During January there were:

  • 2 Friday night patrols and 3 Saturday night patrols
  • 5 Patrols totalling 22 hours of cover involving 16 Street Pastors
  • 2 pairs of flip-flops given and 7 bottles of water
  • 160 lollies and Love Hearts given

Here are some of the ways Street Pastors cared, listened and helped in January:

  • Chatted to some young girls in Grove
  • Cleared lots of glasses from Wantage town centre
  • Cared for a young man that was unwell
  • Attended to two aggressive incidents

January can be a quiet month with many people partaking in a ‘dry January’ following excesses of the Christmas and New Year period and with other people staying home in need of a pay day. Even so there was enough to keep us busy this year.

We chatted to two girls in Grove who were sat on a bench eating trifle and crisps. We just checked that they were ok, chatted for a while and gave them lollies to round off their
meal. ;- )

In Wantage we cleared away lots of drinking glasses that had found their way on to the streets. On one occasion a whole group of people walked across the town square with glasses in hand. Many of them dropped them in bins, but we cleared up several that were left in the street.

We cared for a young man at the end of one of our patrols who came out of a town centre venue and was promptly sick. We cleaned him up, gave him some water and stayed with him for a while. He soon felt much better and made his way home on foot with his friends.

One of our teams had to call the police to deal with some violence that flared up between two groups of people and another team were on hand when the police dealt with a couple who were arguing, almost to the point of fighting.