February 2015

100 Years Milestone Find out about our history

Easter Eggs Galore! Read about the annual JCI Easter Egg Appeal!

The Business of Retail! How JCI can help young pro-fessionals in their careers

Visit Mayo, Ireland! Read all about the vist to our twin chamber JCI Mayo in Ireland!

Steel City News

Contents Page 1Page 2Page 3 - 4Page 5Page 6 - 7Page 8Page 9Page 10Page 11 - 12Page 13Page 14Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 - 18

Welcome from 2015 PresidentNational Convention100 YearsDevelop To Succeed The Team: Neal StirkEaster Egg AppealPound A Day - The ReviewEvents DiaryInspiration Day - The ReviewBusiness Try Before You BuyJCI Yorkshirelnternational - IrelandMeet Keira JCI Mayo President

Hello there!What a great kick off we have had to 2015 so far! I can’t quite believe we have raced through the first month of the year already. What has struck me so far is the enthusiasm and excitement from you all to be the CHANGE this year. Its been an action packed January across all our areas of opportunity: Community - Several of our members started the year by taking part in the JCI UK pound a day challenge in which we lived on £7 for the week for our food and drink to raise awareness of child poverty and to donate what we didn’t spend to Save The Chil-dren. This was a tough challenge and really made me think about what I and I’m sure many of us, take for granted. Business – we held our first Networking Wednesday of the year and welcomed several new faces to this monthly informal and relaxed event and secured commitment to hold a future tour to a local business with an international web presence, Drop Dead clothing. Training - our first training session was ‘Develop to Succeed’ by coach Russell Hobbs who challenged us to reflect on what our personal mission is and what values are im-portant to us. We were pleased to welcome several potential new members who took advantage of our ‘try before you buy’ offer. Deputy President Gareth Carson and I de-livered a training workshop to new interns on the ‘RISE’ graduate scheme about charity fundraising as well as personal and professional development. International/National – a few of us joined members from across the country to attend JCI UK Inspiration Day in Manchester which proved to be a great motivator for us all; we also held our monthly twinning conference call with JCI Mayo to share our plans for the year. Social – we were very proud to have watched our very own Gareth Carson play the dame in the pantomime ‘Sleeping Beauty’ who had us in stitches with his outrageously loud costumes and witty Scottish accent. It was also great to attend JCI Barnsley’s ‘Stars in Your Eyes’ themed annual dinner. There is so much to look forward to this year in JCI and one of my personal favourites of the calendar is our annual visit to our twin chamber JCI Mayo in Ireland. This is booked in for 13th-16th March, the closest weekend to St Patrick’s Weekend. I would strongly recommend joining us on this visit! Check out the interview with JCI Mayo President Keira Keogh in our #twinningiswinning section. I remember when I first met Keira at our twinning weekend in 2013 when she was thinking about joining as a member and I am so pleased to be working alongside her this year as Local President. Remember, JCI Sheffield is run by members for members, so please share your ideas on what you would like to see us do to help you to be the CHANGE this year and to feel proud.

Mark Smith2015 PresidentJCI Sheffieldmark.smith@jcisheffield.org.uk

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We are very excited to announce that JCI UK National Conference is coming to Yorkshire this year! JCI Barnsley is hosting this years annual event and will be helping to celebrate 100 years of the JCI movement with theme of ‘Modern Centurions’.

The three day event which will run 20th – 22nd November promises a host of training ses-sions, networking, a trade show, a gala dinner, socials and a whole lot more! The keynote speakers, workshops and training sessions will help you gain new skills. The JCI UK Na-tional Public Speaking, Extempore and Debating competitions will also take place over the weekend. And of course, it wouldn’t be JCI without a party or two. On Friday night, there is a Roman themed event with the Gala Dinner taking place on the Saturday evening. Find out more information on the website! There are a limited number of early bird weekend tickets available for £200 which includes 2 nights accommodation.

Members attending JCI UK Inspiration Day were getting excited about National Convention!

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JCI Sheffield is one of the oldest local chambers in the country and contin-ues to be one of the largest and most active. The chamber has forged many strong links within the City and as a member of the Chamber of Commerce we hold a place on the council and therefore play an active role in the deci-sion making process.

The first general meeting of Sheffield Junior Chamber of Commerce (SJCC) was held on 24th October, 1927 in Firth Hall. Early recommendations that achieved results relatively quickly were those of an inner cirlce bus route, multi-storey parking and improving the litter problem.

