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JCI Dublin in London

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

The main theme of this conference was “London – How to keep an old city young”. It started by a presentation about “The changing faces of London” by Peter Murray, Director New London Architecture. He explained that as a Major European City London has to grow and lead the way for other cities. One of the key point is to redevelop poor area as East London. These areas have to become the New and Modern faces of the city.
For more details you can attend the London festival of Architecture or visit www.lfa2008.org .

This presentation was followed by “Think London” by Brendan Dineen, Think London. This not-for-profit private-public partnership is London’s official foreign direct investment agency. This talk was focused on possible investment around Olympic Games which will be held in London from 26th July till 9th September 2012. He explained the different committees involved in this project (LOCOG, ODA, IOC) and how investment in London will grow by $80b from 2007 till 2012 (Building, services, staff…). For more details visit www.thinklondon.com or email This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Then The founder of The Big Issue, John Bird is a character straight out of Dickens, told us how his family are mainly third generation benefits dependent scum, welfare has emasculated the working class, and the state has destroyed social mobility. He spoke with real passion and made a big impression. “We need to liberate the homeless organisations to provide intensive care for the homeless: to do the mending, the rebuilding, and the transforming, rather than the maintaining. We need to invest in curing people of homelessness.” Too much money is invested without looking the real outcome of the project. For more information visit www.bigissue.com .

In the Afternoon Christina Ioannidis from Aquitude gave training “Be the effective Influencer”. Learn more about yourself and about others help you to have a more impactful communication. To do that simple questions like “what do you want in your work?” or “Why did you chose your current job?” will give you information about Motivational traits. At the end of the session it has been given some recommended reading: “Working with Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Coleman

On the second day, Delegate could discover more about the city through a Treasure Hunt in Central London. Starting from Trafalgar Square teams walked around convent Garden, Piccadilly Circus and also discovered some streets where tourist never goes. More tours were organised in the afternoon to learn.

In the evening, JCI London held their annual dinner in The Clink Prison. This very unusual venue for a black tie dinner is actually a museum. The Clink was the popular name for the prison attached to Winchester House, a palace that was the home of the Bishops of Winchester from the 12th century until 1626. The Clink Prison Museum reveals the gruesome nature of what life was like for those serving their sentence there. Many of whom were women, that worked in the brothels that were licensed by the Bishops. The Clink is said to owe its name to the 'clinch' irons that were used to pin prisoners to the wall or floor. For information about this venue www.clink.co.uk .

To close the conference, bidding for the following conferences in 2009 and 2010 were presented during the farewell lunch. The ECM 2009 will be hosted by JCI Luxembourg in May 2009.

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