Local projects in JCI UK

Here you can read more about our local projects. Be inspired! If you want to share what you have done in your local chamber please contact the website editor. 

JCI London - Go for it!

How can you practise your leadership skills and give something back to society at the same time? This is a question JCI London asked two years ago and started Go For It! as a response. Go For It! is a Saturday event when JCI London members spend the day with young people from East London teaching them CV writing and interview skills. In one-to-one sessions the JCI mentor and the young learner discuss the future and what options are available. 

East London is one of the most deprived areas in the UK, where 50% of all children are born into poverty and it is likely that no one in their family is or have ever been in employment. To meet young professionals from JCI on a Saturday sharing their knowledge is a great boost for them. The day is very inspiring for all participants, the young learners, JCI members and the sponsor the law firm Edwin Coe. 

This tradition started two years ago and hopefully will run many more.

JCI Southampton - the Prince's Trust Quiz

In order to support the Prince's Trust as part of a JCI UK campaign, JCI Southampton ran a very successful charity quiz. We felt this was a hugely worthwhile cause, especially when you consider that currently 1 in 5 young people in the UK are not in work, education or training. The event was held in a private section of a trendy bar in the centre of Southampton, and we were lucky enough to have BBC radio solvents Neil Sackley hosting, somewhat of a local celebrity.

Tickets were sold at £15 per person with team sizes of 3-8 people. For the price of their ticket people received a buffet meal, happy hour priced drinks all evening, and the chance to win some fantastic prizes, including paintball tickets, a hamper of M&S food, and a comically large winners trophy!

The event was a great success and raised just over £400 for the Princes Trust. Having learnt some lessons from how we ran things this year, I'm sure we will run similar events in the future.

JCI London Leadership Academy

In October JCI London organised a Leadership Academy for 20 upcoming leaders of the organisation. In addition to members from London, participants came from Reading and Glasgow.

The weekend focused on communicating leadership and branding yourself as a leader.

JCI trainers for the weekend were Simon Bucknall on personal branding, Oxana Andreeva on career development and Solveig Malvik on leadership and trainers outside JCI were Tony Friede and Joe Howard on creativity and leadership and status. The academy lasted from Friday night to Sunday afternoon and included an apprentice style challenge on Saturday and a gala dinner on Saturday evening with presentation of a Senatorship to National President 2010 Lesley Young.

JCI Boston - Mount Snowdon Climb

In July JCI Boston members stayed over in Snowdonia in a bunk house for a weekend of team-building. They travelled across the country to climb a mountain ... for fun. The route chosen was the Snowdon ranger which was a round trip of 7 miles, the summit stands at 1085 meters and this took 5 hours 40 minutes.

Not only was there a battle of the elements, rain and walking in cloud together with a spot of mud and rock climbing, it was also physically and mentally challenging. There is a real sense of achievement in climbing a mountain felt by all the members to this day. As you can imagine members suffered a range of aching body parts and blisters, but it was fun and well worth it.

JCI Barnsley - Motoring the female way!

JCI Barnsley, have this year, organised a series of training sessions in association with Barnsley College. The first of these events involved an introduction to motor mechanics. A successful turnout of mainly women and a token male, lucky to be surrounded by a group of wonderful ladies, were taught essential car maintenance.

The session consisted of information on how simple tasks carried out every week can help maintain your car and prevent damage and breakdowns, which could cost hundreds of pounds to repair. I must say that our teacher was not hopeful when the first question to be asked was "how do you open the bonnet?" and most of us looked at each other in a confused manner! Through the session we became more competent and learned some valuable skills that will help us in our fight to show men that we are capable of changing the oil just as well as they can. I must say however, I am not convinced by the dirt associated with such tasks, when offered plastic gloves I was truly tempted!

Debbie Tills demonstrated incredible strength when attempting to take off wheel nuts putting any man to shame, I know if I ever need a tyre changing she is the first person I am going to call! All in all the event taught us many important car maintenance related skills, although I am not sure I am ready to trade in my AA membership card just yet!

JCI Yorkshire - The Big Supper

The Big Supper is an excellent opportunity for members from across the Yorkshire region to get together to learn and share, and this year was no exception.

JCI Barnsley were this year's excellent hosts and made sure the evenings training was aimed at current members needs by asking them to vote on the topics for the sessions - the outcome being team building and ideas generation.
 
The evening started with informal networking, a chance for regional members to catch up over a jacket potato and the most wonderful spread of salad dishes (top nosh!!). 
 


The group was then split in two for the training. First up (for me!) making her Big Supper debut was Emma Eastwood, who delivered an excellent team building session around the work of Belbin and how a team needs a range of people with different skills to work together effectively.
 


There was also a really enjoyable second session run by our National Training Director, Dan Lally, which explored some hints and tips on how to generate ideas. I discovered some interested approaches that I will use in my own chamber and the girls' team (who won!!) also came up with an idea for a new regional event 'Come Dine with my Chamber...' so watch this space!


Overall a really fantastic event, well done JCI Barnsley for being super hosts.

