Are you having a spring clean?

If so we can take bags of clothes off your hands.

JCI Boston is working in conjunction with Bag 2 the Future, a company that recycles old clothing, bedding, bags, curtains shoes and belts. We will gladly take all your old clothes that either don't fit or we don't like any more.

The clothes we collect are sold to developing countries in Africa, the Indian sub-continent and parts of Eastern Europe.

The majority of the clothing collected is shipped to wholesalers where they are sorted and sold to the general public via retailers.These countries are encouraging entrepreneurs to develop import markets and build up business structures, thus creating employment opportunities.

This is win win situation, your clothes get donated to poorer countries and we raise money for the nothing but nets campaign.

A member of the JCI Boston team would be happy to come and collect your old clothes, and we can even provide recycling bags. The deadline for collections is Thursday 21st June as our bags are being collected on the Friday.

We hope you will be able to support this worthy cause if you need any more information please contact our Community Director Allison Cowell on 07787 570026 or email her on Allison.cowell@jciuk.org.uk

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JCI Members will be supporting a former JCI Boston member Kate Atkin and her husband Stuart Jessup

Proud to announce an evening with: Stuart Jessup & Poppy

On Saturday 28th April The Old Pottery will host an evening with Stuart & Poppy

7.30pm start
A canapé & drinks reception will be followed by a talk by Stuart and a chance to chat

On Sunday 9th October 2011 my brother-in-law, Stuart, accompanied by his Springer Spaniel, Poppy, left Tower Bridge in London to start their 2,500 mile walk around England to campaign against mental health stigma and raise funds for SANE and Anxiety UK.

Christmas was celebrated in Penzance and New Year at Lands End, by 4th April 2012 Stuart had walked 1894 miles clockwise around the coast/borders of England and reached Whitley Bay.

Suggested donation to SANE & Anxiety UK

£10 per person

limited places please reserve your seat in advance by making your donation

Call Sophie on: 01205 872153

The Old Pottery, Main Road, Wrangle PE22 9AS

For more information see Stuart’s blog on the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/englandwalk, follow him on Twitter @englandwalk or visit the walk's websitehttp://www.walkingontheedge.org.uk/ .

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What would you do if you had the opportunity to save a life?

Why not find out?

JCI Boston is working with a global charity, JCI Nothing But Nets, to raise money to send bed nets to Africa to help stop the spread of Malaria.

Each year Malaria kills nearly 1 million people, mostly children, and JCI has pledged to help end this suffering. Malaria is the leading killer of children in Africa and a child dies every 45 seconds. A simple bed net can create a barrier against the disease-carrying mosquito and help prevent the disease. Nothing But Nets is a charity that was formed in 2006 by the UN foundation with the sole aim of eradicating malaria.

We only have one world, so let's be a part of it!

All we are asking you to do it to arrange for your employees to Wear a NET for Nothing But Nets on Global Malaria Day, Wednesday 25th April 2012. We will provide you with all the materials that you need in order to make the day happen.

The rules for the day are easy. Any individual wishing to take part simply needs to make a minimum suggested donation of £2.00, and wear a net for Nothing But Nets.

All we ask is that organisations taking part in the event collect donations from their employees and then forward them to us, at the address provided, in the form of a cheque made payable to "JCI Boston" together with the completed sponsorship forms. This donation will then be forwarded onto JCI Nothing But Nets.

One net can save a life, so can you.

For further information on how to get involved contact:

Allison Cowell
Senator # 70323
JCI Boston Community Director
07787 570026
Allison.cowell@jciuk.org.uk

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My Presidents Dinner by Tracy Anderson

Saturday 31st March 2012 was my last duty as president of JCI Boston. It was the day that would close off my year and celebrate the achievements of our chamber.

In true JCI Boston social style I chose a theme for my dinner, it was a Mad Hatter's Boston Tea party. (well there are only two places you can have a Boston tea party!)

Jen was given the task of decorations and I wasn't disappointed. Flowers in tea pots, white rabbits, drink me and eat me's on the table, all the ingredient s for a Alice in wonderland tea party.

My MC of the evening was Allison Cowell sporting a Mad Hatters Hat and the Queen of hearts made a star guest apperence.

 

I was very lucky to have, the 2012 National President, Solveig Malvik, Regional group chairman Steven Vandevelde and the 2012 Yorkshire presidents as my top table guests.

                                           Tracy & her top table guests

There were a number of members from Cambridge and Barnsley who made the trip to Boston, some JCI Boston senators and I was so pleased to also see my parents there too.

