JCI Dublin - Junior Chamber International Dublin

The JCI Dublin Delegates in Turku

Sunny weather, sea, boats, tanned people. We were not expecting any of this, still we encountered all of them during the Sparkling Experiences JCI European Conference in Turku, Finland. Several of the JCI Dublin members arrived in Turku via Stockholm on a cruise ferry, and had a chance to meet members of JCI Sweden, Norway, Turkey and Denmark in advance of the conference, and even have a warm-up party!

The conference gave all the participants the opportunity to grow and learn, by taking part into trainings, competitions and listening to keynote speakers. It was also a truly multinational and multicultural event, attracting JCI members from all over Europe, but also from countries as far as Japan, Korea, USA, Mexico, Tunisia and many others.

First time attendees to the conference received special treatment: each was given a little light-green flag, which was a conversation opener, and sometimes even a door opener! (especially for first-timers who needed to get signatures from senior members during meetings :D )

With trainings during the day and parties during the night, it was a really intense experience, and I am glad to have been among the jaycees who had their first international conference in Turku! My only regret was that so many good trainings were overlapping, and I had to make tough selection choices!

Delegates from JCI Ireland  had a special place in the conference, as the 2008 World President Graham Hanlon is from Ireland. The spirit of the Irish delegation was therefore very high, and only sky was the limit when JCI Ireland won two awards during the Awards Ceremony.  Best publication and best UN Project were the categories for which JCI Ireland went under the the spotlight, and boy does the spotlight feel good! So good that we are planning to win even more awards for the next year's conference in Budapest! And speaking of Budapest, their "Dance to impress" competition gave JCI Dublin another chance to get on stage, as we got a mention for participating, and doing the jolly dance moves in front of major landmarks in Dublin. We did not win that one yet, but the competition is still open until June 2009, so keep an eye out for more hungarian dancing on the streets of Dublin!

There are so many stories to be told, and so many impressions to be captured, that it would take several thousand words.  I will let several photos do the job instead. Members of JCI Dublin initiated a project to share their individual experiences with everybody else, so watch out for the upcoming "JCI Ireland - Sparkling experiences in Turku" brochure!

Tudor Borlea
JCI Dublin
22 June 2008

"JCI Ireland recently surveyed our members and found 74% felt they were 'not well informed on the issues involved in the Lisbon Treaty and are undecided about how they will vote," said Catherine Laffey, National president JCI Ireland at a debate held in Dublin yesterday.

London, 8th May, JCI Dublin president Kevin Guerin attended the 16th European Capital Meeting. This annual conference is an opportunity for all members to meet members from other European Capital, discover the host city and share ideas for development. This year JCI London has hosted the event. Seminars have been in the last floor of the London city hall with fantastic view of London.

  Kevin Guerin - 2008 President

JCI Presenter Training

The training was a perfect illustration of the JCI "Be better!" and "Learn by doing" mottos. The fifteen participants gathered at the Greenhills hotel in Limerick on Saturday May 10th. They came from all over Ireland, plus a special guest from JCI Edinburgh. The trainers were Marcel Driessen and Marjolein Jongman from the Netherlands, as well as Helen Flatley from JCI Ireland.

It all started at 10am sharp, as we had a lot to cover. A bit of coffee, a bit of dutch fruit salad (Marcel's specialty for waking us up) and we were off. To really give us a flavour of what was coming, each one of the participants had to do a 1 minute presentation of the most memorable experience for them. From white water rafting to car racing to driving license exam to bra parading to solar eclipse to saving lives - it was spectacular to hear so many great stories, and one could immediately get in touch with the inner Presenter!