Sheffield with the biggest membership in England, was to be the host cham-ber of the national conference on September 16, 1939. With 13 days to go, war was declared and the conference was cancelled. In Harry Melking’s term of office (1949 - 1950), it was agreed that SJCC needed their own monthly publication and ‘The Anvil’ was established. This was later known as ‘The Hub’ (June 1952) and today in 2015 it is now called Steel City News which is our new online publication.

During a debate in 1954 against Nottingham Junior Chamber, SJCC was successful in proposing that “The Government of this Country should run a national lottery to ease the burden of taxation”.

SJCC members founded the Yorkshire Regional Group in 1955 with Graham Bruce as Yorkshire Chairman.

Sheffield Junior Chamber gave their first JCI Senatorship award to Micheal A. Goode in November 1960. Since then a further 54 Sheffield members have been given this accolade.

During the 1970’s SJCC reached a peak of membership at over 300 mem-bers. Chamber members were also responsible for starting a number of off-shoot chambers including Buxton, Chesterfield, Dronfield, Matlock, Shef-field University, Penistone, Castleford and Pontefract, Backewell and even Northallerton.

A Brief History ofJCI Sheffield

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The 1977 National Conference was hosted by SJCC and attracted just short of 850 delegates up to that point the largest gathering of Junior Chamber members in the history of British Junior Chamber. The secret of success was with no doubt the remarkable level of funds with £23,000 raised from sponsors.

In 1985, after four years in the planning , Sheffield Junior Chamber hosted the European Conference. The whole chamber was involved with this pro-ject and welcomed over 1500 delegates to the city. Venues used included various hotels, the Cutler’s Hall and City Hall. The conference proved so successful that it has provided addtional funding for the benefit of all mem-bers since.

The ladies association was disbanded in 1985 and in the same year, SJCC had their first lady President, Frances Soar. A major environmental initiative that has left a permanent legacy for the city was the River Don Active Com-mitee which led to the development of the Five Weirs Walk.

A great emphasis was placed on the community style projects with Christ-mas Tree Appeals for underprivilidged children being held every December in the City Centre. The Lord Mayors’ Parade continued until 1998 when the road layout of the city centre and the tram system made a motorized parade difficult to sustain. Pantomimes were staged at the Library Theatre every couple of years or so and Fun Days to raise funds for the Five Weirs Walk was a regular feature of the summer.

We have forged some strong links with Fir Vale School, helping them achieve their fundraising targets to win Business and Enterprise status and when the Queen came to open the new campus. We also launched our Easter Egg Appeal which now regularly raises over 400 eggs that have been do-nated to the Childrens Hospital.

I’ve been to a number of JCI sessions now which are fo-cused around developing yourself and the Develop to Succeed training like all others didn’t disappoint! I always find these sorts of sessions a great way to reflect on where both my business is currently at but also where I am at personally.

One strong focus in the session was the importance of understanding your personal values, it was surprising (but also comforting!) to see that no one else in the room was really sure of these either. From this, Russell suggested we ask people closest to us to give us three words that described us best - it was important that they were honest and didn’t just say things we wanted to hear. This was a bit daunting but the result was pleasantly surprising! This is a great exercise to help you understand how you come across to people along with your strengths and develop-ment areas.

There were also a great deal of other useful areas within the session that I was able to draw on from a professional and personal point of view and I came out with a to do list for my next staff meeting as long as my arm!

As always there was a great atmosphere at training and it was lovely to have a good catch up prior to the session in the informal networking.

@razzsheffield

Helen GreenJCI Sheffield Member

The Team Each edition will give you the chance to meet a member of the 2015 council team for JCI Sheffield. You can learn all about thier passions, thoughts and more! In this issue it’s Community Action Director 2015 Neal Stirk!

Name:

Neal Stirk

How long have you been a member of JCI?

Since June 2013

How long have you been on the Council Team?

Since May 2014

What is your current role on the council team?

Community Action Director

What are your hobbies?

Photography and a keen follower of football.

Why JCI for you?

Because its great to meet like minded people who enjoy a challenge and want to make a difference to them and to others.

Tell us about your role.

As the Community Action Director its my role to manage the more charitable aspects of our chamber. With our members I look at how we can impact the local community making a real difference to people’s lives. This can be through loads of different ways, training charities in areas they need advice on, raising funds, raising awareness and even just arranging talks with our members to get their name out.

What is your ambition in JCI?

My ambition is to run my own regional project which raises money for charities not just in Sheffield but Yorkshire and maybe even across the UK. On a personal level I’d like to improve my confidence so that I can take part in a public speaking competition and hopefully win!

