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JCI TOYP 2010 Honouree, Sabirul Islam, still only 21, has launched his second book titled ‘Young Entrepreneur World.'

Young Entrepreneur World contains interviews with 25 of the world's most influential young entrepreneurs, youth activists and changemakers with a vision to create positive change, all of whom are under the age of 25! Their interviews deliver empowering messages on a personal, business and political scale. The book shares their success stories and how they got to where they are today. It also challenges the unwanted statement of whether today's youth are a lost generation.

Never before has the voice of youth been as powerful and as meaningful as it is today. From witnessing the London Riots all the way to the Arab Spring. The future rests up on young people coming together, making a statement and creating a better way of life for themselves. Rather than solely rely on decisions made by a generation of leaders whose policies and ideologies do not fully reflect the true need of today's youth.

The Young Entrepreneur World provides a global insight as to the beliefs of today's youth, we stand united when we say "NO to oppression, YES to freedom, No to corruption and bad policy and YES to transparency and opportunity.
The leaders profiled come from all over the world. Europe, the US, Asia and Australia and started their journeys from their teenage years. This book will challenge and inspire young people across the world to break out of their comfort zone and create a successful and fulfilling future for themselves.

The book has already grasped the African Market, with the book already selling over 10,000 copies in its first week of launch in Africa since February 15th 2012.

With an incredible year ahead, where Sabirul is on a journey to Inspire 1 Million young people, he will be touring Swaziland, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, The Maldives and South Africa all before the summer of 2012.

Sabirul says; "2012 will by far be the most empowering year of my life. The past 6 or 7 years have been incredible and now my focus lies up on transforming the lives of youth globally, and sharing with them the belief that today's youth do in fact have what it takes to be successful."

The book is now available in all book stores across the UK and you can buy it online on Amazon.

Sabirul Islam, 21: A teen-trepreneur from the age of just 14, a global motivational speaker having spoken at over 600 events worldwide and author of the bestselling books The World at Your Feet and Young Entrepreneur World.

With Sabirul becoming a junior trader at 16 and his inspiring books selling over 60,000 copies to date. Sabirul launched his Teen-Trepreneur board game at 18, to educate young people about business, which has sold to over 550 schools in the UK and in 14 countries worldwide.

By 20, Sabirul set up Teen-Speakers; a speaker's bureau consisting of 38 of the world's most successful and influential young people, all under 25 striving to empower youth worldwide with a message that ‘Generation Y' has what it takes to be successful.

Now aged 21, Sabirul's vision to inspire young people has expanded to a global scale, having set up the Inspire1Million Campaign with a vision to Inspire one Million people in 20 countries within 12 months. So far Sabirul has delivered the campaign across Europe, The Maldives, Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Japan with further tours lined up in 2012 across Africa, Asia and South America.

Sabirul's passion is to inspire millions of young people around the world that everyone has the abilities to be extraordinary.

Website: www.sabirulislam.com 

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Ever since I joined JCI last year I have been looking forward to attending the marketing academy. I may work in marketing in my career, but I believe that it is one of those industry's that you can never know it all and there is always something to learn. The event finally came round and I was so excited to attend, I had sent my questionnaire answers back to Claire and picked out my marketing examples that I would present to everyone on the first day.

I arrived at the event after a little bit of drama on the road, but once I had a coffee in hand and had settled into my place I felt the happiness and positivity that I always get when attending a JCI event. We started with introductions around the room and followed with the presentation of the marketing materials that we had each brought along with us. Mine consisted of the powerhouse brand that is Tiffany's where you do not even need to see a logo, you can just recognise them with their brand colour. I also showed a few other articles from premium US brands that I have been impressed by, along with the mighty Virgin Media new ad campaign.

Our first session covered PR and was brought to us by the wonderfully enthusiastic Kate Senter. This session definitely set the scene and the mood for the rest of the weekend! We learnt about how to structure and write a press release, along with how to distribute it to the relevant contacts and media organisations. The next session of the day was with the fantastic multi-media business Oxyfire, who we are lucky enough to have locally. Their session was very interactive and taught us how to produce short promotional clips, along with all the tips and hints that you may ever need to know. We definitely learnt some interesting facts about our team and had a lot of fun!

