Michael Atherton

Guys -is this an applicable solution in our case - if so, what do I need? I have had a bit of a brainstorm today, which i'm going to run with for the next few weeks. I'm going to fit new nets, but lace them with pull cord activated personal alarms - i'm also trying to find if some sort of exploding dye/paint canisters exist (?). I'll do this on a Friday evening, so casual play isn't a factor, and i've squared it with my bosses that I can sleep on site, in one of the boarding houses, which has a 360 degree field of vision over our playing fields, and 2 fire escapes for a quick pursuit. Once those alarms go off, i'll be out there like a shot, with a torch and two very protective dogs in tow...i'll also call the police, who to be fair, have a very good response time over here. Mike

Hi Keeps I'm willing to consider all options; however, being completely new to this area, i'm unaware of what the actual options are at the moment. I would like something that could alert me though as I am quite near by, and I would love to catch these village idiots in the act, for obvious reasons! If the camera has no way of alerting us, we would have to ensure that the visual quality is sufficient to be able to identify the culprits, and lead to a conviction - do you know if the quality of these trial cameras would be of a sufficient quality to satisfy our needs, or can you recommend a specific camera which you think would be suitable? Mike

Okay Tom, this sounds like the type of setup I have in mind. Would you have some sort of information that you can send to me on this? If so, you can email it to me at mikea_78 (at) hotmail.com I'm assuming that you can supply this equipment, so I would also need a guide price. Regarding installation, is this something that you would have to undertake, or could we install it ourselves - i'm a bit of a technophobe, but we do have IT specialists, electricians etc who are pretty handy. Many thanks for the help.

Yes Tom, that is us next to the airport. Chances are that I may know our 'mutual friend I spent many a summer in my youth at Port Soderick bay, and I still go fishing around the area when I get time. Is this gsm something that we could possibly utilise in this instance? If so, how would we go about setting up something like this?

Hi Tom Do you mean Port Soderick? If so, our school is 4 miles by road from Port Soderick bay - in terms of line of site, probably about 2 miles, as we are just down the coast from it. Excuse my ignorance, but I have no idea what a GSM beam is? We may look to install cctv cameras, but I couldn't give a definitive answer at the moment - discussions are needed with the bosses. We have a good relationship with Manx Telecom, as we are on of their bigger customers on the island, and I think that the MD's children used to be students at our place!

Soundy - thanks for the prompt response and advice. As for a budget, i'm not sure at this stage, as we simply have no idea whatsoever of what we are looking at in terms of finance, and I have only started looking at this today (which is my day off) - we will be meeting on Monday to discuss it, and it would be helpful if I had some suggestions to bring along to the meeting. It is very important to us to catch these culprits, as with being a boarding school, we simply can't afford to have people wandering around on our site with knives, or other dangerous implements. When it comes to the safety of our kids, the budget tends to be of little consideration. I can also make contact with the clubs that have been hit, to see if we can pool our resources together.

Hello all - i'm in need of some advice. I'm a Head Groundsman at a secondary school. We have no CCTV, as we are located in what is a generally very low crime area (Isle of Man); however, we have recently been attracting the unwanted attention of some vandals. More specifically, they have been targeting our playing fields - our football nets have been slashed three times over the last 6 weeks - most recently, last night. A number of local football clubs have also been hit repeatedly. We are looking for solutions to this problem. We have considered the deterrent route, but we feel that this would only discourage the vandals from our site, and simply send them somewhere else, which isn't really ideal. What we need to do is catch the culprits, for ours, and everyone else's benefit. I have heard it suggested that there are wireless systems that can send a text message to a mobile phone, to raise awareness of any intruders - I see this as a potentially ideal solution. Unfortunately, i'm completely new to the security world, having never relied on it, so I would appreciate any general advice, or specific advice on any systems which would alert me to the presence of any intruders. Any advice is much appreciated.