Fortnightly update.

Good morning Everyone

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend like me and enjoyed the nice weather.

First, I’d just like to start with another timing apology. This email was meant to come out on Friday, but it was an incredibly busy but successful week for Neighbourhood Watch, and the time just disappeared.

We started off the week on Sunday with a great day at Mitcham Carnival. This was my first time at the carnival and I really enjoyed it. It was great to meet so many of you and and hopefully get some new members signed up. I am already looking forward to next year’s event.

Last week I spent the whole week at AFC Wimbledon, another first, this time Junior Citizens. Junior Citizens is an excellent event organised by Merton Council in which Year 6 students talk to various teams from across Merton, such as Police, LFB, Bike repair, Community Police, and me as Neighbourhood Watch all about how to prepare for moving on to secondary school in September. It was an interesting event trying to help guide the young people of Merton. I think we spoke to 18 different schools and around 800 children. The highlight was challenging them to do Meercat impressions and then getting the teachers to make sounds of Meercats, it turns out no one really knows what noise a meercat makes! On a serious point, they responded very well to understanding how they can look after their streets and homes.

We are currently working on new leaflets to hand out to people advertising Merton Neighbourhood Watch and keep your eye out for them in the coming months. We are also trying to update the website so that it is up to date. One member of Neighbourhood Watch has generously offered their time so hopefully this will be up to date very soon. 

Every year we bid for a small amount of funding, and we are eagerly waiting to hear if our two bids have been successful, yes that’s right, this year we have put in two bids for very different but very exciting projects. As soon as we get news, we will let you know all about them and there may be opportunities for you to get involved or benefit from them. I am very excited to tell you when I have news.

I think that’s enough from me now. 

Have a fabulous week and if anyone does want to send a video of them doing a Meercat, I’m sure I can find a prize for the best one!

Warm regards

Mark Robinson 

(He/Him)

Community Resilience Officer 

Community Safety Team

Mark.robinson@merton.gov.uk