Proudest JCI moment (so far!)?

Taking the first step out of my comfort zone and joining the council team.

Most Embarrasing Moment:

Completely freezing when it was my turn to talk in the debating training. I completely forgot what I wanted to say and had to sit down. No one made a fuss though which helped me through it.

What Is Your Occupation?

I work as a Technical Account Manager for a local IT company called Resolve IT Solutions. I have a small group of clients that I work closely with removing frustrating IT issues, giving advice on potential new solutions, and just generally making sure that things run smoothly.

Claim to Fame?I was once auditioned for the role of the milky bar kid (I was very blonde as a kid!) and came quite close!

What advice would you give to someone thinking of joining their local JCI council team?

Go for it! It doesn’t matter if you have experience in a particular role or not the support of the other council team members is brilliant everyone knows a little bit about each area. This really helps with generating idea’s as everyone has their own.

neal.stirk@jcisheffield.org.uk@nealstirk

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The Easter Egg Appeal is back! Hopefully this year we’re going to make it bigger and better than ever! In 2013 we collected around 200 Easter eggs, in 2014 we gathered around 300. Can we collect 400 eggs this year? Absolutely!!

The reason JCI collects Easter eggs (whether large or small) is to donate to The Sheffield Children’s Hospital Charity with the hope the gift will bring a smile to the faces of the children and young people whilst staying in hospital. We can all appreciate and imagine that being in hospital can be a stressful and generally unpleasant experience, making you feel isolated and this can feel even worse if you are of a very young age.

We are very excited that our member Helen Green, principal of Razzamataz Theatre School in Sheffield, is once again leading on this project and is planning for pupils at her theatre school to perform to the children and young people in hospital, when we hand over the eggs we have collected.

If you wish to make a donation of an Easter Egg please bring them along to any of our events and someone from the council team will take them for you. Please consider encouraging your friends, family or work colleagues to get involved with the appeal - could you set up a collection point at your work for example? Whilst this appeal is focused on collecting Easter Eggs, we will also accept soft toys if you prefer to give these instead of chocolate.

We would like to receive all collections by 31st March so there is plenty of time to col-lect eggs if you wish to help.

Please let Neal Stirk know if you have prob-lems dropping off any donations and we’ll make arrangements to try and help you out if we can.

@savethechildren@JCISheffield

To help raise awareness of people living in pover-ty and to raise money for Save the Children I re-cently took up the Pound a day Challenge. We had a budget of £7 per person to spend on food and drinks for the week and we gave the difference from our usual weekly spend to Save the Children.

Personally I found the week really hard, as I wasn’t eating usually food as I tend to snack. Unfor-tunately I couldn’t do that when I have to think about what I was eating. For example I couldn’t just go and have a slice of bread because I had to think would the loaf last me all week.

I found it hard to cope that with the limited budget I had for the week and that I couldn’t go and get a chocolate bar if I fancied it from the shop when I only have a pound a day to get food. I didn’t re-alize as a general consumer it costs more to eat healthy than to eat processed food, it seems mad that there are cheaper meat products than apples.

Monday was ok, I was hungry but still able to go on as normal but by the Wednesday I was not just hungry, but all I could think about was food. Yes I was eating, but it was small amounts and not the greatest quality I was never totally full so I became hungry again very quickly. I also became very tired and grumpy and I struggled to concentrate.

Sadly there are too many people and families that have to live like this. But not in developing worlds but right hear in the UK. In Sheffield there are at least 10 food banks that give food and other goods to the most vulnerable in our community. Which are important charities and do some brilliant work.

Doing the Pound a Day Challenge has opened my eyes to how some people have to live, and I would encourage people to try it even if I was just once in their life. It really does put your own life into perspective. I am lucky I have a roof over my head and a kitchen full of food, some people aren’t that lucky. I believe that good healthy food is a right and that everyone should have access to it but sadly this is not the case.

So far over 3 years the project has raised over £4,000 for Save The Children!

Stephanie SmithJCI Sheffield Member

Events DiaryHere you can check out all of the fantastic events that are lined up for JCI Sheffield and even other chambers around the UK! Filled with business talks, training work-shops, networking and socials your diary is about to get a lot more exciting! Be sure

to book on Eventbrite to save your spot!

