BOMUNChronicle

Issue 1 - 31st May 2010

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Letters from the Editors

Interview with Secretary General

Interview with the President

5 Lobbying and Merging

8 Who’s Who?

9 Technology at BOMUN

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Table of Contents

Letters from the Editor

From,

Dear Readers, I think I might have sat here for a good half an hour thinking, how in the world do you write a letter from the editor? I also received 5 texts from Shyle asking me the same thing. I will be happiest with myself if I get a glimpse of someone laughing at an amusing interview or intently reading about the conference. Then I know I did my job right. The first ever copy of the BOMUN Chronicles was quite interesting in the works. Being the first ever press team in ASB for our BOMUN Conference we had a big task on our hands. It started off with Shyle and I constantly switching from being delegates to being a member of the two person press team following us creating almost half of the magazine, on the wrong program, and having to re do it again on the right one. Even though we had our troubles along the way, it was definitely a lot of fun. Hopefully we were able to capture the true intensity of our BOMUN conference so far. Best of luck fellow delegates!

Dear Readers,With another annual BOMUN conference right around the corner, students and faculty alike are preparing for the big day. Model United Nations provides students an op-portunity to learn more about world issues as well as find viable ways to solve them. It encourages them to collaborate with others and gives them confidence, especially when it comes to public speaking and answering difficult questions on the spot. Moreover, it teaches young adults to see more than one side of the problem, thus making them more open and less bias. Due to these reasons, nowadays, more and more institutions are in-troducing MUN as a part of their curriculum because, after all, it is the students who will be running the world in a few years time. Kofi Annan once said, “The United Na-tions, whose membership comprises almost all the states in the world, is founded on the principle of the equal worth of every human being.” Behind the intimidating outershell of aggressive debates and suits, we must refer back to this quote to understand that those who participate in UN strive together for a common goal: a better future.

Shloka Narang Shyle Mehta

Secretary General The man behind the title

Sahil Sud: The Man Behind the TitleThe entire Grade 10 community is aware of the honor and prestige that goes along with the title of Secre-tary General for our very own BOMUN conference, but not many of us have taken the time to get to know the man behind it all, Sahil Sud. BOMUN Chronicles is here to tell you all about him through our very own interview with him.

BC: How does it feel to be Secretary General Sahil?

SS: I’m honored to have this responsibility and with my years of experi-ence and dedication to MUN I feel that I deserve the position and I will be able to facilitate the role more so than anyone else.

BC: What exactly do you do as Secretary General?

SS: My job entails making sure that the entire conference runs smoothly. This can include making sureeveryone knows what to do, the resoluti-on being debated is approved well before the debate, making sure the chairs,deleg-ates and members of the press are awareof the agenda, set up is in order, placards are ready, emails are sent out, chairing the conference, opening speech as well as opening the conference, everything.

BC: Wow, that sounds like a lot of work! What do you think is going to go really well in the conference?

SS: I think the whole conference is going to go great as well as the lobbying and merging process. We have a lot of people who have experience with MUN and a lotwho are very interested so they are quite excited as well.

BC: Tell us about your past experience in MUN

SS: I’ve been to 4 conferences, I was UN-EP in the ECOSOC council at THIM-UN, Brazil in GA 1 at DAIMUN, SecurityCouncil as Libya at BEIMUN (one of the roles that truly prepared for my role here at BOMUN) and finally Secretary General at BOMUN.

BC: Finally, On a lighter note, one of our superl-atives happens to be “Most Attractive Delegate”who do you think will get this award?

SS: Nick Rothman, We have a vivid past in and out of class and not only is he strong in his words but also in his physical features.

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Madam President Most Radiant Sophia Pitcairn

Known to most of us as our most radiant madam president, Sophia Pitcairn is a strong and encouraging leader for the 10th grade students. Her years of experience have helped her better prepare for this prestigious position and she gives us a little glimpse on thoughts about BOMUN.

1. How does it feel to be president?Great. It’s nice to be in a place where I can help people and be a key part of something I’m really interested in2. What do you think will go well in the confer-ence?Well from what I’ve seen in class, there are going to be a lot of amendments and with the research some people have done, I think we’ll be hearing some arguments with solid evidence.3. What do you think wont go so well?I think most people will take a long time to warm to the idea of public speaking, it’ll take a while for debate to pick up and for people have the necessary confidence to speak and make things interesting.4. Do you have good relations with Sahil our Secretary General?Sahil and I get along very well, we’ve done a lot MUN work together before and we’re great friends.5. Who do you think is going to be most contro-versial delegation?Well, in theory, DPRK have some of the most controversial policies you can find. However what really makes a delegation controversial is the char-acters who represent them, I think Iran will make for some really interesting debate. 6. Best delegation?The best delegation is rarely the most power-ful, normally just the most engaged and active. I haven’t had a chance to see much, but based on what I saw in lobbying, South Korea and Iran look like forces to be reckoned with.7. Opinions on the resolution?This resolution is like donut, looks sweet but it has a massive hole. Kidding. I think for the first time writing a resolution it’s not that bad. Of course it needs amending but I think it’ll make for an inter-esting debate, providing people make the effort to understand it.

