100 members of the Jewish Lads’ & Girls’ Brigade (JLGB) from all over London and Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow attended “inspiring” leadership training weekends, thanks to the Jewish Youth Fund. The National Open College Network training weekend focused on communication, planning, team-building and leadership skills; everything to benefit the young people in following the footsteps of their own outstanding leaders and mentors.

After months of preparation and running musical workshops in all the Jewish schools in Hertfordshire, the new JLGB Hertsmere Band opened last Wednesday in partnership with Yavneh College. The Band opened with 18 excited new members and numbers are expected to rise to over 30 the weeks to follow. Everyone had a fantastic time, making new friends, showing off their musical skills or deciding which instrument they would like to learn.

Jewish Lads’ & Girls’ Brigade (JLGB) volunteer leaders are the best and to enforce this, an Awards evening was held at Kaifeng Restaurant where they were honoured for their selfless and generous commitment to JLGB. Amongst the Awards presented was a Special Award to Joanne and Norman Zinger from Glasgow for their “Outstanding contribution to JLGB and its Leaders”. Jo and Norry, as they like to be called, have been a major factor in the success of JLGB in Glasgow and are very highly thought of throughout JLGB.

With JLGB announcing the opening of a new band in Hertfordshire for January 2010 musical workshops have been run at Hertsmere Jewish Primary School, Clore Shalom School and Yavneh College. Pupils were shown a range of instruments including, trombones, clarinets, drums, saxophones, glockenspiels, flutes and trumpets and were then given the opportunity to bang, blow and bash away to their hearts content – some even managed to get a tune out!

The JLGB has recently been going through some exciting changes to help better meet the needs and support local Jewish communities and Nottingham JLGB is no exception. Cheder members from both Nottingham Hebrew Congregation and Nottingham Progressive Jewish Community enjoyed watching the new JLGB promotional video telling them about all the exciting activities they can get involved with. Nottingham Hebrew Congregation also enjoyed a fun “dragons den” style activity run by Antony Grace, the JLGB’s Movement Worker, Dani Taylor, a young JLGB leader studying in Nottingham and Charlotte Joseph, one of the senior members of Nottingham JLGB.

Cardiff JLGB really have something to shout about. After twenty years they have been crowned top JLGB group having won both the Walton and Ancil Trophies – two prestigious inter unit and inter region competitions. The group meet fortnightly on Tuesday evenings and are always keen to welcome new members - juniors 8 – 11 and seniors 11 – 18. Members of Cardiff JLGB enjoy trying out lots of exciting activities which form part of the JLGB’s brand new skills based awards scheme called the "Enterprise Award". This cutting edge achievement and personal development programme is designed to meet the needs of today’s generation of young Jewish children.