CISV Great Britain NJR Blog

JB Board Blogging #1

2011-09-06T17:59:00.000-07:00

After our new elections, we have officially had our first meeting! We planned for the year and decided to let you all know about what's happening in GBJB in the next couple of months!

If you are interesting in anything, contact jb.board@gb.cisv.org

Love,

GB JB board!

2011 so far...

2011-03-17T18:08:00.000-07:00

Hey team,

Sorry it has been a while... we wanted to wait until we could show you our lovely faces again!

Watch and learn my friends!

Your loving JB Board,

Jess, Rich, Charlie and Ryan

2010 is nearly over... bring on 2011!

2010-12-26T14:54:00.000-08:00

So highlights:

17plus was ace!
Wild West Weekend and EJBM application deadline is the 1st of January
7/8 is almost here - 28-30/1/11
Se7en is coming up on the 4-6/2/11
9/10 is the last weekend of the year 11-13/3/11

Get on it - email jb.board@gb.cisv.org for more info and letters!

Hope to see you soon,

Jess, Ryan, Charlie and Rich

Your JB Board

Autumn News

2010-10-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

This is the first ever blog from the JB Board!

Before we talk about that let’s talk about what has been before – James Pattinson. A huge thanks and congrats go to him for a wonderful term as NJR but hey let’s not go on… he knows he was fab!

At September NJBF a brand new JB Board was elected to take the place of the usual two NJR system. This year is a trial year… no pressure guys… to see if we will continue to use this system. So (drum roll) the new JB Board is Ryan Baum (NJR), Rich Salter (NJC), Charlie Mcfarlane (NJC) and Jess Wanless (NJR). Already we have had lots of good planning and lots of good fun so bring on the next 10 months!

So there was so much more that went on at NJBF this year than just the election – see JBPedia! It was also the biggest NJBF ever with 37 people in attendance.

NJB Day happened in Newcastle on the 2^nd of October. Lots of superheroes and jelly-based fun was had by all and we also played some football matches in the name of Peace One Day! Anyone else who has any peace day football photos please send them to njr@gb.cisv.org and we will make sure they are sent off for the brilliant video that Jeremy Gilley (the founder of Peace One Day) has promised to make us!

On the 10^th of October LJR training took place in Jess’ house! 6 of the LJRs, along with 3 of the JB board, were there having a brilliant time. The most exciting thing we did was decide some monthly themes! These will be used throughout GBJB including at local JB meetings and at minicamps. Find more details on JBPedia.

The next event coming up is JB Training from the 29-31^st of October at Scammonden. Places are going fast so get your letters in ASAP.

Where can I find a letter I hear you cry! Become a member of the googlegroup (http://groups.google.com/group/cisvgbjb) and there you will find all of the important documents including the letters for JB Training.

The next event after that is the 3^rd ever 17 plus weekend. Taking place just outside of Leeds from the 26^th – 28^th of November this event is already nearly sold out! The theme is ‘Big Brother’… come and find out! Sign up online… find the link here: http://www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki/index.php/JB_GB_17_Plus

An amazing project that GBJB is currently working on is a National Youth Meeting including a Mosaic project! This will be from the 22-29^th of August 2011 at Curly Hill. Each Chapter will have a delegation of 6 and delegates must be aged 12/13. There will also be opportunities to be ‘JC’ (aged 17) and a leader (aged 19+). For more info email njr@gb.cisv.org.

Finally we are looking for articles for our Newsletter, to be released mid-November. Contact Jo at secretary@gb.cisv.org if you are interested.

Thanks for making it to the end of our very long blog, and we promise to update you sooner next time!

Jess, Ryan, Charlie and Rich

IJBC/AIM 2010

2010-08-19T10:39:00.000-07:00

Greetings all!

9 days ago, Helen Scott, Laura Green, Nic Hargreaves and ourselves the NJRs emerged from the lush lawns in the outskirts of Berlin where the Annual International Meeting (AIM) of CISV had taken place. Right before that, from 31 July to 4 August, a record delegation of 7 (Helen, Rich Salter, Will Sebag-Montefiore, Jo Hobson, Phoebe Juggins and the NJRs) attended the Interntional Junior Branch Conference (IJBC).

