IJR MWM Minutes. Feb 2013

IJRs Mid Way Meeting II Minutes February 2013 Madrid, Spain

Hello again!

In this document we, your International Junior Representatives, would like to share with you what we did during our second Mid Way Meeting in 2012-2013. This meeting happens half-way through our year together as IJRs, where we can evaluate how the first half of the year has gone, plan for the future, and work closely on the big, sometimes difficult, topics and tasks.

For this Mid Way Meeting our priorities were to finalise the updated JB Goals - and discuss how we were going to formalise them and where we needed to update them- , evaluate the work of the IJB Committee so far, and also start planning IJBC 2013.

This document you’re reading summarises the work we did, which we are happy to share with you now - enjoy!

If you have any questions or love to give please contact us at ijr@cisv.org James Pattinson & Candelaria Lucero Dente International Junior Representatives 2012-2013

JB Goals New, improved... and ready!

Enjoying some good and spicy mexican food! (Weird faces are the result of three hard working days)

Finally, they are here! Our new and improved JB Goals are designed not to change the previous goals of JB, but simplify them to be more understandable, clearer to work towards and better signposts for the direction of Junior Branch.

It has been nearly one year since Mateo and James started this process at the regional meetings in 2012, asking JBers ‘Why does Junior Branch exist?’ and ‘How do we work towards this?’ They presented some draft goals at IJBC 2012, and it was decided that a working group would work on these, adding indicators. They passed these onto Cande and James to consider, edit and finalise... and here we are!

Our 4 new JB Goals are:

- Build a Junior Branch community - Develop individuals and leadership - Encourage education and action - Challenge and develop our organisation We are still working on the indicators, as we are still asking how quantitative these indicators have to be - how will we measure or observe them, and also how can we gain meaningful data from them.

We look forward to releasing these at the upcoming regional meetings in 2013, and ultimately including them in a motion to formally adopt them as Junior Branch!

Please note: These goals are not yet official, and Junior Branch should continue using the existing 5 goals for now, until more has been explained following regional meetings.

BIG thanks to Kate, Andre, Ayuta, Pavle, Anna, Majo, Pedro & Marco for their amazing contribution.

IJBC 2013 Planning begins We are now less than 6 months away from the start of the International Junior Branch Conference 2013 in Salvador, Brazil so time to get this party on the road!

We have set the goals for IJBC, and are now working with our facilitators (yes, you will meet them soon!) to finalise the goals, and begin to translate them into sessions. We don’t want to give away too much too early, but our thoughts for now are: We don’t want to simply run IJBC for participants, we want participants to be the driving force that creates IJBC.

Parallel sessions to approach topics in different ways, so every participant can follow and take something home.

We want to move from having a training or meeting to a IJB conference that is more professional, where there is something for everyone.

You can look forward to the Infopack 1 in March, where we will introduce the IJBC goals and facilitators, as well as practical details about how you can get there.

IJB Committee Mid-way evaluation The new IJB Team structure has been running for 6 months now, half-way through our IJB year. We conducted a comprehensive evaluation to see how we (the committee) had been working, how we felt about it and how we could improve for the second half of our year. Here are some highlights: Best achievements | Year plan, working in the new structure, achieving individual goals.

Points to improve | Cooperation between committee members, updating JB world.

Motivation | Committee members have been motivated, and well supported by IJRs. Inclusion | Everyone felt included, but there could be more communication.

Meetings | We meet often enough, time could be more productive, focusing on topics.

Moving forward, committee members will start to work on tasks in pairs to be more productive, sharing ideas and supporting each other. The committee will also work hard to update each other and JB World through the Monthly Digest and our communications channels.

JB in Transition Working with the team for JB’s future in CISV The Transition Team are currently working hard to formalise the changes that are happening in CISV International, and we have been working with them about the role of Junior Branch in all of this. We skyped with Laura Green, our IEC Liaison and member of the Transition Team, to discuss some of the proposals. The Transition Team will release their recommendations in March, but some things we have worked on are: Official documents of Junior Branch We were originally planning to propose a motion to update O-15, the governing document for International Junior Branch. However, we realised that this document is aimed mainly at the committee and how that works, so we are now working with the Transition Team to understand where Junior Branch should fit into the governing documents of CISV International.

While we still think the information contained in O-15 is important, we believe that the role of Junior Branch in CISV needs to be stated clearly in the governing documents. While programmes have an info-file for their committee, they also have a ‘programme guide’ that states their definition, purpose, etc. which is something Junior Branch could also benefit from.

Other topics We are also communicating with the transition team about: • The new committee structure, and where Junior Branch will be in that • How Junior Branch will fit into the regions • How IJBC fits alongside the Advisory Conference The result of these discussions should be released as the Transition Team reach conclusions. We will keep you posted...

A.O.B. Anything else?

Some other things to look out for in the near future are: IJB Thinks #21 - we have a theme, and it’s exciting! Coming soon...

Governing Board Nominations - In 2013 CISV will elect its first governing board. NJRs will vote for one of these people, and we as IJRs can nominate anyone you, think should run - so let us know if there is someone you would like to run! For more info about what the Governing Board is and how someone can run for it, visit http://tinyurl.com/bopagod IJR Nominations - Nominate who you want to be the next IJR! For more info, visit www.ijb.cisv.org/jbpedia/IJR_Candidates

artist: Keith Davis Young