model u.n.

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>i am seriously considering starting a model u.n. at my high school...i was wondering if anyone has a list of smaller conferences, or any general information on starting a model u.n.</p>

2

<p>Where are you?</p>

<p>If you're looking for smaller conferences, well, a lot of that would be region-defined.</p>

3

<p>i am in the east coast..</p>

4

<p>you could be florida or you could be in maine. where on the east coast</p>

5

<p>oh sorry...virginia..</p>

6

<p>alright well we've got one at Old Dominion:
hXXp://al.odu.edu/mun/</p>

<p>one at the University of Virginia:
hXXp://<a href="http://www.student.virginia.edu/%7Eirouva/conferences/vamun/"&gt;www.student.virginia.edu/~irouva/conferences/vamun/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>william and mary high school model united nations:
hXXp://<a href="http://www.wmhsmun.org/?cmd=index&item=1"&gt;www.wmhsmun.org/?cmd=index&item=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

7

<p>are the first two for high school too?? sorry, if i did not make that clear..</p>

8

<p>oh also, i am new at this, but do you do debates or something at the actual conferences? how do you prepare?</p>

9

<p>Well, the google search yielded:</p>

<p>State one: VAMUN</a> XXVIII</p>

<p>Northern VA: Model</a> United Nations Society</p>

<p>Williamsburg, VA: WMHSMUN:</a> William & Mary High School Model UN XXII</p>

<p>Check some surrounding schools in the county. Call 'em up if you have to.</p>

<p>Haha. I'll search more later.</p>

10

<p>thanks so much!!..i am not sure if i should even start the club, so i am researching to see how many ppl i need, and how much work/effort we need as a group..and such..</p>

11

<p>yeah i'm pretty sure they offer both college and high school conferences. i got my info from here:
hXXp://<a href="http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/modelun/links_5.asp"&gt;www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/modelun/links_5.asp&lt;/a> (yeah the link thing is annoying but i got yelled at)</p>

<p>anyway preparation materials:
hXXp://<a href="http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/modelun/index.asp"&gt;www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/modelun/index.asp&lt;/a>
hXXp://<a href="http://www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b=482843"&gt;www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b=482843&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

12

<p>Anamai:</p>

<p>When you sign up for the conference, you will be assigned a country, a committee, and several topics to research. Basically, you just research your country's stance on the topic, any recent actions, documents, conflicts, etc. Going to the official UN websites always helps when getting to know the topic, and if you want to go more in depth (and you should), go to the country site, find some NGOs (non-governmental organizations) or articles on the issues. Some people fill up a binder full of statistics and other important things to prepare. I just take notes on whatever sites/books I find and bring a folder with the notes. </p>

<p>When you're at the conference, you meet with your committee for about 2-3 hours per session, and the conference can have anywhere from 3 to 10 or more sessions. You pick a topic, take turns making speeches, short speeches in moderated caucus, or get into heated argument in the brouhaha that is unmoderated caucus. </p>

<p>It might be intimidating at first, but you'll like it. The rules are different from conference to conference, so when you get the packet, just read through it. Most importantly, try to participate as much as you can. In my first conference, I spoke only once, and the conference was a drag. Now, I can't really get bored while fiercely debating with Ethiopia over the rights of Ethiopian troops in Somalia.</p>

13

<p>thank you so much for that information, that was really helpful!!</p>

14

<p>NAIMUN in DC is also available should you decide your club is ready for bigger conferences. NAIMUN is i think the biggest high school one in north america. It's unfortunately the only one my school's club goes to.</p>

15

<p>MUN is basically what you make of it. You can spend the conference engaging in meaningful debate, you can spend it hitting on people across the room, and most of the people I know just spend it doing homework. Your involvement is basically up to you</p>

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<p>oh okay.thanks.another question, how many ppl. does the average school have??? is 5 ppl to little? my school is not exactly the most "involved" in stuff lik this</p>

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<p>5 is a bit small for the larger conventions, I think. But I'm not sure. Check on the conference web pages.</p>

18

<p>It depends on where you're going. Last year, we sent a 3 person group to the UCSC conference. They wanted to go, and since we normally don't go there, our advisor let them go by themselves. The UCSC one is as rather small conference, though, with 3 or 4 committees. For our usual conferences (Stanford and UCD, where there are about 10 committees), we bring from 25 to 35 delegates.</p>

19

<p>so if my school doesn't have 10+ delegates, should i not even bother starting one? especially if i eventually want to go to some of the bigger conferences?</p>

20

<p>it will depend on if your school is public or private. if its public, you need to make a request to your school's student activities fund committee for money to pay for attendance at model UN conferences. if your school is private, you're stuck paying for them on your own.</p>