News

COMMUNITY SAFETY CHARTER launched to tackle crimes in public spaces Our new Community Safety Charter, launched today, encourages everyone from individuals, Neighbourhood Watch groups, businesses, and organisations to take an active stance against crimes in public spaces, such as harassment, hate crime, and antisocial behaviour.    The Charter tagline is #BETHECHANGE, focusing on the role of active bystanders in leading the change within their communities. The Charter supports greater understanding about how we recognise and deal with community safety issues and support victims by knowing where to get help, how and who to report to, enabling a more positive, proactive approach by the whole community when witnessing or experiencing confrontation, hostility, or harassment. Do I need to make a pledge? We are delighted to invite you to sign up to the Charter.  By signing up individuals, businesses, organisations, and groups pledge to four actions: ·  PROMOTE – promote a culture that does not tolerate harmful language, antisocial behaviour and hostility toward others ·  ENABLE – enable others to identify and take an active stance to prevent harassment, antisocial behaviour and intimidation within their community ·  REPORT – actively encourage and support others to report harassment, antisocial behaviour and intimidation and share intelligence about these crimes with the relevant authorities ·  SUPPORT – support those affected by harassment, antisocial behaviour and intimidation and refer victims to the appropriate support agency What will I receive when I sign up? You will receive a printable poster, individual pledges to share on social media, and a comprehensive information pack on a specific topic or crime every two months which you can share with your staff/volunteers/colleagues/friends. The topics covered in the first year are: ·  harassment ·  hate crime ·  antisocial behaviour ·  being an active bystander ·  dealing with confrontation ·  leading the change in our communities Where can I find out more? · Attend our Community Safety Charter and ASB Webinar on the 21st July at 5pm. Book your online place here ·  Watch an interactive presentation here ·  Contact the Neighbourhood Watch Community Safety Charter Leads – Cheryl Spruce, Head of Membership and Engagement, or Jayne Pascoe, Head of Partnerships and Projects How do I sign up? Simply complete the online form on ourwatch.org.uk/charter. Once you have signed up, we will contact you with you within 5 working days to share the first information pack and other resources. Please share the details of the Charter with your networks and encourage them also to sign up and share it.    #BeTheChange   Central Support Team | NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH NETWOR Follow us… ourwatch.org.uk / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / LinkedIn Neighbourhood Watch Network is a charity registered in England & Wales, CIO no: 1173349 CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF CREATING SAFER, CONNECTED AND ACTIVE COMMUNITIES Please note: This email has been sent to all Neighbourhood Watch supporters within our network

Walford Village Hall have a new website! Over the past few months we have been developing a new website to highlight “what’s on” at Walford Village Hall and the surrounding area. The website is still under construction but the basic structure is there and it should be completed by around mid July.

The hall is experiencing a “new lease of life” with a new committee of trustees and more volunteers stepping forward to bring the facilities up to date and develop greater community involvement.

Book mark the website address https://walfordvillagehall.co.uk and visit regularly to keep up to date with progress, news and events!

Due an increasing amount of spam and potential hacking of the website we have reluctantly decided to switch off commenting on news articles. Currently we manually hold and check everything that is submitted via the comment forms, but recently the level of input has become so great that it significantly outnumbers the amount of genuine comments we receive.

You can still get in touch with us via the contact page.

Jacqui Young is one of many campaigning to stop the “Schools Bill” becoming law and will be at the Simply Stunning carpark in Wormelow from 8.15am – 9.15am on Tuesday 28th * and also in Ross outside the Market House 9.45- 11am to hopefully collect lots and lots of signatures! “I would be happy for local people to come to my home and sign, if they are unable to make it to Ross on Tuesday morning”.  

There are many people around the country collecting signatures right now to stop this bill becoming law. If you have a child at school or at home, it will affect you.  

Here is something posted by others to help summarise:

“If the Schools Bill becomes law, your rights, as parents, will be removed from you and given to the government. You will no longer have control over your child’s education.

The Schools Bill is being advertised as a bill only targeting those ‘missing education’. Take the time to read it thoroughly, don’t blindly accept that the government knows what is best for your child, and that you do not.

This is a compilation of key points that affect all children, including those in school:

Currently in the UK our parental rights include the right to make sure that our children are receiving a full time education that suits their own individual aptitude, abilities and needs. The new Schools Bill, if it becomes law, will affect every parent’s rights long term. Once you have lost rights in law, it is almost impossible to get them back. You have to fight it beforehand. Yet most parents are not aware that they are about to lose some very fundamental parental, and personal, rights.

All children, not just home educated ones, will be monitored and assessed, with that information being stored and shared for 66 years. The Bill enables and enforces information gathering, on a scale never seen before. This includes information on parents and children – that you must provide – or face prosecution.

Is this data collection innocuous? No. There is a fallacy that this Bill is just a register, it’s absolutely not. The data that’s gathered can be shared by anyone, with no consideration for GDPR, or what the child or parent want. Literally anyone the Education Secretary sees fit to ‘share’ your personal information to, can access it.

Councils will be able to force through ‘academies’ without consultation or consent of school governors or trustees, even though state-run school outperform academies in Ofsted inspections.

The Education Secretary will also have the power to make decisions about children and their education without parliamentary oversight. The scope is endless: fines, prosecution, altering subjects taught, altering degree requirements, removing degrees of no ‘value’, lengthening the school day, and as said, mass data gathering.

There is something insidious emerging. The Bill has crept in through the guise of keeping ‘home educated’ children safe, implying that ‘school educated’ ones are safer. This is absurd and has no data to back it up, in fact the opposite seems true. The Local Authority do know most home educated children, and can already issue a SAO (School Attendance Order) if they deem their education insufficient.

Lord Baker, a former Education Secretary, warned that the Bill “increases the powers of the secretary of state and the Department for Education in a way unprecedented since 1870”.

How much control do you want the government to have over your parenting choices? We all parent differently, depending upon our lifestyles and communities, our cultures and traditions, yet the government clearly want to put in place one standardised parenting style for all. Every parent / carer needs to read and know this bills implications. The contents of this bill will strip away our fundamental rights.”