          Cambridge members Jen & Patrick                     Barnsley members Kirstie & Debbie

           Past & present JCI Boston members            JCI Boston senator Bill Atkin with my Mum & Dad

After a delightful dinner again by the New England Hotel, it was time for our game of heads and tails (or our adaptation cups and saucers). The game raised over £120 for the Lincolnshire & Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance and we had a Lincolnshire food hamper donated by the Lincolnshire co-op.

Then it was time for the formalities. First up was Solveig speaking about our achievement in 2011 and toasted JCI Boston. Then it was my turn....

A year ago I would never of been so calm at this point in time. I have never been a confidence public speaker, and hated it with a passion, but tonight I was a different person. I wasn't the same Tracy as I was a year ago, JCI has developed me as a person and gave me the confidence to do it.

And thankfully my speech went done well, I didn't get emotional, I didn't panic when I could pronounce something, and I even got a laugh!

Then I recognised the achievements of JCI Boston's members in my awards presentation.

The awards I presented were as follows:

• Philip Hoskins Award - Community Allison Cowell for her contribution fundraising for the Nothing But Nets campaign 
• Hardy & Collins Award - Best Project Iwona Lebiedowicz for her polish culture training session
• Fossitt & Thorne Award - Best Commission Vicki Robinson for her contribution to the Boston day
• Sinclair McGill Award - Most Involved Member Allison Cowell for being involved internationally, nationally and still having time to be involved locally.
• Palmer & Bell Award - Best New Member Jen Curtis for commitment to attending both meetings and events
• Mike Jessop Award - Public Speaker of the year Allison Cowell for her speeches during 2011. 
• Anglian Building Society Award - Members' Member Jen Curtis for her commitment and contribution to JCI Boston in her first year of membership

                       Alli Cowell                                                  Vicki Robinson

                           Jen Curtis

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JCI Big Supper 2012 by Rebecca Birkett

Well I have just come back from my first JCI event, since joining as a new member in November 2011 and I am just bubbling with enthusiasm and excitement.

I had such an amazing experience! On Thursday 29 March 2012, 4 JCI Boston members myself, Jen Curtis, Tracy Anderson and Allison Cowell headed up to Barnsley to attend a JCI Training event - The Big Super. I was not sure quite what to expect, but I definitely was not disappointed and there was a very good turn out from JCI Boston, JCI Barnsley and JCI Sheffield.

This definitely was a training event with a twist! It was a session on active listening and we got to play with samba drums, with an opportunity also to network!

When we got there, there was a chance to network, which was great as I met such a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds, some who were new JCI members and others who have been members for many years! Having spoken to some of them, I am so excited at the thought as to how I am going to personally develop over the coming months and even years!

The speaker Sandra Pilarczyk was fantastic and I only wish that we had more time in which to hear from her. She taught us some Chinese words and showed us some Chinese signs. Basically the message is that you have to listen with your eyes, ears and heart! She also taught us about 5 different grades of listener! But she is so right; I have found myself this last week at work grading people accordingly as to how well they are listening to me!

One of the first exercises we had to do was tell a story and for the other person to listen and not react. It was so difficult not to react to the person telling the story, and not laugh! Mind you I really don't know what was worst, telling a story and the other person not reacting, or trying not to react! However, it was a job in the first place to even think of a story, despite the fact that we had a 4 hour round trip to this event, where the 4 of us were telling each other stories in the car all the way there and all the way back!

We quickly moved on to a practical exercise. This was a very simple exercise, you had to clap back what the JCI Trainer was clapping, but not clap various rhythms out, so you had to listen carefully. I did find shutting my eyes in this exercise useful! This was an interesting exercise! I am pleased to say that I made it to the last few with the hand clapping exercise. I am impressed by my fellow JCI Boston members who also made it towards the end, with one of them (Jen) jointly winning the exercise with the main speaker at the event!

Then came the interesting part, we then got to play with the instruments! All in all we got to play 2 rhythms. I was amazed at how quickly we all took to it and was very impressed at our team work! I think my ear drums have only just stopped ringing! I was further impressed when we were told that in 45 minutes we had essentially completed a 4-6 week course!

When I got into the office the next day there was even a you tube video already, which I featured in quite heavily! I must admit I do have to cringe just a little! See below.

I highly recommend this event; (even though I was a little tired the morning after) it was a very entertaining night and well worth the fee and more!

Huge thanks to the organisers, speakers and members!

This event has really excited me and I look forward to attending many more!

Video by JCI Barnsley's Oliver Hyde: (you might want to turn your speakers down!)

