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I’m bleary
after night
of awards
I am sitting here a bit bleary eyed
after presenting the Women in
Security (WiS) awards the night
before, and what a great night it
was especially if you were one of the
finalists.
This year we were back on the
boat, cruising up the Thames
and having dinner. The band
played quietly in the background as
the tension built, as it always does,
for the presentations. The winners
were (please provide your own drum
roll) Michelle Bailey from Active
Response Security Services; Samantha
Bamford from Pelco; Siobhan Plunkett
from GSLS; and Keeley Watson from
Wilson James.
Thanks
Una Riley has written all about the
night (page 28) so I don’t want to
steal any of her thunder but would like
to thank the National Security
Inspectorate for hosting a fantastic
evening; and the sponsors (Sodexo
and UBM, owners of IFSEC, besides
the NSI) for making it all possible,
and the judges for giving their time to
judge. A difficult job I know. My
team, Liz Lloyd and Una and for
everyone that took the time to
nominate someone. We had over 150
excellent nominations, more than ever,
which makes all of you winners in my
book. Congratulations to everyone. It
was a nice evening weather-wise as
well, but where did the summer go?
Fund-raiser
Not to Glasgow for sure because when
I arrived there for our first ST event
north of the border, it was raining, but
that did not dampen the event at all, in
fact it was a great event so thank you
to everyone that braved the wet and
came and visited us (see also page
26). The night before of course we
had our usual charity night where we
raise funds for an industry-related
charity and this was the first
opportunity we had to raise money in
the name of Mike Tennent. As you
will know Mike sadly left us earlier
this year but during his years while he
was ill he started working with the
Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation.
You may recall that Mike was a very
keen photographer so he took some of
his pictures and made greeting cards
with them, the money he raised from
these he gave to the Foundation and
that was quite a lot, £1800 actually. At
his funeral the collection raised there
another £2500, also for the foundation;
and we raised a further £2050 on the
night of the dinner thanks to the raffle
and heads and tails game. I was also
really pleased that Mike’s sons Phil
and Paul could join me in Glasgow to
receive the cheque on behalf of dad.
Now I know Mike would have been
proud and pleased with that result, so
thank you all for your donations of
either prizes, your money or in some
cases both.
Where next?
So where next for ST; of course we
will be in the Park Inn at Heathrow on
Thursday, November 2, so do join us.
We have also launched our dates for
2018 so drop on our website to see
where we are off to, or turn to the
inside back cover for details.
Dan, Kath and I
Let us get on with the gossip; and
were you aware that Dan Bishop the
Stevie Gerrard look-a-like has moved
to IC Realtime. He will be running the
UK operation to replace John Gibson
who moved back to ADT as Sales
Director for Ireland! So what can I tell
you about Dan, he is a keen footballer,
I suppose that was a given due to his
celebrity likeness; but he got injured
one too many times so had to throw in
the towel, not that it has stopped him
as he now coaches youths at football.
He has 17 years of industry experience
under his belt so we wish him well. I
am also aware that Kath Rhodes has
Paul Tennent, me
and Phil Tennent at
the ST17 dinner at
the Glasgow Hilton
- it’s a dummy
cheque, in case you
were wondering
joined Inner Range as the regional
sales manager for the north. Now Kath
used to work with me, many years
ago, at the distributors MVD based in
Rochdale, she was in fact in charge of
the office. I did poach her from Baxall
where we first met and blimey, I am
going back how many years now. She
left MVD and went out in the field to
work with Europlex where she has not
looked back, so yep some names from
the past. I found this picture of Kath in
my files; not sure when it was taken,
but I am sure she hasn’t changed
much.
Other joiners
Simone Oxford has joined the sales
team at Stentofon the IP intercom and
public address product company. And
Luke Turton has joined Bold
Communications as security systems
specialist. Luke worked in systems and
product roles previously at Coopers
and Pyronix. A tech guy! CSL has
appointed Didier Faure as Chief
Financial Officer, who joins from
private equity. Ashley Wyton has
joined Honeywell Security as systems
sales manager for UK and Ireland and
talking of Honeywell, they have
announced, Richard (Rich to his
friends) Lattanzi as the president of
Honeywell’s global security business
and Dino Koutrouki as the president of
Honeywell’s global fire business.
Lattanzi and Koutrouki will drive
greater customer focus, I am told. Both
will continue to report to Michael
Flink, president of Honeywell Security
and Fire. And last but not least, the
distributors DVS
have a new starter in
technical support,
Michael Sullivan. He
was a freelance
CCTV installation
engineer and had
worked for Gratte
Brothers. p
Roy Cooper, MD of
Professional Security
Magazine, brings you
gossip from and for
suppliers, manufacturers
and distributors.
Kath Rhodes
Simone Oxford
Didier Faure
If you want to share
something like this, let me
know, because if you don’t
tell us we can’t tell
everyone else. We have a
policy of correcting any
inaccuracies. Email: roy@
professionalsecurity.co.uk
or ’phone: 01922 415233.
www.professionalsecurity.co.uk OCTOBER 2017 PROFESSIONAL SECURITY 13
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