RCMP members from detachments in Fort Macleod, Claresholm and Nanton were at the Willow Creek Rural Crime Watch Association annual general meeting.
MICKEY DUMONT
THE MACLEOD GAZETTE
LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE
Following its Jan. 29, annual general meeting the Willow Creek Rural Crime Watch Association is rising from its doldrums with renewed purpose.
Held at the MD of Willow Creek’s offices, the AGM attracted about 25 interested people, heads of police from Nanton, Claresholm and Fort Macleod, Fish and Wildlife officers, emergency services and others in person as well as those attending virtually, including Rosemary Lindsay, vice-president of the Alberta Provincial Rural Crime Watch Association.
The Fort Macleod Rural Crime Watch Association agreed in 2024 to reform as a municipal district-wide association.
The Willow Creek Crime Watch Association was formed and this was its first AGM.
Conrad Van Hierden was re-elected as president; Todd Buhmiller as vice-president; Judy Wild as secretary; Dave Mulholland as treasurer and Shawna Burton, Darryl Wild and Werner Dressler as directors.
“First of all, I want to say congratulations to the expansion of your area to include the full MD, on your name change, on the energy, interaction that you’re getting in the MD,” provincial vice-president Rosemary Lindsay said. “It’s really wonderful to see this energy coming up in your community.
“It’s also good to see the collaboration and support from the RCMP and our other law enforcement partners. We always appreciate them — their support, the reporting and intel they can give us as well as what we can give them. It is truly a two-way street.”
Provincially there are 40 active associations with two more expected in the near future.
“We’re excited about that,” Lindsay said. “Some of the things that we’ve been doing is the rollout, finally, of the hub pages. It’s been a project that’s been in the works for a year.”
Each association has a landing page on the provincial Rural Crime Watch Web page.
“It’s designed to post your advance posts, good news stories, success stories, and anything that you want to use it for,” Lindsay said.
Communication — social media and otherwise — and signage to make the Rural Crime Watch program visible was identified as two “first steps” the Willow Creek Rural Crime Watch Association should improve on.
As a carryover from when the group was Fort Macleod-centric, nearly 250 members are on a WhatsApp group chat.
The social media app, WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger), is an instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by Meta.
It allows users to securely send text, voice messages and video messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content.
“We’re using that in the local (Fort Macleod) area, and we have 265 members on it now,” Buhmiller said. “It seems to be working. Eventually, I can see this WhatsApp group growing, because it’s not restricted to one jurisdiction, just one community.”
“When it comes time for you to join, I will assist anybody who doesn’t know how to use WhatsApp,” Buhmiller added. “It’s not that difficult, but it can be a little intimidating if you’ve never used it before, but I will help whoever needs help on doing that. For those of you that need to get ahold of me, my e-mail is toddbuhmiller@gmail.com.”
The Willow Creek Rural Crime Watch Association adopted a new membership fee structure that encourages the bright yellow identification signs to sprout in the rural areas.
Previously, membership was initially $30 with $10 covering the cost of one yard sign and a $20 membership renewal each year after that.
“During a few of our executive meetings, we’ve had a lot of discussion regarding what are we going to do with the money and what is going to entice people to want to join,” Buhmiller said.
“We don’t want to make this a money-making opportunity, but what we do want to do is we do want to have enough money to be able to keep us going and to be able to purchase signs that we can then sell to the members.”
The membership voted to reduce the membership fee to a one-time $20 fee.
“Out of that you get one sign and you don’t have to pay a renewal fee each and every year after that. If you want more signs, you will have to pay the $10 to get those signs, but we thought it would be a much better price to make those people be willing to become members.”
Claresholm RCMP Sgt. Perry Pelletier, Fort Macleod Sgt. Christian Lafleur and Nanton Const. Todd Olsen walked people through how Rural Crime Watch and police work together.
Information from the provincial Rural Crime Watch association says, “The Rural Crime Watch program, as we know it, began in 1978 with the vision to prevent crime by building relationships through promotion, community involvement and identifying future needs with effective communication and promotion.”
The program was initially called the Range Patrol and was established to provide additional “eyes and ears” for the RCMP. Over time, however, Range Patrol drew a negative image in the media so the program was renamed “Alberta Rural Crime Watch”.
In 1993 a province-wide umbrella group was established to support and enhance crime prevention. A committee was formed to produce by-laws and policies. On March 19, 1995, the Alberta Provincial Rural Crime Watch Association received official recognition as a society and the organization has become a supportive organization for member associations.
The intent of Rural Crime Watch is still to provide extra “support” for the RCMP, however, the focus has changed. The focus is now promoting crime prevention through awareness, education and encouraging reporting of suspicious activity when observed.
Member associations are now concentrating their efforts on farmstead, acreage and rural property security, property identification and general rural crime awareness. And now the Report A Poacher program has been included in the Rural Crime Watch Association’s activities.
Rural Crime Watch is completely voluntary and involves rural residents working in cooperation with their local RCMP detachments.
Pelletier, Lafleur and Olsen strongly emphasized Rural Crime Watch is additional support through the public’s eyes and ears.
“Don’t try and detain anyone,” Lafleur said. “If you are standing in their way, they will use violence to get away. We are trained and paid to do that.”
There is a thin line between helping police and becoming a part of the problem.
“Take pictures of them,” suggested Pelletier. “They hate that.”
The police were asked about the use of firearms and dogs during a criminal altercation.
“Don’t do it,” warned Olsen. “If your life is not being threatened, any kind of force could land you in trouble with us.”
Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Cole Smith talked about the Report a Poacher program and the importance of always calling first before taking any action on your own.
The Willow Creek Crime Watch Association voted to hold biannual meetings with the next on Sept. 25.
