The greatest Chamber in the world II

...yeah, that's our ambition....And we're on our way!

Last week was very exciting! On a very short notice we organised two informal discussions at a wine bar in central London about what membership in London is about, where we want it to go, and how we can take it to the next level. One group met on Tuesday and another on Thursday, both about 7-8 people, a mix of council members, long time members, new members and non-members - all of them pitching in with their view on things. It was awesome!

JCI London has gone through a lot of changes the last couple of years, and the growth in members (from 41 in 2008 to 130 (and counting) in 2010) and in numbers of events are the changes that have made the most impact on how we function and what we offer our members. Are we the best we can be? What can we do better? What would the ideal organisation look like and what has to be true for that to happen?

The two discussion meetings were quite different, not so much in energy but the focus in each meeting was different, and I was the only person present at both meetings. I asked the people present to discuss our ambition to be the greatest chamber, what does that mean? To our members? To London?  How can we get there?

One thing both meetings looked into was the difference between long term and short term benefits. We're not a short term benefits organisation, but most members join us for the short term benefits, then stay for the long term benefits... During the discussions at the first meeting I was inspired to write the tag lines below, and its now going into the national newsletter here in the UK as a definition of what JCI is not... I know its not good to focus on "nots", and not good to write "buts", but (yeah yeah) here I feel it works....

We’re not a networking organisation…

…but through us you’ll build a network of ambitious future leaders and friends that will last you a lifetime

We’re not Toastmasters…

…but through us you’ll get training in public speaking and presentations and the opportunity to practice in front of a variety of audiences locally, nationally and internationally

We’re not a CPD organisation…

…but through us you’ll get professional and personal development cheaper than with any other comparative organisation (and you can even log it as CPD hours)

(CPD means Continuous Professional Development and is a means for professionals to maintain their skills. Many companies and organisations in the UK require employees to log a certain number of CPD hours per year, obviously logging those hours through JCI is both cheap to the company and a lot more fun to the employee!) 

If you have ways to make this text better, or suggestions to how it could flow, please feel free to share them with me in the comments!

I'll come back with another post on the outcome of this whole process later, I need to share it with my council first, but I just couldn't wait sharing at least a tiny bit....its all so much fun!

Reading habits

I have a bad Amazon habit...

I've told myself that I won't order more books until I've read all the ones I have from before, but when those books are on topics like quantum mechanics and feminism, keeping that promise to myself has turned out to be hard. Not to mention that reading anything at all has turned out to be hard as a Local JCI President...there's just too many other things to do...

I have spurts of random interests when I decide to buy all the books I can find on Amazon on a certain topic. Ok, not all the books, but enough to feel that "ok, if I read these, then I'll know what its all about". Last year two of these spurts were as mentioned quantum mechanics and feminism. I then realised that quantum mechanics actually is physics, and feminism - yeah there's a reason I hadn't already read all those books. I'm absolutely proud of being a feminist, but the thing I feel with books that broke new ground 50 years ago is that the ground has been broken and what the books are saying have been incorporated into mainstream thinking. And that's excellent, it means the book really made an impact, but it also makes for an unmotivated Solveig.

Other interests last year that made an impact on the content of my bookshelves:

• Russian language (ya khasho champanska)
• Modern Russian history (still reading those books, especially Orlando Figes and books on current oil politics)
• Modern African history (I actually read those books, yay!)
• Philosophy of Ethics (I love Alasdair MacIntyre, but his books aren't easy reading so I'm still working on them)
• Israeli military development (nope, not read)
• State building and how to save failed states (read some...)
• general stuff on leadership, networking, personal development

Some of my book habits are good, some are bad. I tend to read about six books at a time, which I think of as a good habit. I need one book to relax with, one book on politics, another for inspiration on leadership issues, then its the book I'm reading for the training I'm planning to give in August, then its the book on international finance I just never managed to finish but still want to read now and then....and on and on and on...

A bad habit is that I never remember what I've actually read. To help me remember which books I've actually read (yeah, that's an issue...) I've one of those neat new moleskine book journals where I note down the basics about each book, and then I have another (also moleskine) where I write more substantial notes about the books I really want to remember. Writing book reviews here on my blog is also a great way of getting more out of a book as it forces me to make up my own opinion about a book and dig out the important points. I also make lots of notes in my books, with various colored pens. Which can be fun, as I've sometimes grabbed a book I thought I hadn't read yet, only to come about halfway to find lots of my own notes...therefore the moleskin book journal (which is a pretty recent acquisition).

Today I got 5 more books from Amazon (bad, bad Solveig). "Beware of Small States" by David Hirst (I need to stay up on Middle East politics!), "The Diamond Cutter" and "It's your ship" (both recommended by brilliant Tony Friede and both on leadership theories in practice), and Peter M. Senge's "The Fifth Discipline" on learning organisations (I'm fascinated by organisations and have been since my student years, both small and large, from government level to JCI and family level, how do they really work and how do we make them work better?). The last is actually two books, so that makes five! And I'm sure Daniel will be very happy to know that at least 4 of the books are exceptionally large, completely justifying the new Billy bookcases we have to buy either way...

...and I'm already waiting for my next Amazon package  ;) 

Public Speaking

As you might know, I participated at the European Public Speaking Championship in Aarhus, Denmark at the JCI European Conference in June this year.

