Posts Tagged ‘Debating’
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
Hi everyone just to let you know you can watch some live events from the JCI World Congress at Osaka here.
http://www.jci.cc/events/en/worldcongress/osaka
Last night we had an excellent opening ceremony where we had River Dance meets Japan.
Last night the Irish delegation went for some drinks on the 5th floor bar in Tennoji and this was a great chance to take stock of the week so far.
I gave a presentation to all the JCI presidents from around Europe on JCI Ireland Fifty Ways to Active Citizenship and the schools project in Limerick. This was very well received and I have been approached by Finland and Russia who are looking to run a similar project.
I am looking forward to the Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) ceremony tonight where our winner Melanie will be awarded with her award.Mark
Tags: Active Citizenship Week, Business, Community, Debating, JCI, JCI Ireland, TOYP
Posted in JCI Ireland President's Blog | 2 Comments »
Friday, October 29th, 2010
It has been quite a while since my last post and so much has happened that I am not 100% sure where to start. The big news that I am delighted with is the fact that JCI Ireland is now growing and we have 4 branches in start-up phases. JCI South Leitrim, JCI Ennis, JCI Clonmel and JCI Dundalk and we also have interest from Tralee chamber of commerce who is considering getting a branch up and running. If you know anyone in these towns please tell them about the new branches and get them along to an event.
It makes me so proud that I will be able to tell people this and also that we had two branches affiliate at the start of the year while I am in Japan at the JCI World convention next week. I am so looking forward to representing Ireland in Japan and meeting all the great JCI friends I have from around the world.
Since my last post we have also had our National Convention in Malahide. This was a great event and there were so many highlights for me from the weekend. We had the final of the JCI Ireland Friendly Business Awards, 70’s fancy dress karaoke, splendid training sessions, keynote speakers, reimagining Ireland as a better place, JCI Cork winning all the awards in their first year as a branch, the launch of Active Citizenship week and the tripartite debate. All of this mixed in with great fun, great people and a sense that as JCI members that we can make a difference.
We had JCI Ireland Active Citizenship week where people from all over Ireland got down and dirty and got stuck into being Active Citizens. The JCI World president visited us on the Tuesday of Active Citizenship week and we brought him to Dublin, Limerick and Galway where he was interviewed by RTE about our world TOYP winner.
Like I did at the JCI European conference in Denmark I am planning on blogging quite a bit from Japan so as to give all the JCI Ireland members a feeling of what is going on in Japan so expect to see quite a few blog entries from me over the next week.
Regards
Mark
Tags: Active Citizenship, Awards, Debating, Japan, JCI Ireland, Junior Chamber International, Leadership, public speaking, team building, Training
Posted in JCI Ireland President's Blog | No Comments »
Saturday, September 18th, 2010
The past few months have been hectic and I have not been blogging as much as I had hoped to be at the start of the year. Just going to do a quick update entry now to bring you all up to speed with what has been going on in the latter part of the summer for JCI Ireland.
- The great news that one of JCI Ireland’s TOYP winners Melanie Hennessy has been named as a one of the JCI Ten Outstanding Young Persons. It is great when we can highlight the great work being done by young Irish Active Citizens.
- JCI Galway hosted president’s day in ST Brigit’s gardens just outside of Galway City. The gardens were splendid and a great day was had. In the morning there was a great training on selecting herbs while National Executive had our board meeting. In the afternoon there was a great training on setting goals.
- The last few months has seen loads of work going into planning for Active Citizenship Week 3rd – 10th of October. www.fifty-ways.com this will be launched on the Sunday of our National Convention in Malahide and we will have Mary Davis, Richard Bruton talking about the importance of Active Citizenship at the launch.
- JCI Fingal have been working around the clock to organise this year’s National convention from the 1st – 3rd of October. The highlights of the weekend will be the JCI Friendly Business Awards on the Friday night, training by some excellent IMI trainers on the Saturday, debating the Gala dinner and the launch of Active Citizenship week.
- I was in Leitrim this month for the launch of JCI in Leitrim and this was great for me. I love it when I am asked to speak to new people about JCI.
Tags: Active Citizenship, Debating, JCI, mary davis, TOYP, Training
Posted in JCI Ireland President's Blog | No Comments »
Saturday, April 24th, 2010
The standard of the public speaking at the 2010 JCI Ireland spring conference was was exceptionally high. I was really impressed with the standard in novice & advanced section.
I really enjoyed the debating as this is something I like to take part in every year. This year was the first time I have judged debating and have to say I think the experience will help improve my debating.
This years debating competition was contested by JCI Dublin and JCI Fingal. Fingal have a long tradition of debating and they won the day and defended their title.
I had hoped to make it to the JCI Dunlaoire Engage Network training today but during the week the engine of my car exploded and I have spent the last few days working on a resolution to that.
JCI Galway will launch their award winning tourist guide and I hope to make it over to the launch on Wednesday evening.
Mark
Tags: Debating, dunlaoire, engage training, public speaking
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Sunday, April 11th, 2010
Today was the first glorious day that we have had this year and it was appropriate that it was also the first day of the JCI Ireland Spring Conference.
