Branch member, Steve Atkin recounts his experience of visiting Gimborn:

“At the start of 2015 I knew nothing about GImborn and little about the IPA generally. I joined on a whim years ago and was only a member because I didn’t get round to cancelling my membership. I received the magazine and read the articles and thought, ‘this is all very interesting but I’m not really sure what’s in it for me’. Ironically, this all changed as I was preparing to leave the job later that year. Following the pension changes and faced with uncertainty through collaboration and armed with a business idea, I notiiced an upcoming IPA conference on Cybercrime. At the time i responsible for organising cybercrime training for Cambridgeshire Constabulary and was seriously considering whether a video-led Cybercrime course might by the first venture my new business would create.

Not knowing what to expect, I contacted the IPA nationally and found that there were spaces and that, even if I was ‘ex-job’ by the time the trip applied, as a 7-year member, of course I was eligible to attend. So I booked on the spot.

And I was so pleased that I did. By the time August rolled round, I had been ‘out’ for 4 months. Arriving in Cologne airport, I shared a taxi with two of the key speakers and quickly realised that the other delegates would be a mixture of officers and former officers from across Europe. As we arrived down the slow curves out of the wooded hillside, the imposing Gimborn castle greeted us in the middle of a tiny hamlet.

Courses started after lunch and for the next few days, along with colleagues and ex-colleagues from Denmark, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Wales we were taken through a fascinating array of subjects and demonstrating including hacking, malware, the dark net and open source investigation. The atmosphere was lively and the questions insightful and well informed.

Socially, Gimborn is perfect. An ‘honesty’ cellar bar, complete with spears, coats of armour and numerous historical artefacts was the scene for lively conversation, card games and on the final evening a multinational singalong which I was plead to lead using an old, strapless accordion I found in the back of the bar. 50 predominently Danish and German cops singing ‘American Pie’ wasn’t something I expected to be part of a cyber course.

But this is the thing about IPA: the barriers between learning and socialising, networking and friendship, work and play are practically non-existant. I learned a lot and had a thoroughly fantastic time and as my work keeps me closely linked to the police and policing, I’m looking out for an opportunity to attend my next Gimborn seminar.”