I've always loved speaking in front of people. Since I was a kid, I've taken every opportunity to speak or perform. My largest audience ever was when I "graduated" from the humanist version of the Christian Confirmation course in Norway, I was 14 and held a very serious speech in front of about 1,300 other 14-year olds and their parents and families. I also always speak at family gatherings, everywhere I can I get up and speak. And I've been some in the media. I think I like communicating!

The most challenging thing with the speaking this time around wasn't so much the delivery. If I relax and I feel confident, my delivery is natural, engaged (because I care about my topic) and I use my voice in a natural manner. The challenging thing was the content, and the context. The content - I think I got that under control, the context - well...I'm working on that...

I had two breakthroughs in the preparation of the speech, and I will share them here.

Simon Bucknall (Champion 2008 & The Art of Connection) went through the content and structure of the speech with me and made me understand that I should only keep things I was genuinely passionate about, things I really mean and believe, and that contributes to the story. And to discard anything that either distracts from the main point (no matter how much I like the point), or that the audience don't strictly need to know in order to get the main point.


Caroline Hall helped with the same thing (I had done my best after getting coaching from Simon but there were still darlings to kill), and also coached me on body language. I get nauseous from speakers that move too much from side to side (and as we've learned from this book, its because people's fear reflexes are on and we think its harder to hit a moving target...) so I've really worked on standing still. Caroline told me that its ok to move, as long as the move fits my story (i.e. if its natural for me to step forward or walk to explain something), and if - when I walk to the left, as soon as I reach the left side, I look to the right to engage the public on the right too, and don't walk more than 3 times back and forth and always make sure I end up in the centre.

What I should have been coached on, if its even possible, is to not read emails right before going on stage, and to not get affected by emails from a disgruntled boss.

I had to give my speech twice, first round we were 12 speakers in an auditorium with a small audience that we looked up on. Second round we were three finalists speaking in small hall where we looked down on the audience, and the audience were considerably larger

What surprised me was how different the experience of speaking was from one to the other. The first one I was almost in a daze, I don't remember anything (except thinking it was uncomfortable to look upwards and that I was focusing on not looking too much on the judges), and it was great. No thinking, just doing!

The second time around I was conscious of every step and every move. It was horrible! "Should I walk forward now?" "Should I lift my left hand?" "What's the next word again?" Was it the situation or the emails from my boss? Probably everything, but its end result was a very nervous Solveig on stage.

And that's what the judges told me afterward too. They said that first time I spoke I did excellent, second time I was too nervous. I also asked what I can change to win in the finals in Osaka in November (of course I want to win!), and they said that the only thing I should change was to not be nervous....easier said than done....But I got some advice on how to do that (give cell phone to friend day before, have a cheerleader group, focus on smiling people etc...)

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, I won! yay! In the picture to the left you can see I got my award from Roland and Bertold. Lesley, the girl to the left, National President JCI United Kingdom, came on stage with me, and I was trembling walking on stage. I wasn't aware before my name was announced how nervous and apprehensive I'd been about the whole thing. The whole rest of the evening I was like a balloon with no air, all the tension and nervousness relieved you think I should be happy, and I was, but my body was just deflated.

After the award ceremony I was overwhelmed by the support and love from everyone. Everyone came to congratulate me and in some way or another offer me help and support. Coaching, speaking practice, advice and most importantly of all their pride and support in me representing Europe in the World Finals.

Next step now is the World Finals in Osaka, Japan in November, where I'll meet the winners from Africa and the Middle East (a Syrian girl), Asia and the Pacific (a girl from the Philippines), and the Americas.  But right now - a little break from it all, then I'll look at my speech with fresh eyes and keep working on my nerves!

6 months council review/dinner

Its been a while since I wrote last, I've been traveling a lot, and I will be updating this blog with stories of my travels, as its all been JCI travels, and all been amazing. But right now I want to write about something even more amazing, my JCI London council.

For our 6 months review I took them all out for dinner at a small place in central London where there's a really nice private dining room, Chez Gerard.

We had some good food, some wine, and we went through what we felt had worked so far this year, and what hadn't. I also gave them my speech from the European Public Speaking  Championship (which I won!), and then I challenged them to write down the answers to these questions...

1) How will you take JCI London to the next level the next 6 months?
2) How will JCI London help your skills and your job the next 6 months?
3) Describe the dream organisation, the ideal JCI London
4) What has to be true in order for your ideal JCI London to be true?

Then, at the end, I had them all write down positive comments to each other that we placed in envelopes on the back of their chairs. We're 6 months through the year, everything isn't easy, we've all ran into some obstacles, we might have disagreed on things, some things we wanted dearly to do haven't happened yet, and we all need some cheering up (I loved the comments I got. Thank you so much everyone. I hope you all enjoyed the comments you got as much as I love mine!).

Again - in the responses to the four questions above, my council are amazingly ambitious and brilliant. I won't write down any of the responses here (many of them are very personal), but I will mention them in future posts as we will be working on them all over the coming 6 months towards Christmas....

Our next council meeting will be on membership, and I challenge you to think about how we can be the best for our members, take our organisation to the next level, and be the dream organisation.

Thank you all for everything so far!