Venue Security

[John S]

I'm working in the Midlands for a few days, and went to the Leamington Spa Ceroc night.

Lovely venue, nice people, good teacher etc, but the evening was marred because 2 villains nipped in off the street, grabbed a lady's handbag and fled.

The result was very much like the scene in Tam O' Shanter, when Tam is pursued by scores of witches (well that last bit isn't quite accurate - OK, Leamington Ladies?). About 2 dozen of us pursued the baddies across parkland and along streets for about 5-10 minutes (it seemed longer), caught up with one of them (unfortunately not the one with the handbag) and gently persuaded him to stay with us until the police arrived. Your own foreign correspondent, being pretty fleet of foot for an old codger, played his part.

It did occur to me afterwards that we are sometimes very casual with our belongings at venues - basically because everyone we know who attends is honest, and anyway all the Scottish venues I have been to are pretty safe, with Door/Venue Managers.

But unfortunately it only takes one villain to sneak in and spoil it for the rest, and really no property or belongings are worth risking a knife for. So we should only bring to a dance night what we are prepared to lose - minimum money / no credit cards / only the one key etc and (in the immortal words of the sergeant in Hill Street Blues) "Hey - Let's be careful out there."

[DavidB]

For anyone coming down to London, there have been a few thefts recently at dance venues down here. A lot of people no longer take wallets/purses with them - but don't forget your Ceroc card!

David

[Gus]

Guess we've been quite lucky. We always tend to have at least one male meber of crew around the door as we have a young lass collecting the cash ... though the cash tin is well out of harm's way. We are also lucky in that most of our crew at one time or another did martial arts so the risk to club members from aggression is minimised.

I remeber hearing that the door lad at Hemel Hempstead got punched out a year or so back by a couple of drunks who wandered in off the street! For our freestyles we have to have profesional doormen, venue rules, and they are well worth the money.

Having said that I know one of the local Blitz clubs has had an incident or tow of items being stolen. Sad, but it would appear to have been perpetrated by an opportuntist club member.

[Franck]

Good advice John,

We have been extremely lucky so far in the 10 years Ceroc has operated in Scotland. But we must not be complacent. The best advice is not to take any valuables with you when out dancing, since it is not easy to dance round handbags at Ceroc...
When I go dancing I tend to take the bare minimum (20 pounds in the back pocket), and have a bag for spare t-shirt etc (sweaty t-shirts should be enough of a deterrent for most opportunist thieves ).

As you say though, all Ceroc nights in Scotland have Venue managers at the door who check anyone coming in and out and usually can spot someone who is not there for Ceroc!

Keep safe,

Franck.