Karachi LCong

We've just come back from Karachi Local Congress.
I reckon it was great, both in terms of content and atmosphere!

A brief insight on what happened at the conference:

Day 1

We started with a few physical and intellectual teambuilding activities where Karachi members found out new facts about each other and felt the team spirit. Our facilitator Anna guided them in this discovery process.

After biryani-lunch in the SZABIST garden we continued with global updates, AIESEC ScoreCard education and MC 07-08 farewell. Members especially liked AIESEC ScoreCard session, because it broght clarity on the planning process and helped LC review their plan next day. MC Farewell happened to be a 'corporate-style' session. Taha and Klepo came in suits, serious ans smart, and presented MC team results for the previous term with suggestions for this year. All members are supposed to vote for discharge of the MC, we will find out final result after Lahore/Islamabad congress in September!

Last session of the day was fully devoted to the new MC :) Saaim's favorite toy, Mariam's role-model in life, Jeremy's hated food, Katya's visited countries.. Now our members know a lot about who we are, and it will definitely help us to enjoy working together!

Day 2

We moved to Junaid's house!

Day 2 was focused on plan review. At the first session in the morning, Jeremy presented the current state of AIESEC Pakistan and then led to the vision for 2010 created by national plenary. "Learnt a lot", "Best session of the day", "Very interesting and useful" - these are some of the feedback notes we got in evaluations. The following 'What is next' session was quite practical: after the presentation of a national plan for 08-09, members gave their input on all initiatives we are going to run this year. Members' feedback will help us adjust these initiatives to specific LC needs. When plan became clear for everyone, we discussed the role of Member Committee in AIESEC country and individual roles of each VP.

Next big block was devoted to functional meetings and LC plan review. Each MC VP met with LC VP individually, and there was a team management track in parallel (for members who are planning to apply for teamleaders in fall recruitment). At the next session LCP of Karachi, Khurram Lodi, presented LC year plan for all members and got their input, so as everyone became clear what LC wants to achieve in the end of the year. Happened for the first time, this session will certainly make an impact on LC performance.

Day 3

The most energetic day of the conference! In the next few weeks LC Karachi is organizing their new members recruitment. That's why we decided to let them practice the process... :) We based simulation on real figures and time-line, giving LC members various tasks to handle. Such hands-on experience is much more effective than any theory! Having done this once, Karachi will learn from mistakes and organize a great recruitment in August!

'What's new in My.AIESEC.net' - next session led by Mariam aimed at giving members an overview of new features in the system for measuring exchange quality. As quality of exchange is a quite relevant subject for AIESEC Pakistan (due to political situation in the country, we are facing challenges with matching, so we have to ensure every intern coming to Pakistan is happy with his/her experience), these on-line tools can be a good asset for all exchangers.

Last but not the least - session with an attractive name 'Grab it now'! Ahmed shared with us opportunities that AIESEC globally provides to its members: conferences, exchange, CEEDs, ... as well as non-AIESEC opportunities for personal and professional development. After that our special guest Adeel Hasan talked about his CEED experience in India. I wish we could have had more time for such an exciting story!

Day 4

How to communicate an information in a way that everyone will understand? How to keep the attention of audience? How to deliver an exchange training to members so as LC will double its results?

Ability to deliver the knowledge and skills to others is a primary responsibility of executive body members and team leaders, especially during recruitment of new members. The idea of this day was to give members of AIESEC Karachi opportunity to gain a skill of effective presentation and communication. Skills are gained through practice, therefore after a short insight in theory members had a hands-on experience with delivering their own sessions. What really added the value is that members practiced presenting induction sessions as for new members! This means that next time, during actual induction, they will do it even better.

Training was led by Joan Vozeh, Associate Consultant of EngageHR.

... Closing was very emotional which was not surprising after such a productive conference!

Facilitators Anna & Ahmed, MC and our chair Joan did a really good job!

Thank you LC Karachi and facilitators for such a great conference experience we've all had!