IJBC is where about 90 juniors from all over the world meet to share what they’ve been up to, get to grips with new themes and ideas, and start cool new projects, as well as have a whole load of fun. This year, three things that we thought were the most important were the new foundations for 2011, a cool way to think about not just what we do, but why we do it, and the International Junior Representative elections, where Mateo Vélez Rosiers from Colombia was elected. To find out more about these cool things, come to NJBF the first weekend of September.

At AIM, where the representatives of each country, called trustees (for GB, Nic Hargreaves), sit in a big square circle and discuss what we’re up to as an organisation, and make decisions on the direction we’re heading. One of these decisions was particularly important for Junior Branch across the world, as we reviewed our IJR election process, so that now the IJR election will take place during IJBC rather than AIM. This AIM was also special because there were elections for the new International Executive Committee (IEC), who are 5 people that coordinate CISV through the year (including CISV’s President, Vice, and 3 Executive Trustees). One really great thing for Great Britain is that Laura Green (ex-NJR and ex-trustee) was elected as one of the executive trustees – we’re very proud of her.

In other news, if you’re 16 or over in September, we’ll see you at NJBF (3-5^th September – you better get your forms in quick!). You can expect an epic weekend that we’ve nearly finished planning, and it’s shaping up to be one not to miss (Insert link for forms)

Launching at NJBF this year will be our brand new, get-your-hands-on-them-right-now hoodie, and we will be collectively making a cool piece of Peace One Day merchandise.

Dates for your diary:

NJBF 3^rd-5^th September, Leeds
Peace One Day, 21^st September, The World
NJB Day, 2^nd October, Newcastle
LJR Training, 10^th October, Leeds
S.M.I.L.E. (JB Training), 29^th-31^st October, Scammonden
17+, 26^th-28^th November, Leeds

Hope to see you soon!

JesseJames

NJRs Update

2010-04-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

What up everyone!

Get a bit of this new video from your beautiful NJRs (even if we say so ourselves)!

Love,

JesseJames

We went straight to the Wild Wild West!

2010-03-07T23:16:00.000-08:00

Yeeha guys!

So we've just come home from running the very first Wild West Weekend! For those of you who don't know it was a neighbourhood weekend, and our neighbourhood is the Wild West of Europe, which includes GB, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Spain, and Portugal.

We had over 60 juniors from around the neighbourhood all crammed into beautiful Bramhope. If you want to know more check out the JBPedia page to some of the guys from GBJB who attended, but for now, you can check out a brief (and entirely serious) summary video from our GBJB participants (see below)!

A special thanks goes to Tom, Hope, Phoebe, Helen, Isaac and Ryan who were the home staff for the weekend and did a seriously amazing job looking after a weekend bigger and longer than any we've ever done before in GB.

In other news we now have more fairtrade 'IheartGBJB' tshirts in stock! They are still only £12 and are selling fast so get your order in ASAP! If you would like to purchase one email us at njr@gb.cisv.org with the size that you would like or they will be available if you are attending Leadership Training at the end of March or the Regional Training Forum in April.

We are also looking into ordering hoodies with the same design so keep your eyes peeled for them.

Also get excited about some fundraising/social activities in the pipelines, and ready yourselves to get stuck in to support more of our juniors to get to exciting international meetings so they can get good so GBJB gets good!

You'll catch us next, if not at Leaders Training, then at EJBM the beginning of next month - we're very very excited, and this year looks to be a particularly exciting one for GB!

Wild western love!
James & Jess

2010 here we come...

2009-12-29T07:42:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year (in 2 days)!!!

We hope you had a nice Christmas and have some kind of plan for New Year - we're still looking!

