Thames Community Patrol is “desperately” seeking more volunteers and public donations to continue operating its service to keep Thames safe.
Secretary and treasurer Dianne Leather told The Profile the organisation had established a Givealittle page and held raffles at Thames Saturday Markets to boost funds to cover fuel and other upkeep costs.
“Any donation you can manage to give, we would be very grateful, and we’re hoping to get sponsors to help replace the vehicle for us.”
Dianne said the organisation, which had operated in Thames for around 20 years, currently had 13 volunteers but were seeking more to enable more active patrols.
“We’re particularly interested in trying to get some younger volunteers who may be able to look at doing early hours of the morning,” she said. “Because most of us are retired and we’re not quite into doing early hours.”
Dianne said the organisation was also considering daytime patrols if more volunteers came on board.
The role of volunteers was to patrol all streets between Tararu and Kōpū to be the extra eyes for the police and ensure everything was in order, she said.
“When we start our patrol, we log in with police communications so they know we’re out there and anything that we see that doesn’t look quite right, we can contact them and they in turn will send police out on to the job,” she said.
“If something’s happening, sometimes police might contact us and ask us to standby until they arrive.
“We can also keep our eyes peeled for any stolen cars because when we start our patrol, we’ve got a phone and it might have messages on it to say police are watching out for certain stolen cars and registration numbers.”
Dianne said for safety reasons, two volunteers were required to be in the patrol vehicle and they couldn’t exit the vehicle unless they were first to arrive at the scene of an accident to assess whether emergency services would be required.
DETAILS: To volunteer: Graeme Wood 027 417 8224 or 07 868 8095. To donate: givealittle.co.nz/cause/patrolling-to-help-keep-thames-safe
Thames Community Patrol volunteers. Photo: SUPPLIED/MONIKA LANGE
