Blog

This weekend I have been with JCI Southampton for Presidents & Deputies Day and the first National Council of 2012. I was delighted to be asked to brief National Council on our recent success and share best practice ideas to help other UK chambers benefit. I had just 3 minutes to present just what we

 had been doing to find new members, so opted for visual pictures of our Twitter campaigns, our personal development launch and of course, my favourite, the 900% growth of new members from 2011 to 2012 statistic!! On a personal note I was very proud at the fantastic praise and feedback I received from the other chambers.

National Council saw the official voting in of 2012 Deputy National President Emma Eastwood. Emma is a Leeds member and past president and also an all round lovely person and I can't think of a better person to take on the role of Deputy National President this year and look forward to working with her this year. Well done Emma!!

This weekend was a very special one for the city of Southampton as their football team were promoted to the Premiership on Saturday and it was fantastic to see the city celebrating. Well done Saints!

It was also great to meet President of Southampton Chamber of Commerce, Peter Robertson who dropped in on our meal on Saturday night to welcome us all to Southampton and reiterate the importance of the relationship between the Chamber of Commerce and Junior Chamber International. Peter also highlighted the significance of the football team's promotion this weekend and how the injection of cash that the city will receive from this brilliant achievement is of huge importance.

I was accompanied on my weekend away by Piggers who had a fantastic time and features in all my photos, I'm not in any!!! Piggers took his first plane journey, took part in his first National Council and was well and truly welcomed into the JCI family. He advertised various brands over the weekend and was renamed a brand hog! He sampled wine, beer, cider and coffee and still managed to behave himself even when we were delayed at Southampton airport for an extra 2 hours awaiting our flight home! It was great to see the other Presidents also joining in creating photo opportunities for Piggers and he now had even more Twitter followers too!

On Sunday all local Presidts took part in the second Presidents training session of the year. This featured a very interesting and informative presentation about the history of JCI. Who knew we were created in St Louis and started out as a dancing club in the 1900s! From the past we then moved onto looking to the future of JCI and started brainstorming ideas to discuss at the Future Strategy meeting which is being held in Sheffield on 30^th June to 1^st July. Anyone interested in being part of this strategy meeting and helping to shape the future of JCI, please drop me an email.

Throughout the whole morning we were all constantly sharing our successes and failures with each other in an attempt to share best practice, from how to market events, to finding new members and how to support each other as Presidents when the pressure is on to lead the way even when sometimes you aren't sure of the way yourself!

I have to say I found this weekend invaluable to my development as a President and also

 personally. Having a room full of likeminded individuals, all in the same boat to offer support and advice for me, is just what these weekends should be about. 2012 is showing JCI UK we have a cracking bunch of people running our chambers, willing to give their all to help their communities develop and grow and I am so very proud to be part of it.

After the delayed flight finally landed back in Leeds Bradford, I arrived home at 11pm on Sunday night, tired and weary but still determined to keep right on to the end of my JCI road, whether that be in a couple of months when I eventually relocate back to my home town of Birmingham or in 8 years time when I reach 40! I have well and truly been bitten by the JCI bug and to be honest, I quite like it ;o)

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It's been fantastic to see Barnsley Chronicle supporting JCI Barnsley in the past few weeks by featuring an article about our personal development launch on 15th March and also the launch of our community project, Barnsley's Hidden Heroes.

We're working hard with the local media to raise our profile this year and if this is anything to go by, we can look forward to regular press coverage!

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Well here I am again reflecting on month 2 of my presidential year and so much has already happened! If I thought January was busy, February has been a whirlwind but there is nothing more exciting than channelling passion and enthusiasm into JCI Barnsley. Our council meetings are growing in size each week, not only on the agenda but around the table with members and potential members coming to learn about us. We are also receiving very positive feedback from patrons and businesses who are following us on Twitter and LinkedIn so that is making me very happy and spurs me on.

I am also delighted and proud of the enthusiasm and involvement that our new members are having. Charlie Pearson is leading this year's Community project, Barnsley's Hidden Heroes and Oli Hyde is putting together videos of various events throughout the year to add to our website, and to act as more tools to help publicise just what JCI is.

Ian Bragger has also agreed to take on the role of Finance Director after only 5 months as a JCI member (He is an accountant after all!!). He is taking over the reins from Debbie Tills who has done an outstanding job of looking after the finances for the past 3 years and I want to say a huge thank you from all at JCI Barnsley to Debbie and a warm welcome to Ian joining us on the council team. I hope this demonstrates to those of you reading this Banter just what JCI can offer to help you develop your skills and experience.

This month the team have been building relationships with the local media, businesses and Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce. We have also been conducting an assault on the people of Barnsley via Twitter & Facebook!! I defy anyone between the ages of 20 and 40 to say they have not heard of us by December 2012. Join us on Twitter or our new fan page on Facebook to see just what we are up to.

Looking to the month ahead, the focus of March will be on 2 aspects; membership & training. We have 3 potential members ready to sign up so I look forward to announcing their arrival in next month's Banter and also a new Patron! March is an important month also as our personal development calendar kicks off. We have had 30 people reserve their place already for our Personal Development launch on March 15th. This was further publicised by Barnsley Chronicle featured a piece about our launch night and events programme as well as mentioning our great membership increase so far this year in their edition on 24th February. If you haven't reserved your place, Don't miss out, get on our Eventbrite page and reserve now, IT'S FREE!!

