escalating violence in our community Become a member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust

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After a fairly heavy but successful weekend at Riverland's Camp it is time for a bit of re-cap and a catch up.

By the time you receive this the Charitable Trust will be established, I already have a draft from Keith Jefferies and it looks good. Keith is contributing his time free of charge, on behalf of the group I would like to take this opportunity to say Thank You to Keith.

A bank account under the name "Sensible Sentencing Trust" has been opened up with West Pac.

The PO Box address on the subscription forms belongs to Louise Parsons who has kindly offered to receive donations for us and do the banking.

I think it may be appropriate to remind ourselves that the main reason for our group existing was and is to ensure that these horrendously violent murderers never again pose a risk to New Zealand society.

It is easy to get side tracked but if we stay focused on our main goal I'm sure we can achieve great things. I will encourage and help any of our people who are looking at the wider issues of education and health but personally I will be concentrating my efforts on ensuring that we have a Safe New Zealand. A safe country for our women and children and a safe destination for our many tourists. However as a collective we must have people working in each of these areas. We have already identified a number of people who have either special skills, knowledge or expertise in set areas and we will be looking at formalising these skills and knowledge through the development of sub committees of the Sensible Sentencing Trust. Please check the data list included and change or fill in any relevant details and send back to us.

Enclosed is a copy of some news paper articles from around the country - if each of you organise something similar in your own paper with some local flavour it would be a good way to say thanks for the support at the rallies and also let people know that we are still here and we are not going to let the issue go away.

We will need to know who wishes to stay involved with the Sensible Sentencing Trust and what capacity or involvement you wish to have. Ideally it would be good to have regional co-ordinators in as many areas as possible. We will be appointing a National Co-ordinator to stay in contact with regional co-ordinators and help them keep the Sensible Sentencing name to the fore.

Once again please see the data list enclosed and nominate a person for the National Co-ordinator- spokesperson role. At this stage I am more than happy to keep the ball rolling but please feel free to nominate anyone from within our group. We have some very capable people involved.

We are also looking for volunteers with computer skills, particularly with the Microsoft Access programme to help put a data base together and complete a list of e-mail addresses. When this is complete we will start a postal canvas for membership and also to keep people informed. Daryl James has built the database for us - Thank You Daryl. If you are able to assist with data entry please Let me know as soon as possible.

Keith Jefferies and I met in Wellington on Monday to start drafting the appropriate legislation to achieve our main goal. We also met with Act and New Zealand First Justice and Law spokesman and excellent progress has been made.

Over the next month we will meet with all the political parties to enlist their support in helping us get the final draft of the legislation passed into law. If we can get all the parties to incorporate Sensible Sentencing aims into their own manifesto we will have a good chance of winning the battle without actually having to go to war.

For those of you that feel comfortable and have a grip on where we are going it is probably time to move into a more do it yourself mode making contact with any other community based organisations with similar objectives to us would be a good place to start. Also of course your local Member of Parliament.

If everybody agrees it would probably be a good idea if dealing with Wellington and making Nationwide announcements was handled at our end, so we know who to blame if we get it wrong.

We need to be careful that nobody flies off on a tangent with their own agenda, stick to the main theme - "Sensible Sentencing" - Life means Life.

A suggestion has been put forward that we develop a Sensible Sentencing business card with each co-ordinator having their own card. We could get a good deal on printing etc if we had it all done at a central point. Feed back on this and any other points of interest or concern would be appreciated. Darryl James and his wife are developing a business logo for use on the business card and letterhead. Ideas are more than welcome.

Lee Hawkins in Wanganui has managed to negotiate with the local Polytechnic to put a marketing package together for our group - this would include designing a logo for bumper stickers, business cards etc. These people will obviously communicate with each other to finalize details.

Any information that anybody comes across either in the paper or over the news that is relevant to our cause, would you please collect details and send to us to help us keep a finger on the pulse.

The petition is still circulating and we have about 25,000 signatures so far. We will deliver this to parliament at a time that will get as much mileage for our cause as possible. Maybe when Mr Goff's bill comes before the select committee. We will obviously be putting in submissions on this Bill. Any thoughts on timing gratefully appreciated.

Most of you will have heard of Margaret Lynne Baxter, the jogger who was run down and murdered in Hastings, the guy accused of her murder will be on trial soon and this will be another opportunity for us to get our message out in the public arena again. We will try and organize a Hawkes Bay effort at the trial.

If any members are interested, Cell Phone City in Napier have offered to put a special deal together for us. Sarah-Jane Henderson who works at this retail shop is a keen supporter of what we are trying to achieve and has been able to put a package together that she believes would be hard to beat - They will supply product anywhere in New Zealand. Sarah-Jane can be contacted on (06) 8350077 or P.O. Box 934 , Napier.

Robyn and Alan Gribble of Hamilton, are organizing a public meeting on the 26th April, Mark Middleton will be one of the speakers, if you are interested in going ring Robyn or Alan for more details, Phone (07) 8493223.

Last but not least we have enclosed a copy of our re-vamped membership subscription form. Simply photocopy as you need more, if this is a problem let me know and I will do the photocopying for you.

Also included in your package is Louise's collation of the Riverlands Retreat findings. Louise has put in a huge amount of time and effort and I am sure you all agree that we owe her a huge Thank You.

Anne and I will be away from 31 March until 14 April, Louise Parsons and Daryl James will be happy to help with any queries anyone has. Their contact details are on the master list of numbers which hopefully is included but just in case their numbers are below.

Louise Parsons (06) 8355521

Regards,

Garth McVicar