might explore linking a clean up day to this if there was interest in pursuing this in the future. In the meantime, we will not progress with this in 2017.

D.      Other suggestions to improve the scheme

• There was a request to the floor to see if anyone else was interested in getting involved. Interested parties should contact the Area Coordinator or any of the Street Coordinators at any point if they wish to get involved.

6.   Confirm Area Coordinator, street coordinators, treasurer, secretary

Current Roles were reaffirmed with a show of hands from the floor as follows:

• Area Coordinator: Lorcan Sheehan
• Street Coordinator: Liam Delaney,, John Murphy, Charlie O’Connor, John Nolan, Peter Blessing, Tom Kennington, Freda Gallagher, Dan O’Shea, Carmel Grogan and Ruth Hogan.
• Treasurer: Carmel Grogan
• Secretary: Ruth Hogan.

Paddy O’Reilly has asked to take a step back from the Coordinator role after many years and we thank him for his contribution and support.

Additional volunteers for Street Coordinator (especially in Hadleigh Park and Hadleigh Green) and the social team would be very welcome.

7.   Community Police report

Garda Alex Mc Dermott gave a summary of crime in the Castleknock/ Carpenterstown area in the context of the broader Blanchardstown Garda district, using statistics sourced from Pulse.    On the whole figures were very low.
The big issue is burglaries, with 176 in Blanchardstown district overall, of which 38 were in Castleknock and Carpenterstown, 1 of which was in Hadleigh/Pines.
There were a significant number of thefts from MPV’s, including 13 in the Castleknock Carpenterstown area. Many were around businesses and hotels.
Many car doors are left open and people are constantly checking them.
A number of thefts took place outside shops, schools, playgrounds.
People were warned to be mindful when going to the Bank or shops, as there have been incidents where people have been followed having withdrawn cash.
There are also issues with drugs, with one case of sale & supply in Castleknock and Carpenterstown area. Most issues are with “weed”.  There were 52 arrests for possession of drugs in Blanchardstown overall, with 6 of those in Castleknock and Carpenterstown.
Mountain bike patrols have been in place and these have helped.

8.   Q&A with local policing team

Questions were raised on the following topics:

A.      Illegal Turn into Lower Pines

This turn is signposted as illegal in the morning, but not in the evening. What can be done?

We would need to take this up with Fingal if we wanted to have additional prohibitions introduced, however, all reports of dangerous or aggressive driving should be noted and registrations/times reported to the police.  He would take a statement and be willing to issue a fixed penalty notice.

Garda Alex McDermott will notify the traffic corps with a view to putting a guard a number of times.   

B.      Christmas Trees

Should illegal dumping be reported to police?

It is an issue for the litter warden in Fingal County Council. It was noted that the sign erected his year didn’t refer to potential prosecution, so this is something to be borne in mind for later in the year.

C.       Trends

A question was raised re whether there are any trends to be aware of in terms of burglaries. Garda Alex McDermott noted that many happen between 1 and 3 am and most are just opportunists.

D.      Personal Security

A question was raised re how to react in event of a disturbance. Personal security must take precedence. Know your limits and keep yourself safe. Burglars rarely want to meet homeowners and instead take flight.

9.   Thank you

A sincere thanks was extended to all that attended and showed support for the scheme.