The first JCI UK Marketing Academy was held this weekend in Barnsley at the Ardsley House Hotel. 

11 participants representing 8 chambers - half of the chambers in the UK - participated in a weekend packed with trainings and workshops delivered by JCI UK's own trainers.

The weekend startet with a session on JCI's brand and understanding its message. The participants went through JCI's vision and mission and redefined its content based on local actions on the ground. 

After having worked on what the message is, the participants learned various ways of delivering the message, from writing to blogs, the driving forces of social media, to an interactive workshop on Word of Mouth Marketing with JCI UK Training Team's Emma Eastwood. 

On Saturday night the participants made Barnsley dangerous celebrating the birthday of JCI Barnsley's President Vicky Savage until the early hours. 

Sunday morning the academy started at 9am with a concentration game to get the night owls back on track. We then looked at the echo effects of what we do online and search enging optimisation delivered by JCI UK Web Manager Sofie Sandell. This was accompanied by impressions of what google SEO web spiders would look like by participants (not to be mentioned by name).

We ended the academy with a working session moderated by Emma. Three groups worked on topics choosen by the groups - membership week in September, membership engagement and company promotions. The final presentations were brilliant and will lead to lots of actions both on local and national level in the months to come.