JCI World President Invites AIESEC Members to Join JCI

AIESEC International President welcomes JCI World President.

Today's students are far too conservative and accepting.
-- JCI World President Graham Hanlon

On February 22, JCI World President Graham Hanlon attended the 2008 AIESEC International Presidents meeting in Orhid, Macedonia. He was the first JCI President to do so in many years. AIESEC, as the world's largest student organization that helps students discover and develop their potential so as to have a positive impact on society, is a natural source for new JCI members.

A debate during the meeting centered on what the world will be like in 2025 and what students can do now to shape that world. Three candidates for AIESEC President, and representatives from Junior Achievement and the International Association of Agricultural Students (IAAS) joined Hanlon on the panel.

Hanlon told more than 200 young student leaders from 80 countries that today's students were far too conservative and accepting. "I am not asking you to run out onto the street and start throwing eggs, but today's students are far too accepting," he said. "If you in AIESEC, like we in JCI, wish to see change, then you must constantly articulate your views and push for change."

Asked if the environment will still be a major issue in 2025, Hanlon said he sincerely hoped it would not be. "If we are still talking about the environment in 2025 the way we are now, it means we will have failed in our responsibility to solve the environmental and ecological challenges that confront us," he added.

Join JCI!

The student body was keen to know what they could do after graduation to continue to live out the AIESEC philosophy. "Join JCI," Hanlon advised quickly. "As soon as you start your professional career, you WILL, whether you like it or not, become absorbed into the mainstream, and will soon be consumed by those everyday things that presently do not occupy your mind," he added.

"You'll focus on your job, career, income, pension, property and eventually relationships," said Hanlon. "These are all part of life but the demands they place on people in today's world are so great that many lose that passion and desire they had as students to make a difference. In JCI we keep that desire to make a positive contribution to change."

Students asked panel members what issues would be relevant in the future. "Ethics, particularly in business, is a growing concern for people" said Hanlon. "I think this is evident from the various groups appearing in society, like the Fair Trade for example," he said. "In JCI, we are concerned about ethics. That's why we have partnered with the United Nations Global Compact and have an active Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program."

Partnership Agreement

Prior to the debate, Hanlon held a constructive meeting with AIESEC President Gabriela Albescu and AIESEC Global Networks Manager Emanuel Gaverts. Discussions centered on a new partnership agreement between JCI and AIESEC. Both parties agreed that it could and should become more dynamic as the synergies between the two organizations were not being fully used to benefit both organizations.

Acknowledging that many of their national networks had close cooperation, all felt much more could be achieved. It was agreed that a new cooperation agreement would be entered into in 2008 and strongly promoted within JCI and AIESEC.

After all the formal engagements, Hanlon had the opportunity to participate in the festivities with AIESEC members. He refused to rule out the possibility of becoming a "mature student" some day in the future.

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5 actions that can change your life in next 5 months

In my previous post, I was talking about importance of making plans, thinking things through and trying to find out what's the best thing you can do for yourself, for your own good. Well, here you have 5 opportunities all brought out for you to think over and perhaps even to act upon ;)

• Members Committee applications for AIESEC Estonia MC 08/09 have been opened. It's really one-of-a-kind opportunity to make things happen in the whole AIESEC in Estonia. (1)
• AIESEC Tallinn is searching for the people who have the most courage and willingness to work on the Spring Recruitment 2008 campaign. It's specially designed campaign to recruit new members who wish to experience the life of AIESEC. (2)
• Do you have a great idea for a project based on exchange? Want to see how your idea could become one of the greatest things in AIESEC Tallinn history? Are you ready to become the a Project Manager in AIESEC Tallinn? (3)
• Become a facilitator in Baltic Conference Synergy 2008. The target group of participants consists of newies, elected leaders (Coo., OCP, teamleaders, project managers), elected EB members, EPs and all other active members (current EB, current leaders, MC, NST, NTT, other active members who are members of the teams). (4)
• If your resolution for 2008 is to find out how you can positively impact society and experience another great AIESEC conference abroad, then Solution 2008 in Austria is something for you. It's a conference about "Sustainable Leadership" with a very special atmosphere and purpose to find your inner calling for positive impact on society! (5)

(1) Deadline is Tuesday, 22.01. You can find more information about it here:
http://myaiesec.net/content/viewfile.do?contentid=10001313

(2) Deadline is Wednesday, 9.01. Detailed information will be sent to the list. If you're interested already, e-mail Siret.

(3) Deadline is not set yet. Action starts next week with project planning. Detailed information will be sent to the list. If you're interested already, e-mail Marina.

(4) Deadline is Friday, 11.01. Detailed information can be received from Liise.

(5) Deadline is Sunday, 20.01. Detailed information can be found here: http://www.aiesec.at/solution/community/

I wish you the year full of great actions and emotions. In the end of the day, it's not the things you own, but the things you have experienced, that really matters :)

Cleaning the office

“He who wants to change the world should already begin by cleaning the dishes.” (or EB office for example :))
(Paul Carvel)

Last Saturday I joined Siki´s cleaning team to get rid of trash in AIESEC TTY office. At first I was hesitating a bit, because of the recent AC experience, where there tended to be A Lot of cleaning, but in the end I didn’t regret my decision at all and had an opportunity to spend some good time with friends and be useful. Luckily the office is quite small, so there couldn’t be much trash, at least I thought so… but there ended to be a quite large amount of trash outside of the office. Mainly we found many old papers, flipps, posters etc. especially behind one cupboard J Seemed to be a nice place where to hide not useful things. Anyway, now it’s empty again.

It reminded me one incident of my childhood. I wanted some cornflakes, but accidentally I put keefir instead of milk in the bowl. I couldn’t eat that, because it was disgusting. So I decided to get rid of it and not to tell mom about that. And guess what seemed the best place at the moment? Kitchen cupboad of course. So I poured all the cornflakes with keefir behind the kitchen cupboard hoping it will disappear eventually. Well, obviously it didn’t, and honestly I don’t remember what happened next. Probably mom found it and cleaned it up. So much from hiding things behind the cupboard :)

I want to thank our small office cleaning team for the nice Saturday evening: Siki, Gertel and Marina and hope the EB feels gooood in their nice clean office.

Keep it clean! :P

Siret

Sometimes you've gotta shine like a star

Absolutely, sometimes you just have to shine! Like we did in this Christmas ball organised by Student Union of TUT. It was a nice event, not so well thought-through, but we enjoyed it while being there. Didn't get to dance though.

I just wanted to say that it's really nice to be in a student organisation like AIESEC is, because you get to be in so many places, you get invitation all the time. All you have to do is to show up and shine :) I really encourage you all to take some opportunities that suit you - find the things that make you shine like a shooting star and enjoy every single second of it ;) It'll be worth it, I can bet on that!

-- Riina