Once we had tucked into the lovely lunch that had been put on by the Holiday Inn Express we were treated to a really fun energizer session with Sandra, which definitely woke us back up and prepared us for the afternoon ahead. The afternoon started with a session on branding with Claire and left me feeling secure in the knowledge that I am not the only one that feels so strongly about brand consistency and how it can be effectively used to make any company successful and respected in their relevant sector. This session was followed by a really fun and interactive session on stakeholder management with Lisa Price and saw us selecting our team by choosing a smartie from the colourful  array on each of our tables. It was definitely a great learning experience for everyone in the room and got everyone thinking about how they could take back the principals and processes to their local chambers!

The day was brought to a close with us being split into our teams for the Sunday presentation and I was to be part of 'Little Town', which was a chamber looking to increase their membership. We carried out our brainstorming in the final hour and started to put together a structure for our presentation. We then bid farewell to each other for the evening and pressed pause awaiting day two.

It was not long until we were back in the room at the Holiday Inn Express and beginning our second day! This started with a fantastic talk on social media by Kym Hall. I had met Kym with Kate at a local event the month before and realised that she had to be at our marketing academy! She definitely proved how social media can be used to make your business successful and be seen on a global scale. I think she definitely converted the suspicious social media attendees in the room and showed them how easy and cost effectively it could be done. Who would have thought that there would be so much energy and enthusiasm at that time on a Sunday morning!

We were then introduced to the JCI website platform by Solveig which was definitely useful for not only the marketing committee members but any JCI member. It helped anyone with little or no website experience to really find out how current websites are edited and maintained. This was definitely useful as there were a lot of questions and best practices shared between the group.

Our final session of the program was brought to us by Kate and taught us how to monitor and manage our marketing activity. It was a fantastic program and allowed the whole group to have a "round the table" discussion and share our experience and ideas. I think that sometimes companies believe that this cannot be done and make it much more difficult than it really needs to be. However I think that this session reassured everyone in the room that it is a lot easier than it used to be and should definitely be followed in their own role/chamber.

It was then time to move back into our groups and complete our presentation. My team found that even though it sounded like we had plenty of time to prepare for the task in-hand, that we still worked to the wire. It was such a fantastic end to the weekend to see everyone presenting their marketing plans and campaigns and it really showed how far everyone had come.

Once the presentations were complete it was time to graduate and we were presented with our certificates by Claire, Kate and Solveig. I think everyone felt such a fantastic sense of achievement and could go away and put into practice all of the wonderful skills that they had learnt.

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Have you ever been to Romania? I hadn't before last Wednesday, but this is exactly where I have spent the best part of the last week, attending the JCI European Presidents Meeting (EPM) in the city of Sibiu, Romania.

The EPM takes place at the beginning of each year and brings together national presidents and deputies along with the JCI World President and his 'senior team' that support the national organisations all across Europe! The main purpose of this meeting is to share information, new initiatives, build relations and identify solutions to our challenges through a mix of interactive workshops and presentations.

I was very fortunate to be invited to attend the EPM with National President Solveig Malvik in order to present the JCI UK Marketing Academy and the JCI Sheffield mobile app, for which a proposal has been submitted by the local chamber to Head Quarters and which is currently being considered for international roll out.By coincidence, I happened to bump into President Bertolt on the final leg of the long journey to Sibiu so had the opportunity to start my work early! Upon arrival to Sibiu we were greeted by Mihaela Liliana Stroe, JCI Romania National President 2011, who worked tirelessly throughout the week to make sure everyone had a special experience!

In true JCI style, the days were extremely intense with presentations and interactive workshops taking place from early until late! Equally, in true JCI style the local team ensured that all of the delegates had a memorable experience by laying on activities such as Romanian culture night featuring local cuisine and entertainment and a trip to the theatre to see a spectacular show about Romanian history - a truly memorable evening!

