I love to see a free world turn to night, sang Simple Minds in their great song Speed Your Love To Me, and invited guests at an IFPO UK social event early on Tuesday evening were able to do just that, Mark Rowe writes.
For they gathered on the ninth floor of the City of London branch of the Bank of China, enjoying fine views of the City. After listening to varied speakers, the gathering moved to another part of the floor to enjoy food and drink and with a view of St Paul’s Cathedral (pictured, with window reflection).
It was all thanks to the hospitality of Ashley Watson, security operations manager at the Bank, and sponsored by the guarding contractor Securitas. Speakers were after an introduction by Mike Hurst of IFPO UK: from Florida, the North American founder of the International Foundation for Protection Officers, Sandi Davies; from the bank, Tim Skeet; and Oliver Lincoln of Securitas.
Then came numerous updates including from several industry bodies. Prof Martin Gill of Perpetuity Research touched on his Security Research Initiative’s newly-published reports, on the security budget (freely downloadable); John Jeffery and others from City of London Police described some of the work by the Square Mile police force; and Laura Stevens of Securitas gave a picture of the intelligence services offered by the multi-national. Brief updates on their fields came from Tim Molden (ASIS UK, which has its AGM at 55 Broadway, St James’ next week), Ollie Curran (Aucso, and the Security Commonwealth), Darren Carter (the Institute of Hotel Security Management, which has its AGM in London on December 2), Satia Rai, the new CEO of the International Professional Security Association (IPSA), Dr David Rubens, of the ISRM (Institute of Strategic Risk Management) that he founded and now has 35 chapters, Mike White of G4S on the Security Minds Matter initiative for employee mental well-being; and Ruth Ripley, last week a finalist in the Women in Security awards, on the Women’s Security Society, re-launched in the summer.
While the UK private security industry has a full calendar, allowing ample chance to socialise, particularly at this time of year, what the sector does lack is a quite brief event such as this one, whereby those mainly volunteers from a dozen or more industry groups, often but not necessarily well known to each other, are able to catch up with one another in an enjoyable setting. As ever, you never know what you will come away knowing. Congratulations therefore to IFPO UK for the evening and there is certainly scope for another one or two more annually.