With such good vibes in the air, we moved on to listening about presentation types, audience analysis, the content of the presentation and delivering it effectively. Each module was followed by some sort of "do it yourself" activity. The best craic was during the spontaneous/impromptu presentation, where a limited number of participants were given a subject on which to talk for two full minutes, without any time to prepare. It was an unique opportunity to find out so many interesting things about the mating habits of a peruvian bug, the culture of Yemen or the technical intricacies of a radar device. Things that the presenters themselves didn't think they knew! I'll just say it was the best laugh I had in a while. Stand up comedy is for beginners! :D

The training went on until around 21:30, with a lunch break and several smaller tea/coffee breaks. After almost 12 hours we were all definitely tired - however it was amazing the level of energy you get from actually being immersed in the training, rather than being just a passive listener. The grand finale was a 3 minute individual presentation on a JCI topic, followed by feedback sessions from both the trainers and the other participants. I found this to be the best part of the training. The fact that you could get so many points of view other than your own on the way you performed "on stage" meant you could find out things about your presentation style which you did not really notice before -  a real help in improving!

Personally, I found the training to be a lot of fun, and extremely useful. And I'm pretty sure everybody else felt the same - otherwise it wouldn't have been that much fun, or that useful! It was all about the people, and the people were great. 

Tudor Borlea

JCI Dublin

May 2008 

The happy graduate Presenters

JCI Dublin Winners

Delegates from both North and South of the border attended trainings, meetings and a dinner hosted by JCI Dublin. JCI Dublin has never been an organisation to shy away from stepping up to a challenge and the conference was a true test of their resourcefulness.

July 28-29, 2008, UN Headquarters, New York City, USA

Corporate Social Responsibility is one of the most relevant topics for today’s business leaders. That’s why JCI is teaming up with the UN Global Compact to teach business and community leaders how to be competitive and responsible entrepreneurs. At the 2008 JCI Leadership Summit, delegates from 116 countries will go behind the security gates at the UN Headquarters to learn how JCI and the UN Global Compact are working together to redefine business in a globalized world.

Well, the early bird for the 2008 Spring Conference is over now - nothing to worry about though: if you have not done so yet, there are still 20 days left to register for the conference!

Saturday will commence with a treasure hunt around Dublin. In the afternoon, we will find out more about ourselves with trainings on "Emotional Intelligence" and "Insight Discovery". The meal on Saturday night will be held in Cactus Jack's.

Subscribe now using this online form!

The JCI Ireland Spring Conference 2008, hosted by JCI Dublin is getting closer! Only 20 days left until the event will commence at the An Óige, Irish Youth Hostel Association, 61 Mountjoy Street, Dublin 7.

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Everybody wins in the end

On Thursday, February 21st, 2008 the JCI Dublin Debating Competition took place in London College, Merrion Square. The theme of the competition was "Is television bad for children?"

Two teams went head to head in this competition:
- defending the argument that TV is bad for children: Michelle Daly, Mark Kelly and Tudor Borlea
- opposing the argument, claiming that TV is good for children: Elizabeth Donohoe, Kevin Guerin and Julien Rouaud

The judges were Raymond Reilly, Kevin Hatherill and Joe Heron, and the presenter was Anthony Moran. Eveline Cardon helped organize the event, unfortunatelly she could not join us on the night though.

The debate was heated and fun, each team puting up a very good show. Extreme arguments ranging from talking about "the TV can't hurt you, it's just a box" to "TV has created a generation of zombies" raised laughter, nevertheless some very serious and valid points having been raised as well. Violence, obesity, unrealistic expectations from life were just a few of the arguments raised by the defendants of the theory. Education, brain stimulation, and moderate use were just a few of the counter-arguments used by the opposition.

The main speakers were Michelle Daly for the pro-team and Elizabeth Donohoe for the against-team. In the end, the judges decided that the opposing team made a stronger case, albeit on a very close margin. Nevertheless, everybody truly won - and had a box of chocolates in the end to prove it!

Tudor Borlea
JCI Dublin - February 2008
 

Screenshot of new version

Welcome to the brand new Web 2.0 look and feel version of the JCI Dublin website!