JCI Barnsley - Bowlathon

Charity fundraising can be an arduous business. Bathing in baked beans and jumping from planes are among the depths many poor schleps will plumb in the name of a good cause. So it was with some trepidation that the brave souls of Barnsley devoted one Monday evening to a gruelling three-hour session of, erm, tenpin bowling for their chosen charity, Barnsley Riding for the Disabled Association!

Quite what the ever-so serious, professional league bowlers made of our 41-strong throng of rank amateurs taking over their patch remains unclear. 8 teams competed for the coveted title of JCI Barnsley Bowlathon Champion, but only 1 could be victorious. Members and non-members alike put in strong performances, but the Software Strikers came out on top, miles ahead of the rest.

The evening was a great success and raised £318, one of the biggest totals raised for a community event in JCI Barnsley history!

JCI Leeds - Business Lecture

Social Media was the subject of JCI Leed's annual business lecture this year headed "Making sense of a social networking world". The purpose of the event was to help the guests understand how they could utilise social media and also offer them an opportunity to network with each other.

The event was held at Leeds Metropolitan University's new business school "The Rose Bowl". The cost of the venue was sponsored by the business school itself.

Steve Parks, a former BBC radio journalist and member of JCI Leeds interviewed the panel of social media specialists which consisted of Dan Evans: Co-founder of V Social, Christine Morris: Founder of Apps and Hats, Will Kintish: Leading networking and LinkedIn training authority and Patrick Crane: Vice President of Marketing at LinkedIn who joined us from Silicon Valley via Skype.

Over 80 guests attended with the majority being non-JCI members. The event was a huge success both commercially and in terms of feedback with one guest saying it was the best JCI event they had ever been to!

JCI Doncaster - Coca-Cola Business Tour

On 13th May members and friends of JCI from all across the Yorkshire Region joined JCI Doncaster for their annual business tour. The tour took place at Coca-Cola Enterprises in Wakefield. Delegates were given the opportunity to see the production lines in action and get insight into the advanced technology systems used to aid Coca-Cola's lean production system and also information on their Corporate SocialResponsibility commitments.

The site in Wakefield, which is the largest soft drinks manufacturing plant in the world, also hosts one of Coca-Cola's 3 UK Education Centres. Here guests were given the chance to ask any questions and enjoy a few complimentary refreshments.

JCI London - MiniMBA

On 19 June, one of the key business events of 2010 -- the JCI London MiniMBA -- took place at The Yorkshire Grey in Gray's Inn, London. The successful event was attended by more than twenty attendees representing JCI Chambers in the South and even in Yorkshire.

Most of the speakers of the day came from Royal Holloway, University of London, speaking on topics from the secrets of doing an MBA, issues of international human resource and technology management, major incident contingency management in organisations to career coaching by JCI London's own Oxana Andreeva.

From one of the participants: "The training event far exceeded my expectations, as it made me reflect on my career goals and I even managed to refine my career strategies via the this event and speaking to the inspirational training providers, some of whom gave me 1:1 advice! I certainly did not expect to come away from the course with an improved 'action plan' for my career."

JCI Boston - Lincolnshire Police headquarters visit

In April JCI Boston were invited to visit the Lincolnshire Police headquarters in Nettleham. Members had the opportunity to drive on their skid pan to develop advance driving techniques and learn valuable, possibly life saving skills, as well as having an awful lot of fun.   The trainer also performed a J Turn (high speed reversing then a 180 turn) with members as passengers.

Members were also shown what happens in the communications room. In particular, how they deal with 999 calls and what happens to incidents which get reported. The technology used by the police was also demonstrated. The use to CCTV around town centres, data bases of confidential information and vehicle records.

JCI Reading - Go Ape !

Sunday 25th July 2010 saw members of JCI Reading swinging about (quite literally!) in the trees of Swinley Forest near Bracknell when they took on the challenge of Go Ape. This was a new experience for some, whilst others were more confident in throwing themselves out of trees without a care in the world! A great number of styles were witnessed in zip wire landings and scrambling up cargo nets, but it mattered not with everyone surviving the course, completing all obstacles and most importantly having a great deal of fun, ending the course in great spirits to collect their Go Ape certificates at the end of the course. The day saw members come together as a team to help each other out, encourage each other and work together to complete each obstacle. Video clips and photos are bound to surface somewhere!

JCI Bradford - New Member Evening

JCI Bradford has really turned a corner this year putting on some great events including most recently a new members evening which brought members together from the region and introduced new people to the organisation. The event was held in the world famous National Media Museum which is a fantastic venue. We impressed many people in the city and the regional support from JCI helped a great deal. Overall the event helped JCI Bradford raise it's profile and provided a great team building opportunity for members around the Yorkshire region.

JCI Sheffield - Brewing up a storm in Sheffield

JCI Sheffield welcomed 25 guests to the Kelham Island Brewery on 22nd July for a private brewery tour and tasting event. Members travelled from around the region to sample some of the award winning Sheffield ale and to hear more about Sheffield's first new independent brewery in the city this century.

JCI Sheffield President, Steven Vandevelde said, "Everyone had a fantastic time at the brewery which was launched by an entrepreneurial Sheffield Polytechnic lecturer turned publican, Dave Wickett. After the tour we sampled a selection of the ales in the original brewery building at Dave's pub The Fat Cat - well, it would have been rude not to!"