Looking forward we have a very exciting year lined up! Firstly, if you have 2 good things, how can you make it better? Put them together to get a doubly good thing! Which is what we have done with the Year 7/8 and the Year 9/10 minicamp that this year are both at the same site - still technically different, and in different buildings, but same place same time! What fun! The staff teams are cooking up great plans and fun, and we look forward to seeing lots of people there at the end of January (29-31st). If you want to come, but not yet sent off your letter, get on it now! Only a few places left!

Who's looking forward to NJBF in February? A couple weeks after 78910, we have the EVOLVED version of NJBF, which is JB Development, in conjunction with the GB Chapter Development Workshop. The first letter has just gone out, and we're very excited about this new venture. The JB Development part is Friday 12th at 7pm to Saturday morning at 11am, then the Chapter Development takes over until Sunday 14th at 3pm. Get your letters in now (look on the googlegroup for them).

That leaves us on the run-up to the Wild West Weekend! Thanks to everyone who applied, it's shaping up to be one of the most exciting events of the year. If you didn't get a place, hold on until next year.

Last bit of exciting news, our Fairtrade T-shirts are back, still for an awesome £12! Check out how cool they are! To get your hands on one, just email us your Names, Chapter, Size, Contact deets (Phone/Email) and you can pick it up at our weekends, or we'll sort something out. Feeling fancy? Throw in our cotton bag for a knock-down £3 when you buy a t-shirt! What's next I hear you cry... well, a clue for now, starts with 'H' and ends in 'oodie'...

And what about us, dear old Jess & James. Well, Jess has decided to climb Kilimanjaro next September, how cool - help her out by going to her fundraising events and stuff. James is about to go skiing for the first time, so should be a bruise-ful experience, seeing as he struggles to walk in the first place. And what did we get for Christmas? Both got socks, what does that say about us? Watch out though, James ALSO got a mini-battery-powered-megaphone coming to a weekend near you!

Much NJR love,

Jess & James

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2009-12-24T05:53:00.000-08:00

Wishing all GeeBeeJayBee-ers

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Much love and lots of excitement for 2010,

JessieJames

Busy Busy GeeBees

2009-11-25T06:55:00.000-08:00

Hey GeeBeeJayBee-ers!

So we have had a couple of pretty hectic weeks with 17plus and SMILE(JB training). Firstly we'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped us staff the weekends- we couldn't do it without you! Secondly thanks to those of you who came! We hope you laughed/learnt/loved the weekends as much as we did. It was great to see about 50 of you over the two weekends!
This weekend Jess also took the Saturday off SMILE to attend the second national council of the year, naturally lots of fun was had as ever. This meeting was important for you guys as it's where all the 16 plus activities are allocated - congrats to those who are going away this year!

So now it's time for a little Christmas break where we plan to come up with the most amazing fundraiser the world has ever seen!
We also plan to reprint the I heart GBJB tshirts in time for the year 7/8/9/10 weekend happening at Bramhope near Leeds from the 29th - 31st of January. Forms for these weekends are available from the CISVgbjb Googlegroup. Get then sent off asap as SMILE sold out and so some people missed out- we don't want this to happen to you this weekend!

We are also working on two other projects. The Wild West Weekend happening in early march. This is an international weekend for juniors in our neighbourhood. The places are now filled and we have a great bunch going. If you didn't get a place don't worry as there are other international weekends. Have a look on JBpedia to see what is around!
The other project is a JB/Chapter Development weekend we are working on with national council. More info on this should be out very shortly, but pencil in the 12-14th of Feb at Curly Hill (where 17plus was held).

Enjoy the last few weeks of school/uni/whatever other stuff you fill your life with... And you might just hear from us again before Christmas.

Much love,

JamesnJess
Your NJRs

National Council October

2009-10-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

Hey GeeBeeJayBee,

We're currently sat in the first National Council meeting of the year 2009-10, which means it is Jess' first meeting as NJR. Very exciting....ish!