For more information head to our websitehttp://www.jcisheffield.org.uk/events

First Aid TrainingEvent Type: TrainingVenue: The Holiday Inn, Royal Victoria Hotel, Victoria Station Road, Sheffield, S4 7YEDate: 9th Feb, 2015

9 Feb JCI Achieve & JCI Impact Event Type: TrainingVenue: The Holiday Inn Express, Blonk Street, Sheffield,Date: 21st Feb, 2015

21 Feb

25 FebEvent Type: BusinessVenue: Henry’s Cafe BarDate: 25th Feb, 2015Price: JCI Member: Free Non-Member: Free

Networking Wednesday

An Audience with Age UK SheffieldEvent Type: CommunityVenue: Age UK Sheffield, 44 Castle Street, Sheffield, S1 2GFDate: 5th Mar, 2015

5 Mar Visit to our twin chamber JCI Mayo in IrelandEvent Type: InternationalVenue: Westport, IrelandDate: 13th Mar, 2015

13 - 16 Mar

Dance Workshop withRazzamataz SheffieldEvent Type: TrainingVenue: RSPCADate: 25th Feb, 2015Price: £5 donation to charity

24 Mar

JCI UK - Marketing Academy 2015Event Type:TrainingVenue: BPP University Birmingham, 34-36 Colmore Circus Queensway, Birmingham, B4 6BNDate: 28th Feb, 2015

28 Feb - 1 Mar

25 MarEvent Type: BusinessVenue: Henry’s Cafe BarDate: 25th Feb, 2015Price: JCI Member: Free Non-Member: Free

Networking Wednesday

Yorkshire Half Marathon Sheffield (run or volunteer) Event Type: CommunityVenue: Sheffield - Starts City CentreDate: 12th April, 2015

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I was delighted to attend the JCI UK national event of the year Inspiration Day on Saturday 31st January hosted by JCI Manchester. This is always a highly anticipated day full of great expectations and the promise to leave members geared up, motivated and raring to go and I’m pleased to say this did not disappoint. The JCI UK 2015 National Board led by National President Drew Charman introduced each member of his team who gave a flavour of what we can look forward to in a year where our national theme is to #feelproud. Sarah Beckwith National Deputy President and long standing JCI member talked about the challenge she has of acting as the ‘font of all JCI knowledge’ this year and to help share good practice amongst chambers, but with 8 years experience as a member, on local council teams as well as national board, I am sure she will easily fit this bill! She also summarized the JCI UK National Training Academies that we can look forward to in the year. The first one Marketing Academy runs 28th Feb and 1st March with half of the tickets already sold. Others to look forward to include Public Speaking Academy 9th & 10th May and Leadership Academy (LEAP) on 21st – 23rd August. Michael Steel, Strategic Partnerships Director spoke about plans he has for JCI UK to forge new links with other relevant organisations including the fairly new National Citizens Ser-vice which has the potential to act as feeder organisation by inspiring young active citizens. He also spoke about other organisations that JCI UK is networking with on a national basis included the Lions Club and Rotaract, the junior ele-ment of The Rotary Club. In the first round of recognition, Fiona Silvester National Mem-bership & Admin Director gave out certificates to members who had completed ‘pathways’ in their first year of member-ship. This is a programme designed to help JCI members take full advantage of the different areas of opportunity. We were delighted that our very own Ryan Pilkington was award-ed a certificate for being an active member.

#JCIID2015@JCI_UK@JCIManchester@marksmith_sheff

Katie Ogley last years National Community Di-rector who acted as project manager for the an-nual pound a day challenge, recognized mem-bers across the country who lived on £7 for a week and donated what they saved on their shopping to charity. Several Sheffield members were awarded a certificate for taking part. She also gave out awards to acknowledge mem-bers who logged volunteering hours within JCI and outside JCI as part of the ‘Active Citizen Experience’. Katie Jackson clocked up over 30 hours of volunteering and I was pleased to be acknowledged for logging 93 hours in 2014. Joy Kingsley, JCI Senator and Senior Partner at Manchester law firm JMW was the first guest speaker. Joy explained how her past experience of serving as Local President of JCI Manchester in the 90s helped to give her the life skills and understanding to help her succeed in her career. She shared the keys to being a successful lead-er were also important aspects of being a JCI President, including the importance of adopting an open management style, embracing change in a positive way, holding on to an entrepre-neurial spirit as well as making timely decisions.

In the afternoon Vikas Shah a 34 year old entre-preneur gave us a remarkable summary of his life and career so far. It was incredible to hear that he set up his own website development business at the tender age of 13 years old which was at the very beginning of the dot.com revo-lution. He told us that whilst most typical teen-agers hang out with their mates and play foot-ball after school, Vikas would spend his evenings in his office creating websites for businesses.