Personally, to have the opportunity to work alongside other national presidents from across Europe as well as the JCI Europe 'management team' gave me a valuable and unique insight into how our organisation operates at this national/European level. I took part in numerous workshops including a PR and Media Masterclass, knowledge share workshops, strategic forums and even an international CSR conference! I also had the opportunity to present JCI UK projects to 70 JCI leaders from across Europe, including the world president!! A really fantastic opportunity!

One of the stand out activities however has to be the few hours we spent volunteering at a Romanian orphanage - we really did put our passion into action! Nearly 60 of us grabbed mops, brooms, cloths and shovels to give a little TLC to this centre - even President Bertolt led by example by cleaning out the kitchens with representatives from Cyprus, Turkey, Italy and Ireland!

Another 'typical' JCI experience was having the opportunity to catch up with some old friends whilst also making some great new ones! For me, this is always a highlight of any international JCI adventure and this time didn't disappoint! Needless to say I will look forward to seeing everyone again at the European Conference in Braunschweig in June!

All that remains to be said is how completely honoured and privileged I was to represent JCI UK at the EPM but above all, I was extremely proud! JCI UK has a superb reputation at an international level and it's great to know that with all of the activity that is planned for this year, across all the chambers, we can look forward to taking this to the next level in 2012!

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It has been a very busy few weeks for personal development in JCI UK.  Please see below for updates on things that I have been working on! 

JCI Presenter
The JCI Presenter course in London on 4th February was fully booked and was a roaring success.  The next course is in Sheffield on 3rd March and there are only a few places left.  These courses are great for improving your confidence and ability when it comes to presentation and public speaking so please let me know if you are interested. 

JCI Trainer
As I mentioned at Inspiration Day I have been trying to organise a JCI Trainer course for May of this year.  Unfortunately I have had to put this back until the end of July due to some exciting changes in the course content that are being introduced. The aim of the JCI Training commission is an improved course and a more consistent level of training. 

If you want to take part earlier that the end of July then JCI Trainer will be delivered at European Conference in June and there are also 7 courses in Europe (Finland, Switzerland and Lithuania) over the next few months.  Having had the opportunity to take part in courses in other countries I can thoroughly recommend it.  It is fantastic to work with a variety of people and to find out what they are doing in their local organisations.  Please see the attached photograph of me and the graduates of JCI Designer from European Conference 2011 in Tarragona.

JCI Achieve
The next JCI Achieve is booked for 5th May in London.  This is a course designed to help our local organisations to be better and to focus on the vision and mission of JCI.  I graduated from Achieve in December and found it to be really inspiring.  I left with lots of exciting ideas and plans so please let me know if you want to attend in May.

Other JCI Courses
JCI UK is also in talks with our Irish and Scottish colleagues to try and organise a weekend of training to include JCI CSR, JCI Admin and JCI Networking so watch out for more information.

Trainer Day
I am organising a trainer day on the 20th May in Cambridge after their Business Skills day. This is aimed at members that have graduated from JCI Trainer to help them start to improve their skills and work on course ideas.  I also plan to organise a second date for later in the year and there is a possibility of a joint event with Scotland.

European Academy
This is a 5 day leadership training academy that will run in August in Gothenburg Sweden.  The week is designed to teach deputy local presidents some of the skills that they will need in their year as president and also to create a support network. 

I was lucky enough to graduate from EA in 2008 and to return as part of the training team in 2010.  These two weeks are some of my best JCI times ever so if you are a deputy local president or considering putting yourself forward as deputy then please apply.  For more information please can you contact me on e.eastwood@cityliving.co.uk 

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Since taking the step to join national board I have been really looking forward to working with my co-director, Kate Senter, to organise the 2012 JCI UK Marketing Academy. As part of our commitment to raising the profile of JCI UK we have spent the last three months organising a jam packed weekend. To say we were excited was an understatement!