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A week on from marketing academy I have been inspired to do the following:

• I have sourced tweetdeck to manage my multiple twitter accounts.
• I have scheduled tweets and changed the content of my tweets this has resulted in lots of retweets and new follwers!
• I have written this blog.
• I have uploaded some videos to the JCI Boston website.
• I have become more aware of others on social media and I have some tips to share with you, some are my own, some are aren't! 

P.s I'm no marketing expert!

Twitter

• Be aware anyone/ anywhere can read your tweets.
• Don't be a egg head, make sure you have a logo or picture on your profile
• Target tweets to when you think your target market will read them
• DON'T feed you tweets through to Facebook and Linkedin. It's annoying, the language especially on Linkedin looks unprofessional

Facebook

• Pages should be used to share information for all followers, remember people can unlike you!
• If it relevant to just a few i.e just your members -set up a closed group. This year there is a closed group for presidents and it's working well.
• Messages on pages should include the who the messageis from. Ie. - Tracy IPP
• Privacy setting can be changed so people can't tag you in places and photo's- You should have control of this.

Social Media in general

Use Linkedin for business and keep this professional, Facebook for personally stuff (check your privacy settings) and Twitter for in between!

So: Follow JCI Boston on twitter @JCIBoston

Like our page on facebook 

and join our group on linkedin!

What's next...... JCI Boston on You tube!?

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I have just come back from a brilliant weekend of JCI training in Sheffield. JCI UK hosted a marketing academy open to all members to attend, I made sure my name was on the list and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

The weekend contained all the ingredients of a great JCI event;
• great trainers and speakers,
• new skills learnt,
• new friends made.

There was a complete mix of attendees, with various levels of marketing experience and lengths of JCI membership. I admire those members that have attended their first national event in their first month of membership.

The first training session was on press releases and how to write a good one by Kate Senter JCI UK Communications Director. I knew Kate must know about the trade secrets of this because she was always in the press last year!

Next was OxyFire, they had a video camera.... I was scared!!! Oxyfire specialise in moving images. They shared with us; the appeal of videos, how popular they are, (You tube has 1 billion hits a day!) and gave us a quick guide of basic shots. Then it was our turn, we paired up and videoed ourselves in different shots.

After lunch we had a branding session by Claire Evans JCI UK Communications Director. Claire explained the importance of adhering the brand guidelines and took us through the JCI one. Again Claire shared with us her expertise in this area.

Next up was Lisa Price and a session on stakeholder engagement and the marketing mix. Lisa got us to analysis our chambers stakeholders and think about our relationship with them.

To end day 1 we were put into groups and given our task. I was in group 1 and our task was to write and present a marketing plan for JCI Littletown with the objective to increase members. (this sounds familiar!)

We were all up bright and early for day 2. To start the day off with a bang, our first trainer was from I Heart Business, Kym Hall aka Social Media Kym! Well, where do I start. Kym shared with us lots of top tips about social media , especially twitter. I have just start to like twitter and now all I can say is I'm hooked!! The first thing I did when I got home was find tweetdeck, an application that lets you manage twitter. Kym is a very inspirational speaker and told us all about #OperationBooyaaa

Next our National president Solveig Malvik shared with some tips about the website, I picked up some tips from this... watch this space!

Next up was a session on measuring our impact, how do we know we are getting results?

After lunch it was time to put the Marketing task presentation together in our groups and then finally present our campaign to the group.

I have learnt some much from this weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed the weekend so a BIG thank to Claire Evans and Kate Senter the organisers of the event.

See what JCI Sheffield members thought of the weekend and their first JCI experience on their blog:

Lucy Harper- Blog post

James Oxley- Blog post

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Our friends over in Barnsley had a little celebration and 3 JCI Boston members headed over to Yorkshire to celebrate with them.

It was their 60th Annual dinner, a Diamond anniversary!

JCI Boston were represented by Tracy, Alli and Jen (Jen's first event outside of Boston!). 

There has always been a good relationship between the two chambers and have been known as JCI Bosley. (A mix of the two names)

The dinner remembered some of the highlights and memories of the last 60 years with a slide show of pictures from various events. It was nice to see some pictures of some of the Bosley events.. ashes challenges- welly whanging, school sports days to name just a few!

The outgoing JCI Barnsley President Vicky Savage presented some awards to her members then handed the  chain over to the 2012 incoming president Kirstie Barnett.

Kirstie shared with us her plans and targets for 2012.

Barnsley also made Catherine Berry (the JCI Yorkshire 2011 Regional Group Chairman) a senator.

