The latest in the Security TWENTY 19 series of conference-exhibitions, ST19 Manchester, raised £1450 for the Make A Wish Foundation. As ever during ST events, the money was raised at the informal dinner the night before, from diners’ donations to play the ‘heads and tails game’ and a raffle, of prizes donated by exhibitors and other well-wishers.
The Foundation has since it began in 1986 made more than 12,000 wishes come true for children with critical illnesses. Winner of the ‘heads and tails’ game was Craig Clark of IFSEC, one of the sponsors of ST. He proved best of all the diners at guessing the relative worth of British pop artists according to the 2018 Rich List.
Pictured is one of the entrances to the event, at the Principal Hotel in downtown Manchester, over the road from Oxford Road station. The hotel was formerly the offices of the Refuge Assurance insurance company. On that theme of a northern city renewing itself, speakers had a northern flavour, opening with Trevor Jones, the head of security and community support at the University of Salford. As that title suggests, campus security management is about more than locking and unlocking doors, but now takes in the well-being of staff and students. Trevor was only just back in the UK from Vancouver, where he had attended the North American-based campus security association IACLEA’s 61st Annual Conference and Exposition, as chairman of the UK-based association for university chiefs of security, Aucso. The 2019 Easter conference of Aucso at Aston University in Birmingham has featured in the May to July print issues of Professional Security magazine.
The conference on the ground floor of the Principal also heard from Phil Cain of BT about the ‘Big Switch to Digital’ – from analogue to IP lines by the mid-2020s, and what that will mean for alarm installers, and alarm receiving centres; Geoff Revill of Krowdthink on the company’s place- and venue-based communication and social platform, and touching on the Kerslake report into the Manchester Arena suicide bomb attack of 2017; and last but not least Liz France, chair of the Security Industry Authority (SIA). Manufacturer updates came from Dot Origin, dormakaba and Hikvision.
In the basement – a wartime air raid shelter for the Refuge – were some 65 exhibitors. As ever visitors – some even before the official opening time of 8.30am – came from the whole spectrum of private security, from end users to consultants and installers, and anyone interested in the sector.
For more pictures from Manchester and past ST events, see the ‘gallery‘ section of the magazine website. More in the August 2019 print issue of Professional Security.
Next stop for ST19 is a new venture; to Belfast, to the Europa Hotel to be exact, on Tuesday, September 3, before the bandwagon moves to Dublin, to run on the Thursday, September 5. As usual ST closes the year at Heathrow, on November 7.
It’s free to visit, and you can turn up on the day, but you are asked to register beforehand to help gauge numbers for catering. Either visit https://professionalsecurity.co.uk/security-events-and-conferences/security-twenty-home/ or email organiser Liz Lloyd at [email protected].
