What do you actually DO at IJBC?

So with IJBC drawing to a close the question remains, what exactly have Kathy and Kalenne been doing anyway?

To be honest, it's hard to say. You know when you come back from a Mini Camp and your friends want to know what you were doing all weekend and you have a really hard time explaining and before you know it you're throwing around words that on their own make almost no sense at all? Ya, it's like that. Except less awkward because we know you understand. Kalenne and her IJBC/AIM tag

But in the spirit of blogging we'll try anyway.

Our sessions have been divided into 4 topics:

- Junior Branch: As you can guess these are sessions about, surprise surprise, JB. They are aimed at aiding in the development of our JBs, locally, nationally and internationally. For example, we might do a session on the JB Goals, so we can use them more effectively when we get back to our chapters.

- Global movement: These are sessions to get us thinking about taking what we've learned in CISV outside to create movement. We as a JB are a global movement, cool right? These sessions aimed to get us thinking about how we as JBers can have more of an impact as a worldwide movement and also how we can become more engaged in other already existing global movements, for example, Peace One Day.

-Open Space: This is time for participants to develop ideas they think are important and are
interested in. They are like working groups at NBM. We brainstorm discussion or project topics and then split off to develop them. They can range from things like planning regional workshops to putting together a magazine or discussing how CISV can be more green.

-Parallel Experiences: This is a time when we break off into different groups to enjoy a session that interests us. It's the same as tripod time at NMB. This allows participants to use their time how they feel would be best for them and their JB. Yay

Kathy on the bus to ARMM.
The sessions were way more exciting.
We promise.

Whew, that's a lot of stuff. Along with formal sessions we're always story sharing and discussing challenges and successes of our JBs. As you can imagine a lot of the time these are really similar between different National Associations (NAs).

Well, that was a long one, but stay tuned for shorter posts with lots of funny pictures (we already have a few planned). If you're reading this please leave a comment, Kalenne needs constant validation. Love the NJRs

The view from our Tuscan Villa aka the ARMM site