After the formalites Barnsley gave us a party... with a band! 

All in all I believe everyone had a really good night!

Congratulations JCI Barnsley in reaching 60 years from JCI Boston!! Good luck with the next 60!

Jen & Alli with National President Solveig and Debbie from Barnsley

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We have been busy counting our pennies, and I can announce that in 2011, JCI Boston raised a total of £852.77p for the Nothing But Nets Campaign. Our fundraising efforts have been multiplied by a company called Cordaid, thanks to the JCI Netherlands which means when converted into dollars JCI Boston has raised $2,758.84. This equate to 275 lives have been saved. The current JCI UK total for 2011 is a massive $40,000.

A massive THANK YOU to everyone who has been involved and contributed.

Throughout the year we have been fundraising by:
Recycling mobile phones, collecting pennies, clothes collections and our Easter themed Market stall with our Hook a ducks and how many sweets in the jar games.

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What a year! I am very proud of our achievements this year... let me remind you of them together with lots of pictures!

January

We made Alli a senator at JCI Barnsley's annual dinner. Alli and I attended Inspiration day in Reading. (I really was inspired!) We welcomed Iwona as a new member.

February

In February, we were the 2nd Chamber in the UK to launch the new style website, JCI Boston is also now on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. All members also have Postcards to promote themselves around the town.
The Penny war broke out fundraising for Nothing Buts Nets.

I faced my fears of public speaking and graduated from JCI Presenter hosted in Sheffield.

March

I attended the Rotherham Real ale festival with JCI Barnsley & Sheffield.

Vicki, Alli and I got dressed up and attended a sing-along rocky horror picture show with JCI Barnsley.

Iwona taught us some Polish culture and some simple polish words. We ended the evening tasting their cuisine.

April

I had the pleasure of being a Judge at the Young Enterprise Regional Final.

JCI Cambridge held their first annual business skills day which Alli & I attended. We spent the night in Cambridge with them, then it was President Day.

It was global Malaria Day in April and we had an Easter themed Market Stall . The stall included the debut appearance of their hook-a-ducks. Alli and I visited the The Air cadets of 141 (Boston) squadron also contributed by collecting pennies and our clothes collections. We featured in both the local papers, Boston Target and Boston Standard. We also filled our penny jar!

May

I attended JCI Doncaster's annual dinner in the beautiful Mansion House. We visited the Port of Boston on a business visit. The Port has masses of steel, paper and wheat shipped in and out of the town and stored at the port. It was a real eye opener and thoroughly enjoyed by all members. We welcomed Jen as a new member.

June

I attended my first European Conference in Tarragona and a got a favour for Beer! We danced and sang the night away at Boston's Fake festival.

July

We invited the JCI UK membership to visit Boston for our Boston day on a wet summer's day! Then visited Skeg vegas for a night of Burlesque.

August

We then visited the cadets and learnt about them, first aid, map reading and planes. I attended the Wharfdale Quiz and Annual JCI Barnsley's Train Pub Crawl.

September

I attended the Vicious Circle to watch my boyfriend Richard Grange be crowned champion and then JCI Bradford's annual dinner. This was a dinner with a difference- I'm a JCI president get me out of here! I presented to about 40 business people at the Boston Business Club. Our 2nd clothes collection was a great success!

October

I attended JCI Sheffield annual dinner where they launched their app. We hosted the Yorkshire regional dinner with a ‘discover the countryside theme' which was a great success with over 40 members and senator's making the trip to Boston.
We ALSO won a few awards... and made it in the local press again!

• Most outstanding regular publication- 'The Boston Bulletin'
• Most outstanding social project- Boston Day
• Most outstanding leader- Allison Cowell (This years JCI's UK National President)
• Most outstanding contribution by an Individual- Tracy Anderson
• A certificate of merit- Most outstanding Chamber President- Tracy Anderson

We also hosted the all new local leaders weekend which Jen graduated from!

November

I attended the Bosley bonfire in Notton and ate far too many muffins.

We had Jen from Cambridge give us a training session on how to optimise our business profile on LinkedIn. This was part of Global Enterprise week. I also attended the Boston Business awards and Boston Business Club speed networking. We also welcomed two more new members, Rebecca and Joseph.

I attended the UK's National Covention hosted by JCI Yorkshire in Sheffield and come home with two National Awards.

• Most outstanding regular publication
• Most outstanding leader- Tracy Anderson

I hope you all enjoyed 2011 as much as I have. Thank you all for suporting JCI Boston this year!

Tracy - JCI Boston President 2011

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