I joined BJC following a recruitment visit of the Blackburn group to British Aerospace in about 1990. My boss thought that it would be good for some of his young managers to join what was marketed as the largest out-of-hours training organisation in the UK. I’ve just looked for it on Google, and I was surprised that I could find no trace of the organisation, so perhaps it may no longer exist. Its parent organisation, the Junior Chamber International (JCI) is still around, but perhaps the British arm folded. Anyway, in 1990, there were certainly busy chambers in Blackburn, Preston, Burnley, Blackpool and Manchester. The organisation targeted young professionals between 18 and 40 and “…encouraged young people to become responsible citizens and to participate in efforts towards social and economic development, and international co-operation, good-will and understanding.” Well, that’s what it says about JCI, and I think BJC was very similar.
I remember being drawn into a debate when writing our constitution, which contained the word apolitical, meaning not interested nor involved in politics. The committee were looking for a similar word which covered religion, but ‘areligious’ isn’t a word, and we discussed for hours what word or phrase we should use. We decided against using any word eventually, because none conveyed the precise meaning we wanted. Perhaps we should have persevered with areligious. It might be in the OED by now.
BJC Blackburn raised money for charity and in that respect it was similar to the Round Table, but BJC also organised and delivered training courses for its members. I was involved in both aspects, and for a while, I wrote and delivered a couple of training courses to other groups around the region.
Our main annual charity event was the Christmas Tree appeal, when we would erect a small Christmas tree in Blackburn shopping centre in the weeks before Christmas and encourage shoppers to buy a small gift to be donated to children resident in local children’s homes. We received many rejections to our direct appeals, but I was always amazed by the startling generosity of strangers who would willingly buy an extra present whist buying for their friends and family. We would later spend time wrapping the donated gifts and deliver them to children’s homes on Christmas Eve.
The BJC were also very big on formal dinners, and each chamber had its annual dinner, which was always a black tie affair, with a toastmaster and the works. The trouble was, the president and committee members of each chamber were each invited to other chambers’ dinners in the region, and they were expected to attend. With six or eight active chambers locally, and several more in the wider catchment area, attending dinners took up a lot of time and money. I particularly remember attending the Macclesfield annual dinner in 1993 which was held at a beautiful hotel out in the sticks, although I had forgotten its name. I was surprised to discover that in 2015 Geraldine had booked a weekend break which happened to be at this same hotel. I now know that it is called Shrigley Hall and can be found near the village of Bollington.
Just one month before the Macclesfield dinner in 1993, we held our own Blackburn event, but ours was to be quite different. To make it more interesting, we decided to organise a murder mystery night, whereby all the guests would attend what outwardly was a normal dinner, but we had employed a group of actors, one of whom, during the evening, would be found murdered. Other guests (assisted by the remaining actors) then spent the rest of the evening interviewing people and seeking out clues to discover the identity of the murderer. It was all very Agatha Christie, and great fun, much more so than a normal dinner. I would say that, because I had organised it. We had hired the Howard Arms for the event (where we held our wedding reception ten years earlier) and charged £19.50 per head. I remember having to sell 70 tickets to break even, and I think I managed to shift over 90 in the end. The costs were high because the half a dozen actors all needed paying, and they also wanted a meal, even the one who was murdered! It was a great evening, though.
