Back home from JCI today

Back home from JCI today

Posted By admin |16 Feb 2013
Back home from JCI today

 

Events » Training courses » impact.jpgWhere do I start this evening in telling you about my JCI day! I've not long got home from Birmingham - having attended national JCI training-JCI Achieve and JCI Impact. That's the great thing about joining your local JCI chamber-you're joining a whole national and international membership.

I'll be honest with you-it was an early start and yes, I am late home but it was most definitely worth it. Just like the previous JCI Presenter course I attended, today's courses were of high quality and delivered by enthusiastic and knowledgeable JCI members. The JCI official training courses are worth JCI membership in themselves-for just £10 per month I can sign up to these great personal development opportunities for a very small fee or even in some cases, like today, free-as well as enjoying my local chamber's activities.

JCI's mission is 'to provide development opportunities that empower young people to create positive change'. My interests in community projects are not new -JCI Reading have been fundraising for Guide Dogs for the Blind for a year now - our aim being to raise £5,000 to sponsor a guide dog puppy. For a while though, i've been thinking about what comes next for me in JCI and how I can take my community skills further, become an active citizen in society and make a positive change in society in a way other than just purely fundraising.

Today I have learnt the essential processes to identify a problem in my local community free from my own perceptions, but based instead on fact, how to carry out a cause and needs assessment to get to the route of the problem and develop a project designed to specifically address the root cause of the problem, not purely the symptoms of it.

Do I yet know what JCI Reading's next project will be? No. My head is whirling round and round with ideas for possible community projects and my research has started with the purchase of a local newspaper and will continue at the next project meeting of JCI Reading - open to anyone interested in JCI Reading or even just in getting involved in such a community project.

The last thing to say is that it was great to meet up with JCI members from other parts of the country - London, Leeds, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Sheffield - old and new faces - I hope they all enjoyed the day as much as I did and all had safe journeys home!