As the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect all our lives we again held our monthly meeting by Zoom. The committee have been considering ways to enhance the experience and try to make it more like a physical meeting and with this in mind decided to try ‘breakout chat rooms’ during the break between business and the Speaker. Members were randomly allocated into smaller groups so we could chat away from the noise of the main meeting. This was considered by all to be a great success. Another innovation was to introduce Bingo at the end of the meeting which induced great hilarity all round and again will be repeated. Our speaker for the meeting was Karen Giles the longest serving female Officer in the Metropolitan Police. Karen told us of her experiences from the early days when she was advised to use her handbag as a defensive weapon to her current role managing repeat offenders in the Community. She has spent her whole career in South East London based at Peckham and then Lewisham and her thoughtful and human approach to her work makes her a role model for young Police Officers everywhere.