National Council is a meeting that happens four times every year where a few seniors from each branch along with the big dogs (Chair, Secretary, NJRs -yeah)
This meeting is where all the big important decisions are made like what places each branch gets for Villages, Summer Camps and all the other programmes. There are lots of other bits that go on as well including reporting back from the summers Annual International Meeting, planning things like chapter development and leadership training, and addressing problems like new rules about safeguarding - it looks like if you're over 16 within JB, you'll be needing to be CRB checked soon.

Anyone can come along to these meetings and see what's going on - we'd really like you to come along too, the next meeting on 22nd November (same time as SMILE though...).

We're really excited about all the weekends coming up - 17plus and SMILE are only a month away so get your letter in fastfastfast to guarantee yourself a bed to sleep in. There are facebook events for both of them so have a search and if you want a copy of the letter just drop us an email at njr@gb.cisv.org.

The participation form for Wild West Weekend is out. The deadline is the 1st of November so the sooner you get them in the better. Again drop us an email at the above address if you want a letter. And if you don't even have the first letter, check it out on jbpedia: search Wild Wild West.

Much NJR love,

JesseJames

Human Arrows!

2009-09-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

That's right everyone, at NJB Day we made our own GBJB Human Arrow!

To see our contribution with all the others check out the Youtube video, and to find out more about this big project visit the JBPedia page

JesseJames get keen at NJB Day!

2009-09-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

While at National Junior Branch Day, we decided to get keen and do our first video blog as you NJRs! Enjoy...

See you soon - much love from JesseJames (Wild West, here we come...)

Hi from Jess!

2009-09-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

So here we are nearly one week after my election as the new NJR. One productive meeting down.
You may have noticed you can now become 'a fan' of GeeBeeJayBee NJRs now on facebook or follow us on twitter. We decided to get technology happy this week so you guys can know what we're up to without having to trawl through long emails. Check us out and we'll keep you informed of anything exciting coming up!
In other Internet related news we are most viewed on JBpedia this month! Good work guys! We want to keep this up so make sure you keep googleing GB and why not check out some fellow GBJBers while you're there (like James and Jess)?

So it's NJB day on the 19th in Hull and we are really exciting about dressing up as 'Parrots and Pirates', can you guess which will be which?!
It would be great to see lots of happy faces there as the day after I move to Nottingham to university. Very exciting but a little scary!
The day after that, the 21st of September, is also a VERY important day! I do hope you know why! That's right - it's International Peace Day! Why not have a look on the Peace One Day website for some ideas about what you can do on the day. Big or small it all counts.

CISVers all over the world will be taking part in a project called 'Human Arrows' which aims to highlight one particular issue. This year they have chosen to raise awareness and draw attention to a new law passed in Lithuania that outlaws discussing homosexuality with minors, which is evidently against the freedom of expression, and an institutionalisation of homophobia. There is more information on our favourite friend JBpedia. Have a read and maybe try and organise a Human Arrow in your city. Feel free to email us at njr@gb.cisv.org if you need any ideas or help organising it or any other peace day project.

Well I think that's enough for my first blog,
See you at NJB day!

Jess (& James!)

Thank You Lou!

2009-09-07T05:37:00.000-07:00

Dear geebeejaybee, and anyone else who happens to be reading.

It is with sadness that I present a homage to our beautiful NJR Louisa Wallbridge, who has now finished her term as NJR for Great Britain. She's been absolutely wonderful, and given a lot to our little Junior Branch off the coast of continental Europe. Thanks for everything Lou, and we hope to see you again sometime!

However, it is also with great pleasure, that I announce our brand new shiny NJR, Jess Wanless! She's already been around for a long time and done a lot, and we're so lucky that we have her to do even more as NJR for the next 2 years. C'mooooon :) Our first joint blog coming soon, get excited!

With much love, and British hugs,

James (now Senior NJR GB haha)

AIM 2009

2009-08-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

Hey all, hope you're keeping well,

Enjoy this quick update from the CISV AIM Plenary, including finding out who your new IJR is!

Love, Lou n Jam xx

IJBC over, AIM begins

2009-08-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

Hey all, hows your summers going?

So IJBC is over now, finishing yesterday, and AIM officially began this morning.

