After about a month of waiting for one of the most important events in Westminster Business Consultants’ calendar, the JADE Spring meeting had finally arrived, hosted in the city of Brussels at the heart of Europe.
13 members of WBC have been preparing for three intense days of inspirational workshops by leading entrepreneurs, and networking sessions with over 200 Junior enterprises from all over Europe and Brazil.
The expectations and nerves couldn’t have been any more intense and at the same time exciting as for the majority of members traveling to the JADE event was the very first time, only described by former members as “the roller coaster of junior entrepreneurship”.
Once arrived the day, 8:50 was our departure time from King cross station, and in less than two hours we arrived in Brussels. Once the hotel was found after a number of wrong interpretations of the map, we arrived at Hotel “Villa Royale”, unfortunately we were running 30minutes late and the welcome reception had already left to the welcome ceremony.
As we arrived to the Hogeschool-University where the event was taking place, mixed feelings started rushing through my mind, wondering how many people actually attend the event and if they would be friendly to network with. As we entered the room, we realised that the introduction of the event was just beginning and enjoyed a friendly welcome by fellow JE’s around us.
After the opening ceremony I would go to my chosen workshop on “Business development and Competitive Strategy”; which was an introduction to assessing an organisation’s provided service and explained how to develop a value proposition that becomes a competitive advantage. This workshop was very engaging as the speaker organised a number of interactive group exercises to explain the theories taught. Then we had a coffee break which would be the perfect place for some ice breaking between the attendees, during this time I met other attendees that were in my workshop and shared opinions on the workshop and how this would applicable on our roles within our JE’s.
Once the workshop ended, we would head back to the hotel for what meant to be a 45min break till the dinner at an Italian restaurant , but as expected by the time the group got together and head back to the hotel, only 15min were left till we had to leave. Afterwards the whole rest of the evening would be a great time meeting new JE members on the restaurant as they would approach our table very friendly and introduce themselves, while telling us how glad they were so many WBC members have attended; to us members of WBC this created a lot of excitement as we realized how well respected we were among other JE’s in Europe.
After the dinner ended, all the attendees included me made our way to the Havana club and danced the night away celebrating our arrival on Brussels with buy 1 get 1 free mojitos, while meeting many more attendees and networking on the bar and dance floor, this would mark the great start to another two days to come.
Victor Soto, Business Consultant
Westminster Business Consultants 
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