Every Saturday morning at 8:50 AM, 70 students show up at NTU’s classroom with their backpacks and some with their breakfasts. Two students checked the name list for each incoming student and hand them their badge. Four others are up on the stage, busy setting up the microphone, projector and the computer. A small group of students are in one corner of the room, making final changes to their PowerPoint slides, and reaffirming several things that they should say for the next couple of hours. For ten weeks, this scenery appears on campus. The students that have dedicated their weekends to participate in the training program are the Assistant Chairs (AC) of the WorldMUN 2010 conference. Eight “senior” Assistant Chairs are in charge of planning and directing the training, The senior ACs are experienced “MUNers,“ recruited from NTU and NCCU. They have been working on the program since July, 2009.
The major mission of the Host Team Division of Academics, is to recruit up to 65 Assistant Chairs and offer them with the training that will enable them to become competent Assistant Chairs for the upcoming event. The Academics Division first recruited eight senior Assistant Chairs to plan the program during the summer of 2009, and in mid-September successfully recruited 70 would-be ACs. The team did not limit the opportunities to NTU students. The idea was to offer more students in Taiwan the chance to be part of the conference, and wishing that the experience and “know-hows” would be spread out to different universities, especially to the universities that previously had not participated in any MUN activities. We ended up with one thirds of the ACs coming from around Taiwan. Some had MUN experience, but few had experience in chairing. Many others had just heard of MUN for the first time.
The Division of Academics hosted the fifth annual Taiwan National MUN (TWMUN 09) in mid-December. Many changes were made to respond to the impact of WorldMUN 2010 being held in Taipei. The TWMUN 09 was a wonderful opportunity for the Taiwanese delegates and for the ACs to practice before heading to the conference rooms of WorldMUN. The team decided to encourage and invite all the WorldMUN Taiwanese delegations to participate in the conference. In the end, there were over 250 delegates, holding fierce debate in the committees of DISEC, WTO and UNDP.
The social event for the Taiwan National MUN was a night of “Beer Map,” an event inspired by the social event of WorldMUN 2007 in Geneva. The delegates, who had handed in their position papers before the deadline, were given a 200 NTD coupon and a map of the bars and cafes around the Gung-Guan area. Delegates were free to explore the area and head to different bars or cafes according to their discretion. They would have more intimate and deeper discussions under the hazy atmosphere of the restaurants.
Another special thing about this year’s TWMUN was that we had the honor of the participation of a delegation from Venezuela. In the past years of the WorldMUN conference, we have seen well of the Venezuelan delegations. Dominant and well-prepared, they usually swept away half of the diplomacy awards. We were eager to meet the Venezuelan delegates because it would definitely add to the diversity and intensity to this year’s conference.
The delegates from Venezuela, as we expected, were active and persuasive on the floor. They were considered for the diplomacy awards, but their faculty advisor humbly turned down the award before the final decision was made. Since they were invited as guests, he believes it would be better if we had given the awards to the Taiwanese delegates. He says the reason they had come was to establish friendship and to encourage cross-culture communication, not to win the diplomacy awards. This is also exactly what we believe the most important value of a MUN conference should be.
At the end of the year, the ACs gathered at Mary Jane Pizza, an Italian restaurant beside the campus, for a end-of-the-year celebration. After ten weeks of training, students from different universities and departments had come to know each other more. Many had gone from mere acquaintance to close friends.
During the first week of winter vacation, the entire team went up to a beautiful coastal town named Kin-San, and prepared themselves for more training. They worked day and night writing the committee updates, reviewed the Rules of Procedure and held several sessions of mock conferences… Aside from all the hard work, the ACs also had a chance to enjoy the night sky filled with stars, the ocean with the rhythmic blue waves and most importantly, extremely good company.
One of the AC once told me that she thought “we aren’t a great punch of AC.” Yes, there were a lot of difficulties and fall backs during the course of training, especially when so many people who are so different from each other are involved. But, from what I know, the ACs is no doubt the most interesting mixture of punch. They have been preparing themselves and taking the initiative in forming study groups and meetings. They have been examining themselves to see what they lack most and put effort into filling up the hole. Throughout the process, they have helped each other through.
When you meet your ACs in the committee room, don’t hesitate to say Hi. They have been preparing the meet the delegates since the day of recruitment.
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李信宜 LEE, Hsin-Yi (Isbel)
Deputy Director of Academics,
WorldMUN 2010, National Taiwan University Host Team
