This month’s presentation:  skills training from SPD that will help us provide better descriptions!

Meeting details & agenda

Tuesday, January 24, 2011,  6:30-8 PM.
SW Police Precinct, (2300 SW Webster Street – near Home Depot at Delridge/Webster).

6:00-6:30
Arrive early for light snacks, socializing and networking with other Captains while we get the room set up!

6:30-7:00
Introductions, updates, announcements, neighborhood concerns, issues.

7:00-8:00
Presentation: Skills training, information and tips to help you provide a more accurate, relevant description of people or objects to police.

8:00-8:30
Feel free to stay after the meeting to continue your discussions.

Everyone is welcome (even if you aren’t a Blockwatch Captain)! RSVP is appreciated, but not necessary to attend.

Hope to see you there!
Deborah Greer

On behalf of the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains’ Network (WSBWCN)

Email:  wsblockwatchnet@gmail.com
Phone: 206-424-0040
Website: http://wsblockwatchnet.wordpress.com|
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=337488370959
Twitter: http://twitter.com/wsblockwatchnet

Monthly Meeting:  4^th Tuesdays, 6:30-8 PM, SW Police Precinct meeting room, 2300 SW Webster Street (no meetings in July, August, November & December).

Update, 1/27/12: Here’s the coverage of our January 24th meeting from the West Seattle Herald. Note that our February meeting will be on Tuesday, February 28th, 6:30 PM.

Graffiti and Vandalism – Reporting, Removal and Prevention: http://www.seattle.gov/police/prevention/graffiti.htm

Addressing Neighborhood Issues: http://www.seattle.gov/police/blockwatch/neighborhood.htm

Block Watch Toolkit:  http://www.seattle.gov/police/blockwatch/toolkit.htm

WSBWCN meeting, next Tuesday, 1/24:  Our first meeting of the new year is just one week away! Deborah is firming up the agenda and will post it shortly; if you have anything you’d like included, please get in touch – you can email wsblockwatchnet@gmail.com.

Our West Seattle Blockwatch Captains’ Network meeting: mark your new calendars for our first meeting of the year; it will be the 4th Tuesday, January 24th starting at 6:30 PM. More details to come as the date approaches.

The West Seattle Crime Prevention Council: their first Community Safety meeting will be on the 3rd Tuesday, January 17th, starting at 7 PM.

Lastly, for those of you new to our group or just visiting our site for the first time – don’t miss the great Blockwatch resources linked from our sidebar! We’ve added some new ones recently; if you know of others we should include, let us know.

Police newsletter, Nov 2011, page 1 of 2

Police newsletter, Nov 2011, page 2 of 2

You can click the images above to see a large version, or click the following link to view the printable version in .pdf format.

Seattle Police Email Newsletter (108) – November 2011

It isnt’ mentioned in the newsletter, but Mark Solomon is our contact for the Blockwatch program. Get in touch with him if you/your neighborhood wants to set up a new Blockwatch group!

You’ll find the Block Watch Finder tool at: http://seattle.citygroups.org/blockwatch.
Follow the link and enter your Blockwatch group’s data. And, tell every other captain (or help your fellow captains) to do the same!  We’ve got a lot of directory and map space to fill up!

The tool is not perfect (yet!). There are some known issues including features that are not yet complete or working as we hoped they would.  But, the main features are solidly in place:

• You can list and map your Blockwatch area so that others can find you.
• You can search the directory to find other Blockwatch groups and get their contact information.

The Code for America fellows will still be doing some work on this until their fellowship ends in mid-November, so there may be intermittent times when the site is down.  Don’t despair, just try again a little later.

We’ve posted the demo/tutorial that we showed at last night’s meeting here on our website. Click the slide or this direct link to open and view the tutorial (.pdf file format).

Click this slide to open the WSBWCN tutorial for the new BW Finder Tool!

We will continue to develop this tutorial as issues are discovered and as the developers make further changes to the tool.  If you need additional help or have questions, or if you are willing to help someone else who has questions, let us know!  You can use our Facebook page for this purpose, or contact us via email or phone; all are included in the auto-signature below.

