Police - Talk on Scams
Our Open Meeting at Durweston Village Hall brought a bumper double bill of talks last Friday.We started off with Dorset police giving us a talk on fraud and scams. Damian from the Dorset Police fraud protection unit explained how people are too ready to believe and follow directions of those in authority, especially if they are wearing a uniform. He gave a sobering example of a sociological experiment where officials in uniform ordered volunteer members of the public to electrocute people with ever increasing voltages if they got certain questions wrong. The volunteers did not know that both the officials in uniform and the victims were in fact actors and that there were no shocks involved. The message was that people are more likely to fall for scams if the scammers present themselves as being from the bank or the police. After the talk there was a lively discussion on current scams and we all felt a bit more forewarned by the end. Damian provided a few copies of "The Little Book of Big Scams" published by the Regional Organised Crime Unit. This is a mine of information on how the scammers and fraudsters work and how to take defensive action. For those who did not pick up a booklet or were not able to attend, then this invaluable document is available online as a pdf download.
https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/central/advice/fraud/met/the-little-book-of-big-scams.pdf
Perhaps his most important advice was this; If you think someone is trying to trick you into handing over money or personal details - stop, hang up and call 159 to speak directly to your bank. 159 works in the same way as 101 for the police or 111 for the NHS. It’s the number you can trust to get you through to your bank safely and securely, every time.
Robin Clarke - Talk on Madagascar
After we were persuaded we should not believe anything anyone told us, Robin Clarke would have an uphill struggle convincing us that his superb photos of the flora and fauna of Madagascar were actually real!
Rob began by by explaining why the flora and fauna of Madagascar was unique and showed how the movement and isolation of the continents over hundreds of millions of years had created the special environment of Madagascar. Madagascar is also a very poor country and Rob emphasised how impressed he was by the humble yet generous attitude of the locals to him and other visitors. He told the tale of a young boy who had never seen a white person or a camera before and how he was amazed to see pictures displayed on Rob's camera screen. Rob described how the flora is dominated by a wide variety of orchids, but the real fascination of Madagascar is the fauna. We saw amazing pictures of lemurs, chameleons, frogs, and spiders, not to mention the really creepy and not very attractive Aye-Ayes and wondered how long Rob had sat or stood with his finger hovering over the shutter before capturing his shots. There was a specially interesting video of dancing lemurs which can only walk by jumping sideways. Rob concluded with a short video highlighting his best shots, all overlaid with the ear-piercing howl and moaning of an Indri. the largest of the lemurs.