We hope new members will find it easier to get around, and existing members will appreciate the fresh professional touch of the new version. Work is continuing to make things better, please e-mail any suggestions/concerns to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Special thanks goes to Laura Hadade for creating the graphics displayed on the front page.

Tudor Borlea
JCI Dublin - February 21st, 2008

The JCI Ireland Spring Conference 2008, hosted by JCI Dublin is getting closer! Only 50 days left until the event will commence at the An Óige, Irish Youth Hostel Association, 61 Mountjoy Street, Dublin 7.

More information can be obtained at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Alison and the JCI Dublin guests (left to right: Ray, Anthony, Elizabeth, Alison, Kevin, Michelle, Tudor)

This year's Colquhoun dinner was in the memory of Robert Kerr Fulton, a well known Scottish comedian. The venue was the Trades Hall, a magnificient old building which apparently had very sensitive smoke detectors recently installed - a small detail of which the guests were quicly made aware. The fire alarms started sounding almost as soon as the guests had sat down, and everybody was rushed ouside in the cold (or alternatively in the very warm and cosy Steps pub across the street). A more spiced up version of that can be found directly on JCI Glasgow's website! 

All in all, it was a great opportunity to find out quite a few unique things about our twins in Glasgow: JCI Glasgow's has a Chairman rather than a President, they all loved Rikki Fulton, are great with a speech, their arch-enemy chapter is JCI Edinburgh, the 71st Colquhoun dinner was the first one in a long time when a member of the rival Edinburgh chapter was allowed to address the public and there is an old tradition about running to the Steps pub across the road for a drink in between the meal and the speeches (for speakers to get a chance to ...err... clean their throats!)

JCI Dublin guests there found out that altough our glaswegian twins are masters of the word, they are a bit less gifted when it comes to images - it took our good friend Richard 5 attempts to take a photo without chopping off somebody's head, arm or leg!

The Glasgow dinner gave us the opportunity to meet our twins' twins, Marianne and Ari from JCI Oulu, Finland, as well as our "lost" twins from JCI Leeds, represented by Julia. We hope to meet again soon!

The Burns Supper was hosted in the Radisson SAS hotel, right in the heart of Edinburgh's centre. We started the day off with a powerful training on "making the most of me" delivered by Scott from Scotland (actually Scott Johnston from Glasgow - choice of trainer showing that the two chapters actually enjoy a fruitful rivalry!) The training was followed by whisky tasting (without an "e", for the scotch variety). Five bottles of the highland spirit were presented, the qualities of each commented out before revealing its identity. Still, the Dublin team were able to spot the whiskey among whiskys, rightfully selecting the triple distilled single malt one as the best among the others, without knowing in advance what it said on the label!

The dinner commenced with haggis washed up with whisky, the traditional Scottish way (including bagpipes to present the haggis!). The meal was followed by effervescent speeches in which we learned about Rober Burns' rockstar-like status, had he lived today, as well as witnessed a proper toast to the lassies, and an even more proper reply. The night's grand finale was traditional ceilidh dancing, which had the whole audience spinning, turning and twisting on the dance floor!

JCI Dublin would like to thank our twins in Glasgow, as well as their rivals in Edinburgh for showing us such a great time!  

Tudor Borlea
JCI Dublin - February 2008

On Saturday, January 12th 2008, members of several JCI chapters throughout Ireland met up in Tullamore. The occasion was the JCI Local Officer training. The organizers: Catherine Laffey (JCI Ireland 2008 National President), Orla Ryng (JCI Ireland Deputy National President) and Gloria O'Doherty (JCI Ireland Director of Individual Development). The venue: Bridge House Hotel, in Tullamore. Atendees came from JCI chapters in all corners of Ireland: Galway, Limerick, Cork, Cobh, Dublin and last but not least Tullamore.

Participants learned about the way JCI works at a local and national level, and had a chance to find out more about the main roles within JCI, as well as JCI's main areas of opportunity: Individual, Business, International and Community.

Tudor Borlea - JCI Dublin
January 2008

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