As part of the audience he had us hanging off his every word as he used humour to tell his story. He stopped us in our tracks however, when he disclosed that he has suffered from severe de-pression on several occasions which led him to make a number of suicide attempts. His frank tales of how he has had to take the rough times with the smooth, cope with the many failed busi-ness ideas that flopped, coupled with the positive work he has done with charities to help them with their business strategy, made for compelling lis-tening. I found Vikas to be a very humble man and he shared with us his key learning points which included 1) not to define yourself by your job; 2) money is not that important – but having passion and drive is (which then often leads to success); 3) focus on today, rather than worry-ing about what could happen; 4) be a good cit-izen and use your talents skills and experience to help others and finally 5) stay inspired – all of which has given me incredible food for thought.

Mark Smith2015 President

BusinessThis year we will continue to build on our relationships with the local business community, as this is a big part of JCI Sheffield. Over the last few years we have been able to offer members the opportunity to tour some of the largest and most well recognised businesses in Sheffield, as well as being able to invite members to meet and listen to some of the most respected and well-known local business leaders.

One sector that is prominent in the Sheffield region is the retail sector, which hires over 37,000 people per year. This is one sector that we want to support more in 2015 and will be launching various initiatives and train-ing sessions for these young professionals.

With this in mind we will be exhibiting at the upcoming Retail Matters Conference at The Source (near Mead-owhall) on Tuesday 10th February. The theme of the conference will be ‘The Future of Retail’ which will give an insight into how high-street stores will adapt and develop to continue to be successful. If you are in the retail sector and are attending the event be sure to stop by our stand and meet our 2015 President, Mark Smith.

We are currently booking our business tours and ses-sions for the coming year, so if you have a business that you would like to tell the local community about, or if you feel that you have business experience that you would like to share with the next generation of young professionals please contact our 2015 Business and Partnerships Director, Katie Jackson to discuss further.

Katie JacksonJCI SheffieldBusiness & Partnerships Director 2015

@KTVJ1 katie.jackson@jcisheffield.org.uk

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“‘Developing to succeed’ was my first JCI session, so I was unsure on how the session would run but I went along as I want to develop my confidence in order to progress to my next role of store manager.

I enjoyed the session, the group interaction and role plays got us all involved and everyone was so welcoming and friendly.

I really think JCI could develop my retail career by giving me more confidence and by developing my skills. Even after this first session I felt empowered by the knowledge that I already have within my retail role.”

Louise Pearce Aspiring member

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In January we held our first training session of the year, ‘Develop To Succeed’ with Russell Hobbs. Afterwards, we caught up with Louise Pearce, not currently a member of JCI Sheffield but who took advantage of our free ‘try before you buy’ opportunity that we are offering this year for people to have a taster of what JCI is all about. Louise works at Jaeger in Meadow-hall Shopping Centre in Sheffield and had been interested in learning more about JCI after seeing so much positive coverage about our activities on social media and especially the feeds from her facebook friends who are involved.

JCI Rotherham who are celebrating their first birthday this month, invites you to “come dine with us”. Instead of cook-ing for other JCI members the idea is to invite people to join you for an evening of good food and fabulous company at their favourite restaurant. So far we’ve had a wide range of restaurants and coming up on the 21st February is El lupos, hosted by Fiona and JJ. It’s hosted on the evening of the JCI Sheffield achieve and impact training, so why not come along after and keep your day of JCI opportunities going!

It’s been a busy January, where we held our ‘Stars In Your Eyes’ themed dinner to celebrate a fantastic 2014. The Blues Brothers, S Club 9, Elvis, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry all made an appearance! Thank you to those who attended to make the evening very memorable. Unfortunately because of the snow we postponed our first training event of the year but on Thurs-day 26th February we are running a ‘Prioritising and Time Management’ training by Fiona Silvester from JCI Rotherham.

We could all do with being more able to protect ourselves ‘just in case’, so we have arranged to have Martial Arts train-er Ben Higo come to show us some self defence skills and techniques that will make you feel safer out and about. This is on 17th Feburary.

InternationalJCI Sheffield has been proudly twinned with JCI Mayo in Ireland since 2012. We are currently starting to make arrangements to visit our twins for our annual long weekend trip to Ireland closest to St Patricks Day! Take a look and be sure to book your place! This will be an experience not to be missed!

13th - 16th March 2015

Our strong twinning relationship, now in its third year, is of-ten the envy of other chambers around the world, as we consistently keep in regular contact with each other and set up regular trips to each chamber.