For a full rundown on what went down at IJBC check out IJBClive on the link below in the last blog. You'll also find links to videos of people and things that went on (including a star appearance from our own James).

What do we think? Well, it's flown by been absolutely packed, and an absolutely great chance to work with and hang out with other JBers. We think it's an awesome opportunity to get to see JB and CISV at work, and we really hope you'll come with us to Germany next year!

What now? So we're continuing to work on the Wild West Weekend, which will happen next March, as well as preparing workshops and trainings for NJBF in September (see you over 16s!)

Lastly, Soliman from Egypt, who has kindly lent me his computer to do this, says hi. If you have the luck to meet him, he's a good guy.

Catch up soon with AIM news (I'm sure Nic and Laura say hi too - they're currently sat in the plenary - room where everybody sits and discusses!)

Love, Jam (& Lou)

IJBC 2009 #1

2009-08-02T19:13:00.000-07:00

Hello hello, we hope you enjoy watching as much as we enjoyed making!

You can find the blog at: http://ijbclive2009.wordpress.com/

And more info at www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki and then follow the links!

Hope you`re all pleasant. Lou and Jam (from the lovely Guate) xx

NJBF First Letter!

2009-07-04T01:18:00.000-07:00

EJBM 2009 (the rest)

2009-04-14T16:11:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!

Really sorry that while the last thing that was said was 'keep checking', we didn't keep our end of the deal, and keep posting. However if you were with us at EJBM then you'd soon find out why! The days are jam-packed with sessions and activities, and it was hard to find a time to stop! Apologies anyway... but what's news then?

Well, perhaps the biggest challenge for this EJBM was approving the revised Terms of Reference, drawn up by the EJB Team and some others, to accommodate last year’s decision to have an EJB team rather than individual ReCos and PeCos (Regional coordinators, and PA coordinators), as well as bringing other sections up to date with what we actually do. The ToR until 2008 can be viewed at http://www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki/index.php/EJB_TOR and hopefully it will be updated soon!

Also, we happily congratulate Zé Baptista (Portugal) and Paul Hinterberger (Germany) for being elected to the EJB Team, to join Camilla and Louise, who will make a brilliant team in the upcoming year. We also give huge thanks to outgoing Laura, but especially Nic, who has served two difficult years in EJB! We’re really lucky to have him for 3 more years here in GB.

You can check out the new team at http://www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki/index.php/EJB_Team

Another new and exciting thing this year was the creation of Neighbourhoods, and we were happy to finally meet with the rest of the old ‘South-West Neighbourhood’, now renamed the Wild West! Check it out at: http://www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki/index.php/Wild_West_Neighbourhood

Very excitingly however, GB has proposed to host the first ever Wild West Weekend! Its aim is to bring together juniors (16+) of our Neighbourhood, to get to know each other, in a social context so that they are comfortable with each other, and may look to work together in the future. This weekend would also provide a space for trainings and workshops, as well as a chance for the leaders within the JBs (such as NJRs) to meet and work on other projects. All details have yet to be decided, but watch this space!

The last main news is that EJBM 2010 will be hosted by the Netherlands, so already we are looking forward to more good times!

We can't wait to share with you guys some of the plans we've made, ideas we've had, skills we learnt, workshops and sessions we attended, so make sure you catch us at NJBF in september, S.M.I.L.E. in October!

Much love, James (and Ryan and Fliss more or less) :)

EJBM 2009 (Day 1)

2009-04-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

This is coming to you from Graz, Austria where James, along with Ryan and Fliss are currently at EJBM (European Junior Branch Meeting), a 5-day meeting for all the Junior Branches in Europe to come and share what they've been up to, learn from each other, attend trainings and workshops, and also make decisions about our region (Europe).

Here's a quick video about what we've been up to - keep checking for more posts for the rest of the week! Enjoy...

17+

2009-02-22T14:18:00.000-08:00

Coming to you again from a train, James is coming back from 17+ weekend!

I must admit, I'm pretty tired by now, but very very happy having spent a great weekend with some great people at Hebden Hey, for the Seventeen Plus weekend.

