Sweden vol. 8: A Retrospective

August is coming to a close and for the Canadian NJR that typically means a few days of rest and time to organize one's life between the end of national camp and the beginning of a school year. Somewhere between catching up with parents and beginning to plan NBM there might be a chance to check out a few of the summer's photos... maybe.

Kelly and Alex left the AIM site at 5:30 on the morning of the 10th of August. Alex woke up first and had to run to wake Kelly up with only minutes to spare. In no time we were once again flying over the atlantic, only this time slightly less energized, slightly more... sleeping. AIM had wrapped up less than 24 hours ago and dreams of the past days filled our airborne dreams:

- Meetings to come! Next summer the International Junior Branch Conference and the Annual International Meeting will take place in Colombia. Although the meeting is being held in Colombia, Canada is CO-HOSTING this meeting. In Sweden the Canadians did a presenation together with the Colombians to promote the meeting next year... Did you know that Shakira is from Colombia? After Colombia, AIM will be in Italy in 2008 and then in Guatemala in 2009...

-Re-branding! An updated CISV logo was unveiled by the re-branding team. The board also voted to adopt the tagline "Building Global Friendship" after quite a constructive discussion.

-The International Seminar Camp Committee made a decision to adopt an no-alcohol policy for all seminar camps, starting in 2007.

-Jeff Parliament was recognized for his work as CISV Canada President (3 years) and CISV Canada international Trustee (3 years). This will have been Jeff's final year as an official representative of CISV Canada... What could lay ahead for JP?

- Canadians on International Committees! Did you know that quite a few Canadians sit on International Committees? Who, you ask?? Well, Rick Uy (Summer Camp Committee), Laura Scrivner (Seminar Camp Committee), Jeff Parliament (Village Committee), Aynsley Hague (Seminar Camp Committee), Heinz Boehnke (Interchange Committee), Chris Pollack (International Finance Committee Chair) and Alex Neuman (newly a trainee of the Mosaic Committee) ...and that's not even everyone!

-Kelly and Alex (with the help of some special advisors) spent many hours spent thinking about JB Canada and what it's future might have in store... stay tuned.

A full few hours later, we emerged from our sleeps to find the plane landed and empty, a flight attendant kindly asking us to de-plane. We were back in Canada and although memories of Sweden still floated at the top of our memory buckets we had to shift gears--we had something new to focus on...something that was only a few days away...

...NATIONAL CAMP!

Stay tuned for an update on CISV Canada's annual Junior Branch National Camp, a week of good times, friendship, leadership development and shared experiences for JBers from every chapter in Canada (and then some!)

k & a

The IJBC Team: IJBC was planned by (left to right) Marcos (IJR Candidate), Astrid (junior IJR), James (Senior IJR) and Trisha (IJR Candidate)

A group of us at the America's Regional Members Conference getting down to business

James and Astrid running a session on the GOALS of Junior Branch (have you ever seen those...???)

CISV Canada President Rick and Canada's National Beaver Representative (NBR) promoting the AIM next summer in Colombia

Sitting in the Trustees' chairs in the AIM plenary during IJR elections! Oooooohh.

Kelly with the IJR candidates and a representative from CISV China (in the backgroud).

From an IJBC session on Project Management by facilitator Per Olsen of the International Mosaic Committee

Can you simulate a village in 28 minutes? We tried at IJBC... and then compared it to a 21 minute village...

Singing the CISV song as AIM 2006 draws to a close (almost 300 people!)


The juniors of IJBC 2006 (Can you spot Kelly, Alex and Kalenne??)

Your National Junior Representatives of 2005-2006.