Project: MUN

LO that will be reached throughout this project:

LO1 Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

LO2 Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

LO3 demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

LO4 Show commitment and perseverance in CAS experiences.

LO5 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

LO6 Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.

LO7 Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

What CAS do I gain from this?

- Creativity, Activity and service

MiniSANMUN 2018

Experience:

Admin staff at MiniSANMUN

Reflection:

Prior to MiniSANMUN I practiced by participating in the MUN meetings after school. I didn’t attend them in pre-IB which I regret, but better late than never. There, I learned what admin staff do and how an admin staff should be in general. My classmate, Hekla, had done this before so she was also helpful to have when I started without prior experience. I cut the papers up to make the noting paper for the delegates and passed notes when they had debates. I also secured the doors, counted votes and also learned that admin staff should make as little noise as possible when the debate is on. This also helped me become closer to the 3IB students (one of the many good things about MUN). Then came the day before the MiniSANMUN where we were supposed to organise the rooms for the two comities (DISEC and UNEP). Me and 3IB Jasmine were arranging the tables and I suggested that we do a horse shoe positioned table placing (so everybody could see each other and had the chairs in front of them all in the front middle), which ended up working well. We cut the papers for the notes and that was most of what I did before MiniSANMUN.

When the day came, I dressed up in what was considered formal clothes for the MiniSANMUN, took a taxi to school because I was afraid of being late and wanted to start quickly with organising but ended up being the first student to be there. When the second student (Hekla) came, we started to plan how we could show the people that came from Nesbru could find their way up to the committee rooms. We came up with the idea of printing out arrows and posting them on the walls on the way to the rooms. So while she posted the arrows along the way, I wrote on the blackboard, very nicely, that they follow the arrows at arrival. I then helped carry up the heavy bags of fruits and snacks to the kitchen. We noticed that we didn’t have access to knives and plates from the kitchen at the teachers’ lounge, Sol had already collected some but we needed more. Therefore, I went down and asked the chair for knifes and after that situation was in control, I went to the store and panted all the bottles I was asked to pant, got the money, and with that money I bought the plates needed for the fruits and biscuits.

When I came back, we meet another obstacle, which was the coffee machine. We didn’t have the access to turn the water boiler power on, so it could boil the water for the coffee. After a lot of trying to get that access I finally came with the idea of using the water boilers and just pouring the warm water into the coffee container. I went up to the IB common aria and found another water boiler and we started to boil the water. That problem got fixed but the sad part was that nobody went up to the coffee machine to get coffee. After this, I run around and did small errands and helped people on the way.

Then came the second big obstacle that we were faced with, the lack of cutting board and knives. We noticed quickly after ransacking the kitchen that there were no cutting boards and the amount of knifes was not enough. We agreed that we cound wach the metal part of the table to cut if we wiped it clean but that would only allow one person to cut and that would not be effective. Therefore, I came up with the idea of using the leftover pizza box that I saw on one of the tables. It wasn’t the option, but it was the only other option together with the metal part of the table by the wash. In addition, the fruits had strong shells so the pizza box didn’t really touch the fruit meat. We also cleaned the pizza box before using it. When it came to the knifes, Sol asked me to ask the chairs who were prior to that day asked to bring knives in case. Therefore, I ran around to find the chairs and collected knives. After starting to cut the fruit and placing them on the plates, we noticed that we might need more. Therefore, I again went to meny and bought plates and continued to cut fruits.

Then we had the task of finding out what room we should use as lunch break room since the lunch break was closing up on us. First, we thought about using the teachers room as everything was already there, but we hadn’t asked for access to do that, so we just found a room on 3thrd floor. When we found the room, me and Hekla arranged the tables and helped the others bring up the food. When we had served the food, we had 10 min to eat after coming down to the teachers office before we had to go up again to be admin staff in the comities. Me and Hekla ended up in UNEP and Elleni and Bara’a ended up as admin staff at DISEC. There, were delivered notes, counted votes and everything we did practicing up to this in the normal MUN meetings at school. There was a little obstacle met there too where the there was a lack of note paper for the delegates, but we fixed it very quickly but cutting up a stack and giving it out to the delegates. After the MiniSANMUN was over I helped cleaned up and had a nice chat with the last people that were left there before going home.

The most challenging part with the whole process was running around and trying to keep everything in order and having to constantly come up with ideas of how to fix the things that were not in order like the coffee machine or the lack of coffee board. But it also allowed me to see how fast I was at coming up to solution when it comes to sudden problems that may appear when arranging events like this. The admin staff also worked really good together and when things needed to be done, there was always an admin staff on foot. Being admin staff in the committee also allowed me to listen to and learn more about the countries views of certain topics and got a picture of how the SANMUN was going to be and also as far as the UN. It was also really nice to have only good comments sent to the gossip box about our work. I really loved the whole process down to the part of feeling tired at the end but knowing that the work successively.