This is the first weekend of its kind ever done in GB, the only thing like it being an 18+ weekend in 2004. A group of about 20 people got together from every branch in GB, plus some special visitors from further afield (Germans living in GB), and we had a pretty chilled out weekend of lots of interesting thinking and fun activity. With an appearance from a Wonky Donky, and a collective realisation of our facebook dependence, we talked a lot about the theme, 'the Internet' and also more widely about the media.

The idea of a 17+ was for juniors who often get very involved in running events and activities, to come away together for a weekend and relax and have some CISV fun for themselves, to motivate and encourage them. Good times were had, with especial thanks to the brilliant 'not-staff-just-people-in-a-position-of-vague-responsibility-team', Laura Green, Jess Wanless and Helen Russell!

Where now for Team NJR? Well, in 2 weeks is the GB National Council meeting in Manchester, and James and Louisa are currently preparing some things for that. Check up in two weeks to see what happened!

With much love,
James & Louisa

From a train... (Year 9/10/11 & Other news)

2009-02-20T08:07:00.001-08:00

This is reaching you via the wireless on the train between Cambridge and Leeds.

That's right, James is on his 6th train so far this year, heading back to West Yorkshire for the 17+ Weekend. I will also now stop referring to myself in the 3rd person.

So I'm looking forward to this weekend, but what happened last weekend? That's right, the Year 9/10/11 weekend, in Bramhope. 14 people in those years joined us, along with 5/6 staff, for a weekend of fun and discovery.

The theme was nature, which meant we thought a bit about the environment and our responsibility, and this also involved a little bit of running around outside! Definitely not muddy. The group also got a chance to come up with their own activities, and most exciting of all, this minicamp is where we decide to have a GB JB Theme for the next year in JB! The reason for this is that many people felt at NJBF (see below) that a theme would help Junior Branches focus and plan better activities, so I am happy to announce that the theme for the coming year will be... *drum roll*

"Labels"!!!

Have fun thinking about that, and we look forward to lots of great activities and events to do with that!

All in all, the group got on very well, and we look forward to seeing you all again next year. Many many HUGE thanks to our staff team, especially Louise and Rich from North East, who totally made this weekend. Thanks to Simon for a lot of the organisation, and Dan and Dom from Leeds for stepping in late on.

In other news, well there isn't much that Louisa hasn't told you from NJBF below, but at NJBF, it was our pleasure to reveal the new CISV logo, so here it is, in all its glory! :

Look forward to another post soon, after this 17+ Weekend!

NJBF and the IJR Candidates!

2009-02-03T01:40:00.000-08:00

Word up everyone.

It's early on a Tuesday morning and I'm trying to have a productive day - this being the beginnings of it! How are you all? Good weekend? For those of you that didn't have the pleasure of being there, last weekend was NJBF! It was awesome! A small but perfectly formed group. For those of you that don't know, NJBF is the National Junior Branch Forum, a working weekend for those 16+ in GBJB. It happens twice a year, in Feb and September and is where we elect our officers for the year - the treasurer, secretary and the new NJR! (that happens in September at the AGM - Annual General Meeting) But this weekend was just for general GBJB development really. As a consequence, we have some really big plans for GBJB!

So here's a bit of a preview of what happened in the weekend, and the new calendar that will come in to effect..now!

Our 4 new goals that we're going to be working towards:

Improve national cooperation, through more national events and camps

One of the things that was highlighted over the weekend was that we could do with more communication between our own branches to make us stronger. It was decided that need more social events, which could be an informal gathering or something more structured. They would take place in other points of the year, not just around winter. One thought was having a national camp in the summer - an NYM if you like! This would take place over a week and would allow people who weren't able to go on a international camp a chance to do something in GB!

Certain tasks have been assigned to all these, but I'm not going to include them here, but get in touch if you're interested in any of them!

Ensure quality and thorough training, empowering people to take leadership responsibilities and incorporate educational principles of CISV.

