Patrolling from new digs

Monday evening was Foot Patrol’s first official night of service in their new office, located on the right side of the first floor in the Fred Nichols Campus Centre (FNCC).

Their first actual night in the offices required volunteers to work double-duty with the dispatcher operating upstairs at the Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union reception desk, as new phone lines for the service could not be set up on the weekend.

Foot Patrol coordinator Chandler Joliffe was relieved that the story had finally come to a close. It has been five months of working with WLUSU and the contractors in order to ensure that the new location fit both the needs of the service and fire code regulations, in which the original designs for the office didn’t pass.

“In terms of operations, our dispatcher will be able to work more effectively in the new space,” Joliffe added.

“It’s also easier for our team because they don’t have to jump up flights and flights of stairs.”

The new offices have more storage space, and a walk-up window accessible to students entering and exiting the FNCC.

“We just ordered all the bulletin boards and whiteboards and we’ll start putting that up, along with the old memorabilia and the blue and old gold stuff.” Joliffe added.

Foot Patrol expects an increase in walk-up numbers with the new location, mostly due to its visibility.

“For people to find us up there, it’s out of the way because you don’t go to the 2-4 Lounge unless it’s for a specific reason. Here, over 10,000 people every day walk through the FNCC. Hopefully with that it will bring up our numbers since we’re not only more visible we are more accessible to students,” he continued.

Even though the office is finally open, subsequent fire safety checks will be conducted on Jan. 11.