President's Message

It was a pleasure as always to welcome Wendy Spiller who has been visiting out club in her official capacity for the Police Awards for 9 years!! Wendy is almost a member! What was also special was that, owing to Covid we had not been able to physically present Wendy with her much deserved Police Officer of the Year award for 2021, David Owen and I were able to do that at our meeting on 10th May.
Wendy, who now has a new role Director of Police Women’s International Conference 2023, a significant date as it is 130 years since women got the vote in NZ, was our guest speaker for the evening and running true to form she gave us an update and an insight into many of the issues facing the Police and society as a whole today. She did give us a very handy piece of advice in response to a query “How to avoid a speeding ticket ‘? Response Stick within the speed limit --- wise words indeed.
The protest at Parliament was a very high-profile event. Wendy was on duty during this protest and reflected that we need to recognize that New Zealand is a democratic society and have the freedom of free speech and the right to peaceful protest, and while this protest was about mandates there were also other issues at play the lockdowns, the vaccinations, MIQ and so on, and while many of these are now part of our lives at this time the protest provided a  platform for people to express themselves .With so many divergent views and issues it was difficult to manage and come to some reasonable conclusion, hence Operation Convoy. A huge operation and some very hard decisions had to be made before reaching that point. Warnings were issued, some moved on but some stayed and it became very confrontational, particularly difficult for some of the younger less experienced officers. Work is still going on searching through huge amounts of CCTV footage identifying main organizers and leaders. Staff are now back in their respective areas but unfortunately many came back with Covid, so that has meant staff absences throughout the region, another pressure on police officers.
Ram raids, gangs, drugs are now becoming common place and a major concern is the ages of those offenders. A huge issue is the number of students just not returning to school post Covid for a variety of reasons and across all areas and levels of the community, they are disengaged and this can have enormous consequences for our society down the track. This is a forgotten down side of Covid. We were so focused on keeping safe from catching Covid we lost sight of other things like the impact of keeping children out of school.
Wendy is looking forward to her new role promoting women in Policing and the importance of their role. Next years Combined International Women in Policing Conference will be hosted here in New Zealand for only the third time and participants will come from all over the world. A huge task ahead of our own Wendy Spiller who will do an amazing job I am sure.
There were several questions from the floor as expected a measure of the high level of interest members have in law and order, and the issues so honestly raised by Wendy.
Some Points to note:
You will notice an increase in the cost of your meal now we have returned to the Howick Club the cost of the meal is now $21.00.
Hopefully the Foundation donation will be on your invoice for the next account. John Sanders is working on this now with our accountant. This donation supports many of the international programmes and projects we, as part of Rotary, are part of and also goes towards gaining credits for PHF awards for our members.

 

Kia tupato, kia noho haumaru.

Take care, stay safe.
Madeleine East MNZM
President.