About a year after a handful of residents from Sundre and the surrounding area banded together to bring back a local Citizens on Patrol group, trained members have been keeping an extra set of eyes and ears on the community.
The drive to revive the Sundre Citizens on Patrol Association, last active in the 1990s, was motivated largely in light of RCMP statistics that identified a substantial increase in property crimes since 2015 following the crash in the price of oil.
The organization’s membership met on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 25 at the Town of Sundre’s municipal office to celebrate the association’s first anniversary as well as hold its first annual general meeting.
The board has nine members: president Jim Lank, the former Sundre RCMP detachment’s commander and liaison who helped get the group off the ground and stepped in following former chair Jack Goodall’s resignation; vice-president Bill Edwards; secretary Ruby Edwards; treasurer Cheri Funke; as well as five directors.
The Sundre RCMP’s liaison, Const. Jared Hamilton, was also welcomed back following a paternity leave, said Ruby.
Basic training for volunteers, which includes a course in first aid as well as a class based on guidelines from the Alberta Citizens on Patrol Association and a ride along with an RCMP officer, has been completed for all but three members, she said.
“We have 16 members who are ready to do patrols,” she said last week, adding the association was pleased to meet the goal set last year to have volunteers hitting the streets within an approximately 12-month time frame.
“We’ve managed to accomplish that,” she said, adding that reaching that objective “feels great.”
With that notch in the proverbial belt, the association is now seeking to start a second recruitment wave to build up the membership, she said.
“It’s extremely important for our community — crime is not dropping.”
A coordinated, homegrown effort to help police curb crime in the area requires the whole community’s support, she said, encouraging everyone to develop relationships with neighbours while also keeping a watchful eye out for one another.
Having herself recently completed five roughly five-hour patrols over the past couple of months, Edwards said she had discovered new parts of Sundre she had not realized existed, including a portion of the town’s southwest industrial district as well as a couple of residential areas she was not previously aware of.
“I’m finding new alleyways all of the time!”
Patrols, however, are not limited in scope to Sundre’s town limits, and volunteers also venture down surrounding area range and township roads. Additionally, members coordinate their efforts with the detachment’s on-duty officers if and when required, she said.
Although not yet officially decided, the board is considering the possibility of scheduling regular, perhaps quarterly, training sessions so that volunteers who want to get involved are less likely to lose interest from waiting in limbo, she said.
Anyone who is interested in learning more is encouraged to visit www.scopa.co. Sundre’s RCMP detachment also has the forms required to join the association.
