McLean MUN team wins Outstanding Large Delegation Award at GFMUNC V
MUN team earns first school award and plans for upcoming conferences
Gar-Field High School GFMUNC staff
MUN Greetings— Delegates of the Organization of American States (OAS) committee greet each other before committee begins. They discuss ideas about the Venezuelan crisis.
January 20, 2020
The McLean Model United Nations (MUN) team won Outstanding Large delegation award at GFMUNC V hosted by Gar-Field High School this weekend. It was their first award for this season.
“Delegates did really well at GFMUNC, though I am still amazed at our last conference CHMUN, hosted by Chantilly High School and a notoriously difficult conference, where 26 out of our 28 delegates earned an award,” said senior Sophie Howery, Co-Secretary General of McLean’s MUN club.
CHMUN and GFMUN were only 5 days apart making less time for preparation, however, many McLean delegates attended both conferences and most placed.
“We are really proud to see the dedication and how the new generation of MUN is growing. [We] just want to tell everybody to keep up the good work,” said senior Sarah Gu, Director of Logistics of McLean’s MUN club. “I know a lot of people weren’t happy with their award but MUN has its ups and downs and the more important thing is that you learn something from every conference.”
Much effort and preparation was put in for the conference including a new MUNtorship Program. This program allows seasoned delegates to be paired up with novices so that the MUNtors would set up specialized meetings to offer ono-on-one help.
“A lot of successful MUN teams have adopted this program, including Langley, so we thought that it would be great to implement our own version,” Howery said. “Sarah Gu, Lana Al-Saloum and I attribute a lot of our success in MUN as delegates to having had unofficial MUNtors of our own, so we know how far this program can go towards helping students.”
The McLean MUN team now has its eyes set on the upcoming national conferences which include the Ivy League Model UN Conference (ILMUNC) hosted by UPenn and the North American Invitational Model UN Conference (NAIMUN) hosted by Georgetown University.
“Both of these conferences are arguably the most competitive conferences in the country, if not the world,” Howery said. “With thousands of students attending from all over the world, these conferences can be really difficult to navigate. However, we have been having specialized meetings for our ILMUNC team and will do the same for NAIMUN.”