A crowd of about 50 people attended the Melfort Neighbourhood Watch information meeting at the Kerry Vickar Centre (Cam Lee/northeastNOW Staff)

By Cam Lee

First meeting

Interest piqued after Melfort Neighbourhood Watch program info meeting

Apr 24, 2024 | 11:20 AM

It seems the public has an interest in the Neighbourhood Watch program in Melfort.

The Melfort Neighbourhood Watch Facebook page that was launched just over a week ago now has over 175 followers, and about 50 people attended Tuesday night’s information meeting at the Kerry Vickar Centre.

Dawn Quinn (standing) and Melfort Staff Sgt. Ryan Case made presentations to the crowd at Tuesday’s meeting. (Cam Lee/northeastNOW Staff)

Organizer Dawn Quinn told those in attendance the meeting was a starting point in making the group a reality.

She told the crowd having eyes and ears out for any suspicious activity in the community will benefit the entire city.

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Quinn told northeastNOW she was pleased with the turnout, and several in attendance signed up to indicate their interest.

“Now we’re looking at moving on to a second meeting where we can start organizing…the neighbourhoods and start planning ahead,” Quinn explained.

Any updates on future meetings will be released on the Melfort Neighbourhood Watch Facebook page.

A pamphlet at the meeting outlined that Neighbourhood Watch groups, in part, help teach citizens techniques to reduce the risk of being victimized at home or in public, and train people how to recognize and report suspicious activity.

“Everybody can be involved as Block Watchers, keeping your eyes peeled and your ears open,” said Quinn. “If everybody was just to keep an eye on their neighbour and their neighbourhood, we wouldn’t have any worries.”

Quinn said she was prompted to start the group on social media due to people’s frustrations.

“There are some higher-traffic areas in town where people are very fed up with the goings-on, but a lot of it is just education. They don’t know how to report it, what to report.”

Melfort Staff Sgt. Ryan Case was at the meeting to make a short presentation and answer questions from the audience.

Staff Sgt. Ryan Case addresses the crowd at Tuesday night’s Neighbourhood Watch information meeting. (Cam Lee/northeastNOW Staff)

He told northeastNOW the RCMP would rather hear from the public about suspicious activity, even if it turns out to be nothing, and that suspicious person may have already been in your neighbour’s yard damaging property or stealing items.

“Any of these types of programs, the benefit is…it gives more eyes and ears to the community to see what is going on out in the community.”

He said an active community that looks out for each other acts as a deterrent for those looking to commit crimes.

“(The public) can make those phone calls and let the police know where they need to be, when they need to be (there), and what they need to deal with,” explained Case.

Criminals know where the easy targets are, said Case, and having more people on the lookout for suspicious activity is a benefit to the community.

Case said many of the people that are in Melfort for nefarious reasons are not from the city and are only here to victimize residents.

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Cam.lee@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @northeastNOW_SK