Letter to a friend: What is the Guild of Security Industry Professionals?

Hello Mate,

   As requested, I hope this tells you all you need to know about the GoSIP.

The Guild of Security Industry Professionals (GoSIP) has been set up by Mike O’Sullivan and myself, the team behind the free online magazine for front line professionals established in 2018, TPSO (The Professional Security Officer)

   Our sole aim is security industry improvement, and we have ideas to help achieve it.

We set up the magazine as a source of CPD and reference material, whilst also getting the word out about our ideas to help drive the professionalisation of front line roles. With over 400,0000 combined SIA licenced and In-House security workers in the industry, we were somewhat surprised that nobody had wanted to engage the sector earlier.

   After 2 years, and with a healthy readership for TPSO magazine, and growing industry support, we launched the Guild as the next, and biggest step, in our drive to improve the status of our front line colleagues, and provide a voice for one of the largest, yet most under represented, workforces in the UK.

The Guild has several objectives:

?   We want to provide a means to truly represent front line professionals to policymakers and beyond.

?   We are campaigning loudly on issues that affect our colleagues such as: Violence against security workers; Lack of respect or appreciation in the eyes of the public; Media misrepresentation of security industry workers; Lack of cooperation or assistance from law enforcement; Poor statutory training, testing and marking.... and much much more.

?   We promote personal career development in several ways: First and foremost, by providing a “Professional Code” as a framework for all of our members; By working with some of the country’s top training providers to offer genuinely useful and relevant courses at discounted rates for our members; By providing access to FREE CPD and indeed far larger courses, from our training partners; By providing a Peer Support network, via social media and our website, where guidance can be sought, ideas exchanged and news and views shared.

?   We are involved in initiatives such as the BSIA / Security Institute’s “Changing Perceptions” campaign; The ‘Working the Doors’ petition to the Government looking to have security officers included in legislation which increases the maximum possible sentence for assault on emergency service workers, and indeed, even the SIA’s own ‘#SIAheroes’ scheme, which seeks to publicly highlight excellent work performed by licenced security workers.

?   To summarise, we aim to work with partners to raise standards of training, thus assisting professionalisation, and we seek to create a positive and powerful narrative to increase levels of general public and establishment respect and appreciation, for the vital and responsible work performed by dedicated men and women every day.

Big objectives and a long road to travel, but we want an industry that has weeded out the lazy and disinterested, and becomes the well rewarded and highly regarded professional career that the protection industry should always have been!

The Guild has no corporate sponsors and is not backed by the SIA, thus there is no hidden agenda for what we seek to achieve. Both founders, Mike and myself, choose to work in front line SIA licenced security roles, so we know the problems and issues our colleagues face and are perfectly placed to fairly and honestly represent our members, and develop our peer support network into the force for good that our industry needs.

We currently fund the Guild out of the meagre profit derived from TPSO magazine, and neither Mike or I draw a salary from it. This has however allowed us to offer our universally under paid colleagues, (Not a criticism. We know how market forces work and change will be a several pronged approach) FREE membership for the first year and NO JOINING FEE!.

Getting the word out to the men and women at the front line, is no easy feat......

Lets face it. Most of our target membership do not have Twitter or LinkedIn accounts, which is where we are most easily encountered. There are some large Facebook Groups for security industry workers but bitter experience has taught us that over the last 2 decades, these groups have tended to become means for the bitter, cynical and disillusioned to vent their frustration and annoyance towards an industry where pay has stagnated, employers treat staff as disposable, and front line workers don’t even receive the benefits that their office based support staff enjoy! I’ve been lambasted for even suggesting that things can get better on these forums, and I can understand the mistrust.

As a result we are growing by word of mouth, and thankfully with the increasingly vocal support of big employers that grasp the benefits of having engaged, professional and career minded front line operatives.

I could talk all night about the Guild, but this in a nutshell is what we are about.

We want positive change for the industry and our members, and we have plans to help achieve it.

Our members quite literally have everything to gain and nothing to lose!

Win Win really.

Our motto, (Thanks to Mike O’Sullivan, he’s very creative you know.) is “Working together for a better future”. THAT is what the Guild is all about.

Hope that hits the spot.

Anything at all I can assist with, do not hesitate to ask. Better go via my email: [email protected] as I obviously have issues keeping up with social media messages. (Sorry again.)

Warm Regards,

Rollo.