Yello from NJB Day in Leeds!

Hey everybody!

Louisa and James here, reporting from National Junior Branch (NJB) Day in Leeds! (Yay, Leeds!)

With around 80 people here, it's been a very successful day so far, with lots of fun Disney games and piles of really healthy food..cough cough..the aim of NJB day is to get a load of juniors from all over the country together and a good old day of fun and frolics in one of our branches. It's fun for all the family! Along with all of the fun time activities, we try and get some good old education in there about a selected theme, very interesting stuff!

Our next activities are 18+ (31st October - 2nd November) and then SMILE (previously JB Training) on the 7th - 9th November which are going to be fantastic..get in touch at njr@gb.cisv.org for more information – you won't regret it!

Also coming up we have a Branch Development weekend and Year 7/8 mini-camp, but we'll tell you more about that later!

Keep busy kids,
Love

Lou and Jim

Junior NJR calling...

Evenin' all,

I'm James, the/your new Junior NJR for geebeejaybee, elected two weeks ago today. Yes, as Louisa said, I was actually in Congo when it happened, and yes I was the last to know about my own election, but when I did find out I was pretty damn happy - the picture you see is of the moment I got the news, on the side of a mountain by Lake Tanganyika!

For that, I'd like to thank firstly the wonderful NJBF, its truly an honour to be able to do this and it will be a real pleasure to work with you beautiful people over the next two years.

The other BIG thanks goes to Lizzie and Louisa, who worked out and arranged for me to take part in the election even from far away, and for that I am of course extremely grateful. Moreover, a massive thanks is due to Lizzie who I have seen has been phenomenal in the last two years - if I'm honest I'm even a little scared of her, and her massive dedication, innovation and huge spirit! Thanks a lot, and don't worry I'll leave you alone.

Not to say of course, that Louisa hasn't been great, and I'm very much looking forward to tee hee fun times. We had our first meeting today, and you'll be glad to know I'm getting on board steadily with what's going on, though there's still a lot to grasp. We covered quite a lot of ground in the meeting, but I reckon she'll be much better at filling you in on what's going on. I would also like to make it clear that I neither support nor discourage the continuation 'Joonz' in reference to Louisa, and remain neutral, neither using it but also not stopping others.

Lou made me mushroom soup with breadrolls which was surprisingly yum given it glooped out the TescoTin in one mmmm. She's got a lovely room (the biggest in the house of course, well done on that), and I'm now a bit jealous, as I'm about to move into college rooms with about 2000 rules... like boarding school, but slightly older children.

I hope to see you soon, at NJB day next Saturday in Leeds, or at one of the weekends - 18+, S.M.I.L.E.(JBtraining), Year 7/8, 9/10 or NJBF. Any details you need, please email us, njr@gb.cisv.org or james.pattinson@gb.cisv.org

Thanks for bearing with me,
James, Junior NJR Great Britain

The First GBJB NJR Blog post!

Hey!

So, after a quick discussion with the new LJR (Local Junior Representative) team, we (I) decided that it would be a nice idea to let everyone know what we get up to as NJRs on a weekly basis. The idea of this being that you would know who we are and try and "flatten" the pyramid system of leadership that we so often find in CISV, so everyone can feel comfortable talking to an NJR!

So, on that note I will introduce us!

For the year 2008 - 2009, the GBJB NJR team will be...

Louisa Wallbridge and James Pattinson!

Round of applause for James who is currently in the congo, and doesn't know he is NJR yet!

Hopefully in the future he will be a much bigger part of this blog and it won't just be me talking about what I ate for dinner. (n.b. pork chops with mustard - thanks mum)

So as you can see, we have a new NJR, this is because we just had our NJBF meeting in Manchester and elected our new team for the year. There will now be 10 out of a possible 14 males working in the GBJB team, which as one of the four females, is quite a frightening prospect.

NJBF was a really successful weekend, and Lizzie Walmsley, the NJR for 2006 - 2008 stepped down. Lizzie has been an absolutely fabulous senior to have and she's taught me a lot! She's made a huge difference to geebeejaybee the last two years and she will be sadly missed, and we hope that she comes and visits us from time to time!

We are all very excited about the prospect of NJB day in Leeds in a few weeks, where you can buy the lovely FAIRTRADE geebeejaybee merchandise! We are also very excited about the up and coming SMILE weekend, more information on the way about that!

And that's all for now, I'm off to the land of nod.
Have a good week!