Over the next year, our goal is to build the directory of West Seattle Blockwatch groups. Longer-term, we plan to encourage the rest of the city, and then other cities across the country, to participate. As well, our goal is to maintain and improve the tool; we want your ongoing feedback and ideas on ways to make it even more useful.

If you are interested in being a part of a volunteer “community” to improve and maintain this tool please let us know.  It was developed with Drupal which is an open-source content management platform that powers millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world.  For more information about Drupal and the Drupal community, click here: http://www.drupal.org.

Thanks in advance for your participation, comments and efforts to help revitalize and grow the Blockwatch program!  We extend special thanks to Chacha Sikes and all the Code for America fellows, the City of Seattle Department of Information Technology (DoIT) group and the SW Police Precinct for all their help and support!

Deborah Greer & Karen Berge

On behalf of the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains’ Network (WSBWCN)

Email:  wsblockwatchnet@gmail.com

Phone: 206-424-0040

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=337488370959

Website: http://wsblockwatchnet.wordpress.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/wsblockwatchnet

Monthly Meeting:  4^th  Tuesdays, 6:30-8 PM, SW Police Precinct Meeting Room (2300 SW Webster St.); no meetings in July, August, November and December.

Code for America will be done with their development work on this project by mid-November. Do you have feedback about ways to make this tool better?

Bring your ideas to this meeting, so we can discuss next steps! Going forward, we’ll need your help to monitor the tool and help get it through the first year. There are other cities interested in the software already; and as the pilot project, we want to look for ways to establish best practices and cooperation with other cities across the USA. It should be fun!

Meeting details & agenda

Tuesday, October 25, 2011,  6:30-8 PM

SW Police Precinct, 2300 SW Webster Street (at Delridge, next to Home Depot)

6:00-6:30
Arrive early for light snacks (any other goblins that want to bring snacks are welcome BOO!), socializing and networking with other BW Captains while we get the room set up!

6:30-7:00
Introductions, updates, announcements, neighborhood concerns and issues, holiday crime and safety tips.

7:00-8:00
Blockwatch Captain Finder Tool:  Demo, feedback, register your group at the meeting.

8:00-8:30
Feel free to stay after the meeting to continue your discussions.

Hope to see you there!  Everyone is welcome (even if you aren’t a Blockwatch Captain)! RSVP appreciated but not necessary to attend.

Deborah Greer

On behalf of the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains’ Network (WSBWCN)

Email:  wsblockwatchnet@gmail.com
Phone: 206-424-0040
Website: http://wsblockwatchnet.wordpress.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=337488370959
Twitter: http://twitter.com/wsblockwatchnet

Monthly Meeting:  4^th  Tuesdays (no meeting in November & December), 6:30-8 PM, SW Police Precinct Meeting Room (2300 SW Webster Street)

Added October 28th: If you missed the meeting, here’s a link to media media coverage by the West Seattle Herald. As well, we’ve now adapted the demo shown at the meeting into a tutorial for the new Block Watch Finder tool; it’s linked to from here.

Click here for the agenda.  We’ll post the agenda soon; if you have any suggestions about what you’d like to see included on the agenda, please let us know. You can email us at wsblockwatchnet@gmail.com or post comments on our Facebook page.

We will not have a formal meeting this month.  Lt. Davis will present the police reports and trends in crime in the precinct.

We urge all neighborhood groups to attend this meeting and report on their current issues. General discussion will follow these reports.

Discussion of topics proposed by executive committee including but not limited to: airport security and disaster preparedness; Drug recognition training for police officers; traffic calming team.

Audience suggested topics will also be taken and discussed.  This discussion is meant to identify future programs and speakers.

WSCPC meeting, October 18, 2011, SW Police Precinct, 2300 SW Webster Street (at Delridge, next to Home Depot), 7:00-8:30pm

THE MEETING IS OPEN TO EVERYONE. For more information contact WSCPC at westseattleCPC@gmail.com

Note that our West Seattle Blockwatch Captains’ Network group meets one week later, in the same location, from 6:30 until 8 PM. We’ll post the agenda for that soon.

Update, 10/23/11:  For those of you who missed this meeting, you’ll find thorough coverage here from the West Seattle Blog; the meeting included 2 guest speakers from the Seattle Fire Department.