Hopefully in the very near future you will be able to read news as it happens within your Region, right here.  Talk to one of your Committee Members and see if you can assist with something interesting for them to insert in here for all members…..

A reminder that the May 2013 meeting will be held at the Western Australia Police Union Building, 2nd floor board room at 7:30pm on Monday 20th May.

This meeting will also be a Badge Presentation Night to reward our members who have reached a significant milestone in their membership with 30 and 40 years membership.

At this stage we also have four new members over the past week who will be attending to receive their membership cared and badge.

Please come along to the meeting and meet our new members from the past month and enjoy a light supper and refreshments afterwards.

THE APRIL 2013 ‘WAIPAGRAM’ NEWSLETTER IS ALSO NOW AVAILABLE ON THE W.A. REGION WEBSITE PAGE.

Ross Pengilly
(on behalf of Paul La Spina, Chairperson)

INTERNATIONAL POLICE ASSOCIATION

SUNSHINE COAST SUB REGION

www.ipa-australiapolice.com.au

Email secretary.sc@ipa-australiapolice.com.au

Five minute silence

1^st April 2013

Chairman’s message

I would like to wish members, and their families, a very happy Easter. Some members have to work on public holidays. It was very sad to hear of the death of an on duty police officer in the north of the State. Our thoughts go out to his family. It brings home the message that the most dangerous thing that we do every day is to drive on the roads.

In the Northern Hemisphere Easter signifies the start of spring. This year Winter has not lost its grip and much of Europe is snow bound. This creates huge problems for our police friends in that part of the world. With the volume of snow there will probably be floods when the weather does warm up so there will be no respite for some time to come. At least our Winters are usually benign.

We are still seeking suggestions for the next get together in May.  If you have a favourite restaurant or venue let Paul know. We are also still trying to expand our membership numbers. If you know of any police or ex-police who may be interested invite them to one of our meetings. Attendance is not restricted to members at these functions.

Take care out there, Mike Needham

Functions & Membership.   

            It would be great to see more people attending our functions.  The functions are not only for members, but friends and prospective members. We hold functions as opposed to meetings as many members do not like tedious meetings.  The Executive have taken on the duty of serving members and handling matters that would normally be conducted at meetings, and then the membership is informed.  Our last meeting was conducted via a “hook-up”   on Google plus, and was a successful way to communicate.

One of our newer members, Brendan Clifford, has decided not to renew his membership.  He states that he has had no contact from colleagues who he worked with in Victoria.  I do not believe this to be correct as I contacted him, and have been sending him our newsletters.  He has been invited to attend our meetings as well as RPA meetings, but has not made the effort to attend.

At this stage we hope to hold a function in May, but if any member wishes to have one towards the end of this month please let me know.  We also would like suggestions on where to meet.

Happy Birthday to the following members with birthdys in April

We wish the following members a happy birthday on their special day:-

Bruce Shillington 8^th April,     Barrie Lambert 12^th April,       Simon Jud 13^th April,  Lucy Marchant 19^th April, and Kathy Blake on the 25^th April.

The rebuild of the Member Database has been completed and we are at the fine tuning stage at the moment.  Members are encouraged to visit their personal database record and update their information. Several new fields have been added to the record which means that almost every members card is out of date and requires additional information.

Hopefully as soon as a few items of fine tuning have been completed I will be able to send all members their new login details and instructions on how to make the changes required.  This will save your Region Treasurers a lot of time and frustration.

Hopefully you will be able to read a report from our President and Vise President soon, once the World Young Police Office Seminar has been held.  We are trying to encourage regular monthly reports from the National Executive Bureau to keep you updated on National and International matters and events.

In friendship

Ross Pengilly
Assistant Secretary General

IPA-Australia is fortunate to have received the 2012 Gold Website Award For Excellence. The following article from the ICC explains what this actually means.

“Awards of Excellence” is to recognize Sections who have met a set number of pre-established criteria in their website design. It is not a competition between Sections but rather a goal that each Section can strive to reach and be recognized for their efforts.

The best case outcome of this project is all IPA Sections achieve and maintain a gold level Award of Excellence each year and the obvious benefit to IPA is a series of top quality websites that can be accessed by our membership.

The review of websites for awards would be upon request from the Sections, not randomly selected by the ICC.

1. IPA websites will be reviewed by a panel of experts, to be determined.
2. The award image that can be placed on the successful website be designed for three levels (gold, silver and bronze, as an example) and presented along with a formal certificate. The levels of gold, silver and bronze would be determined by the number of the preestablished criteria that were met by the site. Only the gold certificates would be presented personally at the IEC or WC, the remainder of the certificates being distributed along with a list of all of the sites  reviewed so that the current site addresses are provided. This site list will allow other sites to become current through us providing the current and accurate site addresses on an annual basis.
3. That a published list of criteria be established and circulated to all webmasters and Sections to include such items as this very draft list:
   a. Service to members (e-mail distribution list etc.),
   b. Clarity of the front page,
   c. Useful links on the front page to lead members through the
   site,
   d. Using search or survey engines,
   e. Competitions,
   f. Accessibility to other Sections (links),
   g. Use of graphics,
   h. Involvement of members of the Sections (place for
   members to provide comments),
   i. Current content (is the site up to date?),
   j. Tradition (history of the Section or regions; photo of Arthur
   Troop on the site),
   k. Regional involvement,
   l. Is the site user friendly (easy to move through),
   m. Links to country tourist attractions, and
   n. Entry code (members only portion).

Having the awards issued on an annual basis and the award image being dated will encourage the webmasters to constantly strive for improvement.

Yorkeys Knob – Cairns Queensland Australia

*The 7 night special is offered for stay between 17 November 2012 until 31 May 2013 (excluding Summer Holiday period, 15 December – 26 January 2013)

Named after a local fisherman called ‘Yorkey’ who lived on the rocky hill (‘knob’) adjacent to Half Moon Beach in the 1880′s, the story of how Yorkeys Knob came to be is one that stirs the imagination.  Click here for more on the history of this beautiful spot, located only just 10 minutes north of the Cairns International Airport and 15 minutes from the Cairns City centre, this delightful Cairns Northern Beaches community has everything to offer visitors – safe swimming beach, restaurants, shopping centre, resort and apartment accommodation, world class marina, 18 hole golf course and really friendly locals.

For more information about this beautiful place, click History of Yorkeys Knob

He is a collector of police hats and wishes to trade with other collectors.

Peter is especially interested in trading for a new Tasmania police peaked cap (if possible high rank).

Email address –

peter.poznic@amis.net