Its the first day at the US Jaycees Leadership Academy in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I've been hanging out in the hotel getting to know people before it all kicks off tonight. We have three days of a packed program ahead of us and I look forward to learning how they do things in the US, create better relations between the US and the UK and making new friends. 

US Jaycees are the US branch of JCI. We're in Tulsa because the headquarter for US Jaycees is here and our program includes a visit to what they call the National Service Center. This is not the headquarter for JCI, that's also in the US, but in St. Louis.

In addition to speaking the same language, the US and the UK are facing many of the same issues within the organisation, so I look forward to bringing some ideas back to the UK and maybe some t-shirts and sample marketing materials to inspire the marketing push in JCI UK this year (I am after all Marketing Director). I already have a list of ideas to take home with me. 

The program is packed. The delegates here, about 200 of us, are mainly US State Presidents, Local Presidents and other leaders of the organisation on various levels including what is called future leaders. There's four tracks and each group receive training pertaining to its needs. Anything from Membership Systems, National Programs, Establishing New Chapters, to Work/Life/JCI balance will keep us busy until 23:30 each night. I'm bundled into the "Dedicated Leaders" track and look forward to learning how to rebuild chapters, membership systems, US national programs and a discussion with World President Kentaro Harada. 

I'm the only participant from the UK. There's a participant from Honduras and some people from Canada, but otherwise everyone are from the US. I've been incredibly well welcomed, people are friendly and nice and I'm going to leave this blog writing now and head down to the lobby to make some more new friends!