Pictured left to right are Karl Heller, chairperson of Little Blue Heroes Foundation, receiving a cheque for £3000 from Roy Cooper, MD of Professional Security Magazine. That’s the sum raised by diners at the Red Cow Moran Hotel, the night before the Security TWENTY event ST19 Dublin.
As Karl told diners, Little Blue Heroes supports children with life-threatening or life-limiting conditions, and their families, whether to give holiday breaks, financial support, or to make children honorary Gardaí. ST events since 2013 have raised tens of thousands of pounds for good causes, typically nominated by ST speakers or exhibitors; in Dublin’s case by ST supporter, the Irish consultant and ASIS stalwart Donie O’Callaghan.
As ever the sum for charity was made up of outright donations, and money given for raffle tickets, and to play the ‘heads and tails’ game compered by Roy Cooper. Dublin was a variation of ‘heads and tails’, based on the TV show ‘Play Your Cards Right’, where diners had to guess whether the next card shown was higher or lower than the one before – and you put your hands on your head or your bottom to signify. The winner was Simon Jones of exhibitor Qognify, who was also one of the raffle prize winners.
Event sponsors were IFSEC International (who provided bottles of ‘Ifsecco’ for the dinner), Hikvision, Seagate, CSL, Axis Communications and distributor Security Dynamics.
The ST conference heard manufacturer updates from Axis and HID Global; the latest on the UK Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s ‘Secure by Default’ scheme, from Gary Harmer, UK and Ireland sales director of Hikvision, one of the five manufacturers that worked on the initiative, launched at IFSEC in June; from retired Scotland Yard man Mick Neville, now chief exec of Super Recognisers International; the cyber-security consultant, awareness-raiser and trainer Mike Gillespie, of Advent IM; Paul Scallan, a returner to ST Dublin, the chief executive of the Private Security Authority (PSA), the sector regulator in the Republic; and John Murphy, the retail loss prevention man who last year became head of regional security operations EMEA for the Irish tech firm Stripe.
For a gallery of photos from the Dublin event, visit the ‘gallery‘ part of the website; and more in the October 2019 print issue of Professional Security magazine.
Many of the exhibitors had come to the Thursday exhibition from Tuesday’s ST19 show at the Europa Hotel in Belfast. That’s the same arrangement for 2020, only slightly later in the calendar; the venues are the same, on September 8 and 10, 2020. For next year’s dates in full, visit https://professionalsecurity.co.uk/security-events-and-conferences/security-twenty-home/.
The ST19 series ends as in previous years at the Park Inn Hotel at London Heathrow, on Thursday, November 7.