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SANMUN 2018

Experience:

General admin staff at SANMUN

-SANMUN 2018 was a fun and educational experience. I attended as general admin staff with my classmate Hekla which meant that we did not have a committee to be in. It started off by an admin meeting where they told us all what was expected etc. At first, we did not notice how poorly planned it was when it came to actually give us work to do. After the meeting the Nesbru admins went to the kitchens and committees while and we were left, so they asked us to arrange the placards. After that, they told us to sit at the library and wait for work to do. In the meanwhile, I got to be a little detective and helped find Sols bag which was fun. Then we were asked to direct people to the foto place and were stationed on the second floor. The rest of the day we did not really do the admin staff work that we expected to do. When we asked if there was anything we could do, they asked us to go to kiwi and buy blister plasters in case people needed it. After that, we went back to the hotel and had a wonderful dinner and made new friends. We asked them if they really needed us as it seemed as there was not planned any work for us and one of them told us that they did not really need us but the admin's head was very strict that we should be there anyway. So the next day we sat at the library for a while before getting any jobs. When we finally told it to the teacher we got work to do. Me and another admin from Nesbru helped carry water up to the committee rooms. The leftover time gave me time to talk to Marie, the conference manager and get to know about what that role was about. Then I helped out with arranging the tables for lunch. Back to the library for a while. Then one of the delegates had just gotten her period unexpectedly so we were asked to go and by pads for her from kiwi. I also bought chocolate for her out of my own money because I wanted her to smile and still have a nice SANMUN even if the period was a bother. Later that Sunday we finally got to work at the general assembly and delivered notes. After that, we helped out to clean the committee rooms and that was the wrap for our SANMUN. Even though this was far from what I expected with a slight disappointment when it came to challenges, I still learned a lot from the sides and also what we could do better for when we are in control of SANMUN 2019.

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Mini SANMUN 2019

Here I had the role of helping the new admins from 2IB learn how to be an admin staff for the bigger conference.

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SANMUN2019

First I had to apply to be Conference manager, and after some time I found out that I got the role.

My bio for for my role as Conference manager:

Arssema Teshale Musse

Dear everyone, my name is Arssema Teshale Musse and I have the pleasure of being this year's Conference manager. I come from Ethiopia and have lived in Norway half of my life. I am currently taking IBDP at SVGS and will be on my last year when attending SANMUN 2019. Besides the schools MUN meetings, I have attended Mini SANMUN, SANMUN 2018 and this year will be my second year with MUN. Besides MUN, I am the next leader of Amnesty Sandefjord.

I am very happy to have found MUN through IB since it is a wonderful and educational place where you get to observe and learn about international relations, diplomacy, critical thinking, teamwork etc. as we embody and learn about the United Nations. Coming from a country that has carried and still carry several issues that affect its people (both politically or/and from natural disasters), I have grown up to be a person that wants to reach a helping hand and help people that live under these circumstances. MUN helps you see and participate in how countries solve issues such as these. I can’t wait to meet everyone and hope SANMUN 2019 will be a nice and memorable experience for everyone attending!

Planning SANMUN2019

When planning SANMUN2019 my role had a looooot of stuff to do such as collect biographies, get sponsors, collect hand-ins such as research papers, rearrange the website, help with getting food to the conference etc. I used my whole summer sitting down and trying to get sponsors through writing emails to very very very many companies. Luckily we got way more than the previous year had. We were sponsored by big brands such as Meny, Jotun, Kiwi, Innovation Norway and Ark which helped a lot. But it was a long process collecting the sponsored materials. I also helped the admin head out, which you can see in her reflection about this. I helped out with getting admins, the name badges, making the folders ready for the delegates etc. We stayed at school until late just to do our jobs correctly and well, but it was all fun as we were holding each others company.

At SANMUN2019

The communication between some of the Administaff and me and Hekla was not great. As some admins listened to us and did the work they were assigned very well, others simply chose to do whatever they wanted and not listen to us. Which was a hustle. But other than that I worked hard to help out with the Admin work such as setting up the tables every single time, showing the delegates to where they are supposed to be, running errands, kitchen duty, cleaning up duty, serving food, showing the people staying over at the school around and making them feel welcome (this gave me good Swedish friends that I am still in contact with today) etc. There was a lot to do and I was constantly on my feet. I could barely walk after the conference due to this but at the end, all of it was worth it and I loved the leader and management experience I got alongside the friendships and fun memories I have created.

(Un-named friend would not like to be on the picture posted)