Each year members of JCI Sheffield have the opportunity to head over to Mayo, Ireland for a weekend filled with the chance to grow your international network, socialise with a new set of friends, take part in training and get involved with a community project. Later in the year (26th-28th June), members of JCI Mayo will then visit Sheffield for a second twinning weekend! of the year.

The proposed intinerary for our visit to JCI Mayo this year includes a training session on event management as well as the chance to take part in a community project with a local charity similar to the RSPCA. We are expecting to be able to help feed and walk the animals, as well as lend a hand with cleaning up their building and doing a spot of DIY.

Taking part in twinning weekends is a great way to sam-ple the many benefits of the international side to JCI in an affordable and accessible way as well as experiencing the Irish charm!

Check out the JCI Sheffield website for blogs and photo’s from previous twinning weekend visits and to book your place!

#TwinningisWinning

When did you join JCI? June 2013. I hesitated for a while as I wasn’t sure I had time, now I don’t know what I was doing with all that free time I had.

Why did you join JCI? I joined to give back to the community. Working with Autism and Special Needs, I didn’t want to align myself with any one charity or cause. I liked that JCI ran many different community projects and was very engaged with the community. Like so many Jaycees, who join for one reason, and stay for another, the same can be said for me. The individual development side of JCI has transformed me as a person. I have gained so many skills and my confidence has grown as a result.

What has been your proudest JCI moment so far? Hard to say; I am always proud when I am representing JCI. I was honoured to host the morning show in front of hundreds of delegates from around the globe at the JCI World Congress in Germany. Another highlight has to be witnessing over 40 dogs turn out for a Dogathon that I was project lead on, which made me get a little over-whelmed with what we had achieved. Winning the national debating Shield and going on to debate as a member of team Ireland were also very proud moments. Receiving Best Member in JCI Mayo, was a fantastic way to top off 2015. This year so far has to be making my parents and my boyfriend Derek proud as the JCI Presidential chains of office were placed on my shoulders, which was a very special.

Tell us a bit about Mayo. Mayo is a big county on the West Coast of Ireland. The people are very friendly and the landscape is breath-taking. There is lots of things to see and do, whether its cycling on the Greenway, climbing Croagh Patrick, ‘going wild in Erris’, or visiting a museum. We have many hotels and bars that provide for the many tourists that come from all over the World.

We sat down with Keira Keogh, JCI Mayo President for 2015 to talk about her JCI journey and to get to know a little more about our twin chamber!

Name and current role: Keira Keogh, JCI Mayo President 2015

What do you do for a living? I am a behaviour consultant spe-cialising in early intervention for children with Autism. I also con-sult as sort of a ‘super nanny’ for parents that have neuro typical children as well as those with Special Needs. There are exciting times ahead as I am just beginning to run parenting seminars. This is a huge step for me, as after just joining JCI in June 2013 I said ‘I wasn’t in business’ whereas now I have my own facebook page and a steadily growing client base.

We’ve heard the twinning visits are fantastic. What tends to happen on them?The Twinning visits are my favourite part of the JCI calendar. Basically it’s a bunch of new and old friends having an action packed sleepover for a weekend. We try to touch on all the areas of JCI opportunity, whether its breaking through boundaries training with a life coach, volunteering at an animal shelter, or visiting the local politicians chamber. We throw in lots of fun activities too, like pizza making, trying to figure out mazes, or playing very competitive charades.

Why do you think members should join the twinning visits?I think that the international pillar of JCI can sometimes be over looked by some members in JCI and really its just as beneficial as the others. You can meet more friends for life who you can then meet up with at the many different events and conferences in other countries. It is also really beneficial for your own local chapter as you come away with fresh ideas and an outside perspective.

What are the benefits of twinning?For me personally it has been meeting my amazing twins, who I now count as friends. They support me through all my activites and when I see them doing well it makes me incredibly proud. After all #TWINNINGISWINNING

What happens on the monthly twinning calls?We have a good catch up, and share each other’s news, brainstorm against challenges we may be facing and laugh a lot.

@JCIMayo@keirakeogh #TwinningisWinning

Looking to work with a PR agency that makes things happen? At MK PR we aim to be the best at what we do,working with people and representing businesses who are similarly motivated. To find out more please call a member of the team on 0114 275 67 84 or drop us an email at: help@mkthingshappen.co.uk T: @MKThingsHappen

A speal thank you to B&B Press for printing our JCI Sheffield leaflets.

Follow JCI Sheffield on social media! #betheCHANGE