PMCI: I guess anyone wishing to learn more about these
bullet pointed headings should sign up for a course?
CROPS: 100%, we always tell our students that they have
invested money in bettering themselves, why give that new
found knowledge which they have paid for, away for free!
PMCI: Ben, so where are your courses held and in which part
of the country?
CROPS: We have a purpose built training facility in which we
deliver all of our training, our large classroom is home to walls
filled with surveillance information covering both Urban and Rural
tactics. We provide lunch on all of our courses as well as the usual
refreshments. The minute students walk through our door they
know they’ve made the right choice!
Our facility is set within 200 acres of private farm land just
south of the midlands, this making us ideally positioned for
students traveling from both far north and south of the UK. We
are out of view to prying eyes and can conduct our training
discreetly and professionally at all times.
PMCI: Do you hold open days?
CROPS: No, We don’t believe in smoke and mirrors, or aggressive
sales tactics. Should anyone wish to visit us, they just need to
email and arrange a date. We are happy to show people what we
have to offer in real time.
PMCI: So is your Urban Surveillance Course open to anyone?
And if I was to do one, how many students would be on the
course with me?
The more specialised subject that we deliver are:
• Defendable space and extreme dead ground
within
• Subjects magic box and avenues of movement
• Methodology and the understanding of non-
aggressive perspective
• Architecture and how it effects the mission
planning
• Technical surveillance deployments such as
concealed camera platforms within vehicles and
the latest methods to vehicle tracking (no more
magnets for us!)
PMCI: Ben, what makes CROPS different from
the rest? You mentioned your course contains
specialist contents not delivered by others,
can you tell us more?
CROPS: Of course, we have to teach the foundation
stuff like foot follows, the only difference is that
we concentrate more on operating in pairs and
alone, and with the ability to gather covert video
footage at the same time. Our mobile tactics are
again adapted to the environment our students
will find themselves operating in; commercial
surveillance is very different to that conducted
by law enforcement and the military, we know
this first hand when they arrive at the school
on day one. Like we say to all of our students,
working in a 3 man team or above is very rare!
If they can complete the given tasks over
the period of the course, alone, and without
compromise, they have the making of a good
commercial surveillance operative.
CROPS: The course is open, although saying that, we do hold
the right to refuse individuals onto our courses if we believe
something is amiss; we are not reckless and happy to train just
anyone, we must be sensible.
Of late we are finding most of our students are from the
military resettlement scheme ELCAS or from overseas countries
who are wanting to learn from us, our commercial skills.
We are also training other closed communities in these
commercial tactics, which are very different, and in some cases
undetectable to regularly training individuals conducting a
counter role. Failing to understand the non-conventional tactics
we teach in the commercial world could enable the ‘unwanted’
to remain undetected!
Our ideal class size is 4 students with a maximum of 6,
this ensures our students receive the best quality instruction
throughout their time with us. We are not a factory churning out
hundreds of ill trained individuals into this arena every year. I
have heard of some providers running class sizes of 15 with only
2 instructors! Crazy, absolutely mind blowing when you consider
that, the student to instructor time must be non-existent.
I fully understand that a business is there to make money,
and a part of that is our aim too, but for us at CROPS, it’s about
our brand name and introducing quality trained individuals into
the arena, not crap!
PMCI: So Ben, tell me. After completing the course, and
should I have passed, is it recognised in the industry?
CROPS: YES. Students completing our course, and achieving a
pass will receive the Level 4 Award in Covert Urban Surveillance
Operations, our course is not just an attendance one, if students
fail to meet the grade, they fail the course.
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