The 19 delegates at this year's academy had a really broad knowledge of knowledge of marketing which created a fantastic opportunity for members to come together to learn and share our combined experience and knowledge of marketing. This can benefit each of us as individuals, our local chambers and the organisations we work for.

The training sessions covered by Kate, Claire and Lisa Price (2009 President, JCI Sheffield) included PR, branding, stakeholder engagement, the marketing mix and measuring our successes. We were also lucky to have local multi-media business, Oxyfire, and social media guru Kym Hall, from iheartbusiness, to join us to share their insights into their areas of specialism.

Oxyfire delivered a fun and interactive session on how to produce short promotional clips for use online and it was great to see members practising interviewing each other and filming at the same time.

Kym Hall has the most amount of energy I think I have ever seen, certainly for 9:00am on a Sunday morning! She delivered a whistle stop tour of her amazing journey to setting up her international social media company, giving members lots of hints and tips along the way.

So what did the delegates really think? When I got home on Sunday evening nervously read all the feedback forms but I think some of the comments we received speak for themselves really:

"It was really amazing. I really enjoyed it and learnt a lot that I can use in the chamber and in my life. Thank you very much Kate and Claire."

"Really well done, very organised, great content and tasks. Lots of passion from Kate and Claire (and advanced knowledge of the subject)."

"As a new member I was made to feel really welcome - thanks!"

 "I have really enjoyed the academy, lots of ideas to take back to my chamber."

WOW - we were blown away! Thank you to the 19 graduates and all the trainers who made such a fantastic contribution to the weekend.

Claire Evans
Communications Director, JCI UK

PS - We've already been asked if we would consider delivering the academy again in the south, something we are really excited about. If you would be interested in attending the JCI UK Marketing Academy then add a comment to this blog to help us to get the ball rolling.

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The Presidential recognition award "Make a difference" for January goes to Sandra Pilarczyk, 2012 President JCI Sheffield.

Sandra has gone above and beyond for JCI UK in January helping us find a great (and cheap) venue for Inspiration Day which again helped us kick start JCI Birmingham, Sandra organised a brilliant World President visit in Sheffield, motivated a record number of members to take their Friday night off from the club and the pub and also found us a great deal for a hotel in London for the WP, an item that has traditionally been very expensive.

Thank you Sandra! You made a difference in 2012!

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...and I don't mean myself ;)

JCI UK recently had the honour of hosting the 2012 JCI World President, Mr Bertolt Daems, from the Netherlands, 9-10 February 2012.

Among other we took the President to meet youth in Stratford, London, who proudly claimed "JCI changed my life!", to meet the Deputy Director of the Commonwealth Foundation, meet members both in London and Sheffield, help distribute donated duvets and pillows to a shelter project in Sheffield and even go on a morning run (or walk) with the JCI Sheffield Running for Nets team.

Hosting a JCI President (that's their real title, I am the "JCI UK President", the World President is simply the "JCI President") is always fun. Its also always a lot of work. But in the end, it is always a great experience and an honour.

As the National President I was expected to be the host and to accompany the President on his travels across the UK. So in addition to all the events and meetings it is also an opportunity for two people to get to know each other and (hopefully) get comfortable with each other.

I am personally very interested in the process of people getting to know each other, of people becoming friends. The President had no choice but to spend the two days with me, and so we better get comfortable, quick. 

As you can see in the picture, we made friends and I must testify that the President is an incredibly inspiring person. I think that all the members who heard the President speak will agree with me. President Bertolt has true passion behind what he does, he has brilliant ideas for where the organisation should go and the impact it needs to make in its local communities in order to make a difference, and he also listens to members and is willing to spend time understanding what they are doing on the ground.

There are some blog posts coming about what the President did while in the UK, so I am not going to spoil the surprise. I personally got to spend two days with an amazing person and I am both happy that I got this opportunity and sad that it went a tiny bit too fast.

Yours,

Solveig Malvik
2012 JCI UK National President
Senator #70867

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