GB Chapter Development Weekend

Well well look here if it isn't an NJR writing on here within a week of the last one!

Why the excitement? Well, this weekend, James hopped along back up north to the GB development workshop, along with a bunch of other people from both Senior and Junior branch. It wasn't a JB weekend, but rather 2 days run by two lovely Swedish ladies, Eva and Ida, who helped CISV GB to evaluate ourselves, learn a lot, and reconsider how GB works, and how we should develop. It was very interesting, and thanks a lot to Ida and Eva, and also to all the others that helped make it happen (Laura!)

While it was targeted at CISV GB as a whole, which of course is important for us all, there were a few things that struck me particularly, and I thought were pretty applicable to GBJB. Through the weekend, we considered how we would like to grow, and came up with 4 possible 'goals' that we as GB may want to work towards:

1) To become a well structured transparent and trained organisation.
2) To develop a long term plan for increasing activities for different age groups, internationally, nationally and locally.
3) To develop a strong brand.
4) To have stable finances at all levels as a means of achieving growth.

I thought that maybe these were goals that we could apply to GBJB, so I hope we'll get the chance to consider these soon, at NJBF or whenever.

The other thing that sticks in my mind, is that in CISV Sweden, they now try to change their way of thinking about what they do, by asking themselves if everything they are doing is leading towards peace? I think this is interesting, and believe that maybe this way of thinking about what we do may help us be more productive and effective, as well as keeping us focused on our goals.

That's quite a lot of good but wordy stuff, so I'll leave you to think about that, and hope we have the chance to suss it out in person soon!

In other news, your NJRs both had quite heavy weeks last week, work and healthwise, but we're both better now, and hope you're well too! We're looking to get some merchandise rolling soon, maybe just maybe before christmas, and look forward to the upcoming weekends!

Inabizzle! James