Members of the Police Services Board and fellow citizens,

My name is David Graham and I am here today to introduce you to the Guelph Community Volunteer Patrol, CVP for short. This volunteer organisation serves as an eyes and ears extension of Guelph Police Service in our community.

I would like to provide some background about CVP and then describe what we have done and continue to do in the community, and touch on how we hope to work with you to help to achieve our common vision for Guelph.

History

Guelph CVP was founded in 1996 by a group of communtity members who believed strongly that safety and good order are not the sole responsibility of GPS but a commitment shared in partnership between the GPS and the public. CVP currently has about 30 members, and over the years our volunteers have contributed thousands of hours towards making Guelph a safer place. Some members of CVP have gone on to serve with the Guelph Police Service some of whom are standing here with us today.

CVP primarily serves the community through our patrols. Every volunteer commits to a minimun of one patrol per month. New volunteers are required to pass a background check. To start volunteering, they must complete a short classroom training course followed by training patrols before beginning regular patrols.

Each patrol is comprised of at least two volunteers with an equipment kit [point it out] and a cell phone. One member drives while the other records all times, locations, and observations. CVP volunteers provide their own vehicles which are outfitted with large magnetic signs identifying the vehicle as part of the "Community Volunteer Patrol."

We drive around the city generally on weekend nights going places where the city police are stretched too thin to regularly patrol. We patrol schoolyards, churches, public parks, shopping plazas, and any other institution that asks us to add them to our list. If we see any suspicious activity, vandalism or damage, abandoned vehicles, or anything else worth reporting, we log it, and in many cases alert Police dispatch.

Objectives

As an organisation our goals are:

- Aid in the detection and deterrence of crime in the community

- Increase the flow of information between the community and the Guelph Police Service members who serve them

- Provide an active means for citizens to take positive action to improve the quality of life in their neighbourhood

The Community Volunteer Patrol is also an increasingly integral part of the city's Safe Parks program. On each patrol, the condition of every park we enter in the city is logged on a separate report to be turned over directly to the City's Parks department. These Safe Parks Reports allow for information to reach the Parks department more quickly about damage to parks, suspicious activity in those parks, and other information that can help make the parks safer places for all to use.

Our group has directly saved citizen's lives in the past. On one occasion, a CVP patrol behind one of the city's Catholic schools pulled into an area hidden from view from all sides, and found a young teenager drunk, passed out and dying of exposure. Rescue services were called and he was saved when he might not otherwise have been found until days later.

Many of our members have been to court to help in the prosecution of acts we have observed. We are not, however, permitted to divulge specific details of what happens on our patrols except within the group or a courtroom. Our contribution to the community is tangible, but most of the community is not aware of our existence.

On a regular basis, we provide a volunteer security detail to public events such as Ribfest and Canada Day. We also participate in the Lock it or Lose it program. In just a couple of weeks, our busiest time of the year will be here with our annual all-hands Devil's Night and Halloween patrols. In addition, our group has been called out to assist in the community during several major events such as the August 2003 blackout, and the July 2000 Tornado.

The Police Services Board has identified a number of specific challenges that it is facing. Community Volunteer Patrol is able to assist in addressing some of the items enumerated under "policing issues," during last month's budget presentation.

Key among them, our volunteers and our volunteer patrols, taken as an extension of the police services' capabilities, can help maintain adequate front line patrol and response. Having us out there, unpaid and on our own time, but operating with adequate equipment, CVP can act as a more effective set of eyes and ears for the department, freeing up officers to respond to more urgent calls without those areas of the city going unpatrolled.

Another is our ability to help track transient gang activity and graffiti. For a few years, CVP members have actively documented graffiti occurrences around the city for the Guelph Police Service. With better equipment, intelligence and direction, CVP can increase its effectiveness in these endeavours.

Guelph is not the only community to have a Community Volunteer Patrol or equivalent organisation. In Kingston, a city very similar to Guelph in size and demographic, the situation is different. Kingston Police Community Volunteers is funded and supported by the city and the police force. They have four vehicles of their own including a retired department Crown Victoria, as well as a fleet of patrol bicycles. Members there are provided beepers, a bank of police radios, uniforms, training including search and rescue, stolen vehicle identification, and other important tasks, and a clear mandate.

Kingston Police Community Volunteers are issued radio call signs and operate on the main police frequencies, as well as having their own radio channel on the same network. The police service there spend $600 equipping each new volunteer with a uniform and related equipment. Their community exposure is such that this year, they had 130 applicants for 15 open positions. Ask any long-time Kingston resident about the group, and they will immediately ask you: "the yellow-jackets?" in reference to their distinctive uniform.

In Guelph, CVP's limited responsibility and lack of profile within the service makes recruiting difficult, and our services of limited use, but our potential is enormous. Guelph CVP believes it has reached the limits of what it can do within its current configuration. Kingston's Volunteers are responsible for bicycle collection, do bicycle and foot patrols in the downtown core, have their own mobile command vehicle, participate in search and rescue, and perform other tasks that CVP has not been a part of in Guelph. We are not asking for Kingston's level of funding and involvement, but we believe that the Guelph Police Service and the community of Guelph could greatly benefit from the Police Services Board and the Community Volunteer Patrol working together to expand our capabilities.

What we need more than anything is closer cooperation between CVP and GPS to enable us to be a more effective member of the Guelph Police Service team. By utilizing the CVP in non emergency roles within our community, we can help free up officers to concentrate on their core duties at great cost and time savings to the police service.

We would like to know from you where we can be most useful to Guelph Police Service going forward, and we will let you know how we can get there. Let us know how we can help you and you can count on us.

Thank you.