Roll on March, it's going to be a corker!!

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The start to 2012 has been hectic but a brilliant start to our 60th year. We've had 4 new members join, a 200% new member increase on 2011!! I've been to Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce representative meeting telling local businesses all about JCI Barnsley and what we can offer to their staff and friends. We've also made a great connection with the Digital Media Centre in Barnsley, where one of our newest members comes from and I'm really looking forward to working with them over the coming months.

We've finalised our personal development programme for the year and have secured some fantastic trainers to help develop our members skill base. You can expect to receive training on goal setting, top 10 tips for confidence, what is networking?, how to market yourself, what is CSR?, how to make your life "lean" and presenting skills! We're particularly looking forward to welcoming Kate Senter, James Alcock and Dan Senter, JCI Sheffield members who are JCI trainers at the very start of their JCI training lives.

We've also been gathering ideas for our social events and these will include bowling, self defence training, an Easter themed event, clay pigeon shooting and fencing! Plus there will be the usual pub get togethers, meals out and the pub/quiz crawl in the summer. Never let it be said JCI Barnsley are not a social bunch!

2012 is all about spreading the JCI Barnsley word, raising our profile in the area and building a better person for the future. We'll be highly active on Twitter (jci_barnsley), Linkedin and Facebook this year so if you are using any of these social media sites, please connect with us. We've even created a new Facebook page so please come over and have a look, "like" us and share with all your friends.

I couldn't have wished for a better start to the year, I have a feeling the rest of the year is going to be just as good! 45 members left to find to hit our 60 target for the year!!!

Miss it, Miss out!!

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Read all about President, Kirstie Barnett's plans for 2012!

Socials

Regular social events will be introduced on the first Thursday of every month. Ideas so far include clay pigeon shooting, Old No 7 beer festival, fencing & self defence lessons, annual summer pub train crawl and an Easter themed event! Any other ideas please let us know and we'll see what we can do!

Personal Development

Introduce a regular training session, third Thursday of every month starting in April covering a variety of topics including setting objectives and having a positive mindset, top 10 tips on confidence, how to network, public speaking and many more

Business Tours

We have already arranged a business tour of Acorn Brewery in Wombwell for Thursday 23rd February. We are just confirming the arrangements but the plan will be to have a tour and talk about the brewery at 7pm and then move into the Old No7 pub which the brewery owns in the town centre for a bit of sampling! Anyone interested in reserving a place should email jcibarnsley@hotmail.co.uk as soon as possible as places will be limited.

If anyone has any other local businesses they think would make an interesting business tour, please let us know and we'll see if we can make it happen.

PR & Marketing

We want to raise the profile of JCI Barnsley throughout the town, using various methods and means. We are developing strong links with the University of Huddersfield Barnsley Campus to work with their students to help prepare and support them when they eventually leave university and step into the world of working.

Membership

We have set a target of having 60 members by the end of 2012 so the PR and marketing is going to be key to developing this.

Fundraising and Community Work

Our chosen charity for 2012 is Help for Heroes. On the 9th November 2011 Private Matthew Thornton sadly lost his life in a conflict in Helmand. He was out on patrol at a checkpoint when he and his fellow compatriots were attacked and Private Thornton was caught in a road side IED explosion and unfortunately lost his life.

Private Thornton was a member of the 4th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment and just 28 years old when his life was cut short. On the day of his funeral in late November the streets of Darton in Barnsley were lined with hundreds of locals paying their respects.
Private Thornton's family have set out to raise £100,000 for Help for Heroes, the charity which provides practical support for our injured servicemen and women.

I know with the support of our members and the local community we can pull together to be able to look back this time next year and feel proud that we did our little bit to support the Thornton family and Help for Heroes.

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New Website

We are pleased to annnounce our new website is complete and all the content has been uploaded to it. The new style website will be available from Friday 18th November. You can expect lots of blogging from the members on all the events across the region we attend, and further afield. It also allows us to showcase patrons logos prominently on the front page and also the charities we are supporting.

Feedback on the new website would be gratefully received by clicking this link jcibarnsley@hotmail.co.uk

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Presidents Roundup!
Brrrr.... Winter is here and dare I say the word Christmas! Before then JCI Barnsley have lots of exciting events for you to attend. Firstly we are celebrating the success from the recent JCI Yorkshire Regional Awards where Deputy President Kirstie Barnett won a Certificate of Merit for "Most Outstanding New Member" and we also won "Most Outstanding Contribution by a chamber to the region". JCI Barnsley would like to say a big congratulations to all the winners and we look forward to the JCI UK National Awards which are held during the JCI UK National Convention on Friday 25th November. Bookings are still being taken so don't miss out on what is sure to be an amazing weekend!

http://www.eventelephant.com/thejciuknationalconvention2011

JCI Barnsley are rounding off the year with a brilliant social/community event which has proven very popular. The chocolate tasting session at the Holiday Inn Barnsley on Wednesday 23rd November is now fully booked but we do have a reserve list running at the moment.. We are raising funds for our chosen charity BIADS but also we are collecting for their Christmas Cares appeal so if you can spare a tin of biscuits or chocolates please bring along to this event.

Hopefully we've provided you lots of exciting and interesting events to come and attend and also remember please send any suggestions of events you would like to see on our calendar.

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