My First blog

14th August, 2009

Hi and welcome to the Somerset West Community Police Forum website. This has been a dream of ours that has come a long way. Finally though,this dream has been made possible by our webmaster, Alastair Shand and the financial backing of Helderberg Crime Watch. A big thank you goes out to these people and we hope that they stay with us for a long time to come.

I would like to focus on one word in our title and that word is community.  Initiatives like this and so many others are dependent on the communities' input and participation.

Successful policing and the fighting of crime depends on the community, and with this in mind I would like to urge the public to make use of this site and give us valuable input and suggestions on how to improve our service.  I fully understand that we cannot keep everybody happy all of the time and that there will always be people that know better and that think they can do a better job, I therefore ask that you help improve things rather than sit one side and criticize.

The Somerset West CPF is committed to it's task and there are capable people on the executive at the moment with just the right amounts of experience, passion and knowledge and I thank them for volunteering for a thankless job. If this is how we feel, can one imagine how the police feel? They fight crime everyday and win small battles all over but are usually judged by the things that they did not do, rather than the things they did. Yet they continue fighting the good fight everyday and we are truly blessed to have a police force in Somerset West that is committed to their job at hand, under good leadership and open to constructive criticism.

After the initial uneasiness that usually accompanies change, we have been made to feel welcome at the station and helped along the way to find our feet. I, myself, am prone to letting passion take over my common sense and protocol but I'm always surrounded by people that easily remedy that and allow me to continue on a corrected path. 

A special mention must go out to the CPF secretary, Margie Frey, that has been the pillar of this organisation and a true find. She spends countless hours and resources to keep this going and I am truly thankful for her volunteering to take on this job at the AGM.

The neighborhood Watches of Somerset West are doing an amazing job and are guided by very passionate and intelligent people that never tire of what they do.

To Jaqui, Wendy, Salomie, Kelly and Annetjie, thank you so much for all that you do. More watches are in the pipeline,so please look out for the one in your area and join up as soon as possible.

Andrew Cosmopoulos CPF Chairman