2010 Annual General Meeting

The 46th Annual General Meeting of the Cheltenham & District branch of Samaritans took place in the Frances Twyford Room in Victoria House at 7.30pm on Friday 22 January 2010. During the business meeting four new trustees were elected, a new Treasurer was elected and the positions of Secretary and Publicity Officer were confirmed.

The guest speaker was Detective Chief Inspector Paul Hurley. Also in attendance was our Patron, Lord Jones accompanied by Lady Jones, Cheltenham MP Martin Horwood and Lloyd Surgenor, the Mayor of Cheltenham.

DCI Paul Hurley has 25 years Police service. He has served as a Police Officer in Gwent Police, Bermuda Police and South Wales Police.

Paul has extensive experience of policing in proactive and reactive roles, community policing, covert policing and serious crime investigations.

Paul has performed the role as a Detective in every rank and is currently an accredited Senior Investigation Officer (SIO) in the South Wales Police, Major Crime Investigation Team. His core business is the investigation of Murder, Manslaughter, Terrorism, Kidnap and Extortion and Product Contamination.

He is the Senior Investigation Officer, who investigated a cluster of suicides in the Bridgend area of South Wales and is one of the South Wales Police, Hostage Crisis Negotiators.

The illustrated talk given by DCI Hurley was greatly appreciated. He is clearly a highly skilled negotiator and his work with those members of the public who threaten to end their lives publicly showed the need for a similar skill set to those used by Samaritans.

The refreshments provided by The Friends of Cheltenham Samaritans were much appreciated by those present and Neil Davies, Chair of the Friends of Cheltenham Samaritans, presented a cheque for £13,000 to our chair, Valerie Nicoll.