Hemingby round-up

Sew lovely - The next meeting of the Sew Lovely craft group will be next Wednesday (March 14) in the village hall, from 9.30am to 12.30pm.

The cost is £2 per session and organisers are looking forward to welcoming anyone who would like to join them to try different crafts in a relaxed fun group.

More details from Marie on 01507 578345 or Di on 01507 578695 .

Parish council - The next council meeting will be in the village hall on Thursday, March 15 starting at 7.30pm.

Members of the public are welcome to attend and ask questions.

Scam training - The village hall was the venue for the Friends Against Scams ‘training’ given by Sgt Caroline Broughton of Lincolnshire Police.

She was accompanied by Stuart Tweedale, the Deputy Police Crime Commissioner, himself a Scammaster, and PCSO Mohammed from the Wolds Policing Team.

The event was arranged by the Hemingby Neighbourhood Watch Group and the thirty villagers who attended learned about many of the various scams used by criminals to extort money from unsuspecting victims, many of whom are elderly or vulnerable.

Examples of telephone, postal and doorstep scams were highlighted by Sgt Broughton.

She also explained how to look out for victims of these crimes within the community and report suspicions to the police.

Figures and statistics were shown to demonstrate the extent to which these sorts of crimes were impacting on Lincolnshire residents on an annual basis and these proved horrifying to those present.

The second part of the evening was a presentation from Doug Shaw, IT Manager at Mortons in Horncastle.

He spoke about a computer scam where people receive phishing emails and what everyone can do to make sure they stay as safe as possible on line to stop private information getting into the hands of organised criminal gangs, both in this country and abroad.

Examples were given of both genuine and phishing emails and everyone learned what steps to take before opening any email.

It was stressed links within emails should never be clicked, instead go to the appropriate website to ensure you are not being fooled into giving away any information or data to scammers.

Everyone was encouraged to ask questions and some checklist handouts were received from both Lincolnshire Police and Mr Shaw to help everyone try and identify when a scam was being attempted.

Light refreshments, including a selection of cakes, were provided by the NHW Group and its supporters.

At the end of the evening, surplus cakes were sold, with £40.03 being raised for LIVES.