We found many branches feel that the quality of JB meetings suffer from lack of focus, and lack of training by those that lead it. Ways of addressing this included: workshops for each chapter, starting with the educational circle and corresponding activities; an advanced training workshop, incorporated into S.M.I.L.E. or even a separate event; and the possiblity of standardised national educational themes, to give direction and focus.

Improve international cooperation, through increased contact, communication and participation in weekends.

Other JBs can be massively helpful for support and information so we should make better use of tools such as JB Community and JB Faces. We should aim to send more people to IJB events, and also begin to host more to gain more information about how JBs are run internationlly which may help strengthen us!

Build a clear, efficient and accessible system for the smooth running of GBJB.

For things to run efficiently and smoothly, people need to be aware of what they need to do/their role, what is actually going on, and how to use all simple channels of communication. Soo, from now on LJRs need to follow LJR-7, and train others to follow in their footsteps, the secretary needs to build a functional, full, perfect contact list, using lists taken from all branches in September, Leadership Training, 17/18+ and NJBF, and also train protégé, Strategic planning of following year: Minicamps, themes, jobs, identification and delegation of tasks should occur, MSN (LJR) Chats should have an agenda, and be productive.

We also had some nice working groups for the progression of GBJB!

They came in the form of:

Merchandise who are looking at: beanie hats, belts, shoe laces, folders, files, notebooks, passport holders, guitar strap, PILLOW CASES, sponge bag, scarf, stickers, pin badges, pyjamas. But we will continue in all possible areas to continue with Fairtrade products! There's now a lovely team of merchandise peeps for GBJB.

National Fundraiser - The Duck Race which will involve racing ducks down a river! Excellent. Watch this space. National Casino Night! Held in one city, annually!

Pantomime - this is a work in progress, but watch this spaaace!

The creation of a national songbook! Yes that's right - this will happen soon.

Online Branch - An online resource for other JBs, as main demographic will be experienced CISVers, age range around 18-25, that have moved but are still enthusiastic. Again a work in progress - but watch this space!

JB Calendar 2009-10 (and for future use)

June
20th National Council AGM
July
Happy summer times..
August
IJBC and AIM in Guatemala!
September
4th -6th NJBF AGM
19th NJB Day, in Manchester/North East (earlier, to coincide with International Peace Day)
October
3rd National Council
16th-18th S.M.I.L.E. [JB Training]
November
6th-8th Year 7/8 and possibly year 9/10 - yea that's right! Together but seperate..hmm!
27th-29th 16/17/18+? - possibilites are endless here!
December
5th National Council
January
29th-31st Year 9/10, failing November.
February
26th-28th NJBF - THIS IS DIFFERENT! Pay attention kids!
JB Neighbourhood Weekend - again, watch this space.
March
6th National Council
18+ Social event, first weekend of Easter break.
End - Leadership Training
April
EJBM Easter weekend
May
Exams and shizzle..
June
National Council AGM
July
Suummmer!
August
Mmm BBQs

So that was NJBF! Whoa - lots of reading there! Very exciting and productive though.

The other part of exciting news that has happened over the weekend is that the IJR (International Junior Representative) candidates have been announced! That's right, IJB (International Junior Branch) has spoken, and the four candidates that will be competing for the spot of the IJR in the summer are...

- Alex Neuman;
- Chris Settle;
- Juanma Oviedo and
- Rowan El Shimi

So have a check out of their JBPedia pages to find out who they are!

http://www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki/index.php/Alex_Neuman
http://www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki/index.php/Chris_Settle
http://www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki/index.php/Juanma_Oviedo
http://www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki/index.php/Rowan_El_Shimi

And that's all for now folks, I'll be back soon though - don't worry!

xx

Holiday greetings

2008-12-27T00:30:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

A couple of days late, but we hope you all had lovely Christmases and fun plays a large part in you New Years!

Louisa is back in Sheffield, and James is in Switzerland/France, but don't worry, we're preparing for a brilliant 2009! See you then!

Festive Love to all,

Louisa & James