The theme of the weekend is change and the change in the weather was really appreciated by all the members who were taking part in the impact tabulating around Dublin. JCI Ireland members were charged with the challenge of going out into Dublin and creating impact and promoting JCI Ireland.
In the afternoon I really enjoyed the two training sessions on Change delivered by Ken McIntyre-Barn www.commercialexcellence.ie and Peter Lawless www.3r.ie/peter-lawless-speaker.html These two sessions really motivated me and I am looking forward to making some changes in my life.
We have public speaking & debating on Sunday & I will have some updates on that later.
Tags: Change, Debating, Dublin, ireland, public speaking, team building, Training
Posted in JCI Ireland President's Blog | No Comments »
Friday, April 9th, 2010
I was down with JCI Tuam on Tuesday at there monthly meeting and I have to say I was very impressed with what I saw. Tuam are a new JCI Ireland Branch who are affiliating at Spring Conference in Dublin this weekend. They updated me on the Easter Egg project that they ran and it is a project that will really add to their community.
I would like to thank Pat who is the president of JCI Tuam for 2010 and his team who made me feel really welcome J They really doing a great job there at the moment and I know that by the end of the year things will have gone from strength to strength.
JCI Tuam also has a great calendar of social events planned for the next few months so things really look bright in Tuam. After the meeting there was an excellent training on Energy efficiency that I learned loads about improving the Building Energy Rating (BER) of my house.
On Thursday night I attended the JCI Dublin meeting as I was asked to be a judge on the JCI Dublin debating competition. The motion was “That job sharing should be introduced to get us out of the current recession” This motion was defeated and I have to say I really enjoyed the debate.
I am looking forward to seeing all the JCI Ireland members at the weekend and I am really looking forward to hearing all the stories about Impact March.
Mark
Tags: BER, Debating, JCI Tuam, public speaking, spring confrence, tuam
Posted in JCI Ireland President's Blog | No Comments »
Saturday, March 27th, 2010
This week I took part in the inaugural Technology Fast on the RTE 1 radio show The Business http://www.rte.ie/radio1/thebusiness/ You can listen to the show on the website.
I had to hand over my laptop and my Nokia N71 smart phone. When I handed them over I was lost and it made it hard to work as almost everything that I do is based online.
JCI wise it was great to have members of National Exec working away around the country to cover for the fact that I was out of the loop.
Earlier in the week I was down at the fashion show in Limerick. This was an excellent well run event that created excellent impact this month.
Last weekend JCI Ireland relaunched our website and the new web newsletter was a nice read.
I am looking forward to Spring Conference and I can not wait to hear the competitors in the public speaking & debating.
Tags: Debating, public speaking, Technology fast
Posted in JCI Ireland President's Blog | No Comments »
Friday, February 26th, 2010
I was at the launch of the JCI Dublin Friendly Business Awards (FBA) and I had an excellent night. The night was really professionally run and JCI Dublin are now looking for entrants in the competition for more info http://www.friendlybusinessawards.com If you know of a business in Dublin that is bucking the trend and doing something extra special you should nominate them.
Last night I had the pleasure of being on a team at the annual JCI Fingal table quiz. I really like these events as they help stimulate the grey matter between my ears. Darrell did an excellent job as MC although he did not pick my ticket out for the raffle and I see a career starting for him in public speaking or debating.
I am looking forward to the National Executives first Skype conference call tomorrow night. We are moving with the times and this will help save us some time.
Keep up the great work everyone I can really start to see things picking up steam around the country.
Mark
Tags: Awards, Business, Debating, Dublin, Friendly, JCI, public speaking, Table Quiz
Posted in JCI Ireland President's Blog | No Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Yesterday saw the end of the grant application process that saw members past and present of National Executive working on the government Grant application where we get some of our funding from. This is quite a complicated and timely process & I was delighted when we all got together and got the info compiled and the application submitted.
Today I attended the debating & public speaking training hosted by the Dun Laoghaire branch and I have to say I am now really looking forward to spring conference in Dublin where the competition for Public speaking & debating will be fierce.
These skills are of great benefit to JCI members who are looking to present an idea at work to another team or if you are looking to form an argument on why your project should be accepted debating skills are essential.
Mark
Tags: competition, Debating, Dublin, ireland, public speaking, skills
Posted in JCI Ireland President's Blog | No Comments »
Friday, February 12th, 2010
I attended some of JCI Dublin’s meeting and it was great to see so many new faces in the room and to see that there were so many projects and events planned for the next few months. I did not get to stay for the public speaking training but I am sure it went really well.
I did not get a chance to say hello to the members who were visiting from Poland as I had to rush off to do some work for an exam I have today but I hope you had a ball in the pub afterwards.
Dun Laoghaire are running their debating & public speaking tomorrow and I hopefully will see you there. I know Catherine & James are excellent trainers and you will come away speaking like an orator and debating like a barrister
Mark
Tags: barrister, Debating, Dublin, Dun Laoghaire, orator, projects, public speaking, Training
Posted in JCI Ireland President's Blog | No Comments »
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
