By Vicky Savage

How to be inspired? It's a difficult thing to inspire people, but JCI Reading pulled out all the stops to engage and motivate JCI Members for 2011. Over 60 JCI members from all over the UK were in attendance for Inspiration Day.

The day started catching up new and past members and celebrating the previous year's work before our 2011 UK President Alison Cowell had "Ali's hour" which was a fantastic way to start her Back to Basic campaign. It was in this hour that Ali introduced the new amazing JCI UK badge pins (arriving shortly to all JCI Members) JCI Yorkshire did an outstanding "intention to host bid" for National Convention which got everyone excited. It was also an opportunity for Ali to introduce Ismail Haznedar, our 2011 IVP who gave a very inspiring speech on what it means to be a part of JCI.

JCI Reading also arranged for members to take part in Past, Present and Future in which members shared their experience of being part of JCI which definitely confirmed that becoming a member of JCI was definitely a smart move to make.

Phew that was all before lunch!

After lunch Graham Jones, an Internet Psychologist delivered a thought provoking training session on the uses and benefits of Social Media for businesses and blogging is the way forward. After all these speeches what do you need, an activity! JCI reading had put a lot of effort into creating a Social Media themed challenge which saw 10 groups competing around Reading town centre. I have definitely been inspired and soon will be blogging my Presidency year Wordpress here I come ...