IJBC/AIM 2010

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

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!

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...

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!

Wishing all GeeBeeJayBee-ers

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Much love and lots of excitement for 2010,

JessieJames

Busy Busy GeeBees

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

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