Topic Descriptions Updated

If you visit any of the committee pages on the website, you will see that we have topic descriptions in place for SWCMUN 2012. Each committee page now has a brief description of each of the topics that will be covered in committee sessions. The key exception to this update is the United States National Security Council (USNSC) committee page. The background guide for the USNSC includes a global security report and domestic security assessment and profiles of all members of the USNSC that will be present at SWCMUN 2012. The background guides for all committees will be posted on the website on September 1, 2012.

SWCMUN 2012 Updates

The entire SWCMUN website has been updated as of May 5, 2012. SWCMUN 2012 is a mere 5 months away and preparations are already under way. The fees for SWCMUN 2012 have changed slightly: $20/delegate, and each school must pay a fee of $20. (If you are bringing 6 delegates to SWCMUN your fee total would then be $140) We feel that SWCMUN is an extremely affordable conference for students, and we will continue to strive to keep costs down for students.

Please have a look at the upcoming important dates in the SWCMUN 2012 timeline:

• The Delegate Preparation Manual has been revised, and will be posted on the website on August 31, 2012.
• All of the background guides have been written and will be posted on the website on September 1, 2012.
• The Country Selection Meeting is on  Wednesday, September 19th at 4:30 p.m. in Room 111.
• Last day to register students for SWCMUN 2012 is September 30th.
• Ideally, all fees will be paid one week prior to the start of SWCMUN, but we will accept cheques at the start of the conference. Please make cheques out to Sir Winston Churchill High School, and in the Memo line please put “Model UN”.

We will be responding to some of the feedback that we received on last year’s conference with minor changes to the committees and schedule. The Country Matrix has been updated as well, you can find the Country Matrix for SWCMUN 2012 here.

See you in October!

Committees for SWCMUN 2012

The second annual SWCMUN conference will be held at the Sir Winston Churchill campus in Calgary on October 19-20, 2012. We will be introducing some new and exciting committees at SWCMUN 2012, including a new crisis committee.

We’re planning on hosting even more delegates at the conference next year, but still with an emphasis on smaller, more intimate committees at the same time. We will still have the large GA 1 DISEC committee at SWCMUN 2012, as well as having a UNICEF committee, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the UN Security Council, NATO and the United States National Security Council (USNSC). NATO and the USNSC will be pure crisis committees, and with the Security Council also having “crisis elements” to it, the weekend will prove to be a challenging one for delegates. Based on some feedback that we received on our first Model UN conference this past October, we will be looking towards a greater degree of integration between our committees wherever possible, especially the NATO, UNSC and USNSC committees. We look forward to seeing you at SWCMUN 2012!

See You Next Year at SWCMUN 2012!

I would just like to thank a lot of people for the successful completion of SWCMUN 2011! There are a few special people and groups of people who need to be acknowledged for all of their hard work. I’d like to thank Mr. Dave MacGregor (co-sponsor of the Churchill Model UN Team) and all of the teachers from Central Memorial, M.E. LaZerte, Notre Dame, Westwood Community High School, W.R. Meyers, and Western Canada for being so organized at the beginning of the school year so that they could bring their students to our Model UN conference. I’d like to thank all of the Churchill Youth Volunteer Corps (YVC) students who volunteered their time on the weekend, and help act as pages for our committees, and fill in during the busy times with our back room. I’d like to thank all of the SWCMUN staff for doing an amazing job running the various committees! Without the SWCMUN staff, this conference would not have been possible! So once again, thanks to Yuting, Aman, Srinjoy, Sean, Eugenia, Vasanth, Leah, William, Claire, Shahriar, Christine, Curtis, Nandini, Olayinka, Vinesh, Kritika, Mariam, Shaan.  I’d like to thank all of the students that came to Churchill and participated in our Model UN conference as well. Your enthusiasm for all things Model UN is infectious!  Clearly, MUN is FUN! We will be hosting another Model UN conference next October (dates and times to be determined), so we’d really appreciate it if you would help spread the word on our conference so that we can have an even bigger conference next year! Please check the website regularly for updates on next year’s conference, I’ve already started writing the background guides. Good luck with your Model UN season!

On a different note, we will be contacting your Model UN teacher sponsors with information so that you can complete an online survey for us, so we’ll know what areas we need to improve on, and you can also give us feedback about your SWCMUN experience. Thanks!

One Day Until the Start of SWCMUN!

Tomorrow marks the start of SWCMUN 2011! I thought that it might be a good idea to go over the schedule and room assignments once more. Don’t worry too much about getting around Churchill, we’ll have signs up to help direct you to where you need to be for your committee sessions and there will be volunteers around to help you out as well. Here once again is the schedule:

Friday, October 21, 2011

2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Registration (Main Foyer)

3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Opening Ceremonies (Theatre)

3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.  Session I

Saturday, October 22, 2011

9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.  Session II

12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Lunch (Light Lunch Provided)

1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Session III

3:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. Break

3:45 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Session IV

Sunday, October 23, 2011

9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Session V

12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Lunch (not provided)

1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Session VI

2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Closing Ceremonies and Awards

Please note the changes to the room assignments (we’ll go over this during the Opening Ceremonies).

Room Assignments:

• GA 1 DISEC (Room 121)
• EU (Room 106)
• NATO (Room 113)
• HRC (R4)
• SC (Room 111)
• HSC (Room 116)
• WHO (R3)
• SWCMUN 2011 Back Room (a.k.a. the “War Room”) (Room 110)

I know that I’m really looking forward to this conference, and I hope that you are too. If this is your first Model UN conference, please don’t be nervous, you’ll be in the same boat with a lot of other first year Model UN delegates attending our conference. The most important thing is to have fun and enjoy the weekend and meet other students who love to discuss global issues, debate and negotiate solutions to those problems. See you Friday!

The Situation in Somalia

If you are in the Security Council at SWCMUN, a potential topic as you know is the Situation in Somalia. There is the potential to discuss the ongoing famine in the Horn of Africa, so it might be a good idea to have checked out these resources before the conference.

• NPR: Exacerbated by Conflict, Somalia Famine Persists (if you listen to the podcast, I recommend up to 5:30)
• BBC News: East Africa Hunger Crisis
• New York Times: Somalia

Women, Peace and Security in the Security Council

Given that one of the topics at this year’s SWCMUN Security Council calls for an open agenda there are a lot of potential topics that could be discussed, such as current situations in the Horn of Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the situation in the Middle East (Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc.), or even Myanmar. There is also the potential for discussion on the topic of violence against women and children in conflict zones. There is an NGO called the “NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security” that puts out a monthly action plan (or MAP as they refer to it on their website) that gives specific directives to the Security Council every month. For October 2011, Nigeria is chairing the real Security Council, so the NGOWG on Women, Peace and Security has recommendations for them. Please visit their website for more information. Also, the UN itself has published a document on this very subject, it’s an older resource but it still has value and relevance, UN on Women, Peace and Security PDF.