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Lobbying &

Although preparation for our much awaited BOMUN Conference has been occurring during class, lunch and even break time, the first official Lobbying and Merging happened only a few days ago. The intensity not only filled the two rooms, but managed to have everyone discussing their resolution for two whole days!

Starting off the lobbying and merging process, the delegates split up into two rooms, depending on the point of view their country supported. Although one room had many more delegates than the other, the level of concentration and passion was the same in both. The rooms were soon known to the press as the “Pro-Proliferation Room” and the “Anti Proliferation Room”. All delegations arrived with their very own resolutions ready to be merged. In the Anti Proliferation Room, the three countries that began to stick out and take a leadership role were South Korea, United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Our most radiant Madam President, made her way around the room to make sure that everyone was on task, and had a clear idea on what exactly a proper resolution looked like. Even though it many of the delegates first times with resolutions and MUN, they seemed to be doing a fantastic job. Although things seemed to be looking up for the United Kingdom, they were unable to get 10 signatures in the given amount of time, and their resolution was still not complete as they wished to merge it with the United States.

Above: The delegate of Iran Nich-olas Rothman and the delegate of China, Daniel Schmid, discuss the resolution and their clausesTo the right: Jai Brunner, the conference’s rapporteur strikes a pose.

Below: The delegates divert their attention to the resolution being screened on the board in order to take their stance.

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& Merging

“Lobbying was quite an interesting pro-cess. being such an opinionated country like DPRK made it a challenge to come to a consensis on some topics..” - Arya Mistry, DPRK

Avi Pandey, the delegate of Iraq making sure that the voice of his country is heard. The delegates of South Korea and Israel

merging their resolutions.

Sarah Al-Kaledi is the delegate to watch for! A new comer to MUN, Sarah has as trong and fiery attitude!

Nicholas Rothman, our predicted most at-tractive delegate shows off his features.

Nina Deoras the delegate of Russia emerges as a leader at the conference with her resoltuion!

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In our Pro proliferation room, we had a few more controver-sial countries in regards to the topic we intend on discussing at our debate such as Pakistan, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Iran, Libya and many more. The level of excitement and intensity was as high as the other room if not more although a few of the delegates were finding it a little hard to stick with their countries point of view. Upon talking to Nicolas Rothman, Predicted to be the most attractive delegate by our own secre-tary general he said, “Although everyone is doing a great job, there is some lack of knowledge in what exactly the countries stance was.” By the end of the lobbying session in this room, we had one resolution being submitted by Pakistan, which was also incomplete and without enough signatures. The most surprising signature of them all though, was India’s. With both parties in need of more time to come up with a comprehensive resolution for our debate lobbying time was extended for an-other half an hour which would commence the following day, but this did not stop our delegates from discussing their resolu-tions in and out of the classroom.

Upon returning to the official lobbying session, in our Proproliferation group, we saw that the delegates of Russia had taken a leadership role, merging their resolution with Pakistan’s and were able toacquire the signatures they needed, this time not including India’s, who had moved on the USA’s resolution.In the following room, the USA had also taken a leadership role, and upon merging their resolution with the UK they emerged as the main submitters from their lobbying session with all the signatures they needed. Lucky for the delegates of the USA our very own Secretary General also helped them perfect their formatting and wording making it more than com-plete to submit.

Finally the much-awaited decision of which resolution would be debated was revealed to us that evening. The USA’s resolu-tion, after being edited and looked over by Ms. Allison and Sahil was the resolution being debated at our BOMUN confer-ence. Although Russia’s resolution did not make it, the del-egates of every single country are preparing themselves for an intense and fruitful debate. All in all BOMUN 2010 Lobbying and Merging session is declared a success!

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Who’s Who?New Zeland

Pakistan:

Russia:

South Africa

South Korea

U.K

Israel

Venezuela

U.S.A

Afghanistan:

Australia:

China:

DPRK:

France:

Germany:

India:

Iran:

Iraq

Japan

Libya

Elle HoogewijsErin Logie

Daniel SchmidtMuny Sidhu

Arya MistryAkshara Date

Maximin Fiesche Kevin Brune

Alex Hoffman Won Yong Choi

Veena Dali Arjun Jain

Nicholas Rothman Subbhi Mad-havan

Shloka NarangShyle Mehta

Louisa BruckAvi Pandey

Karolina Nalewajko Alex Davies

Natasha Gren Sarah Al-Khaledi

Agastya SamatHyeon Chai (We apologize for no photo)

Amy van der List Divya Joseph

Rosie Woodger Courtney Mckay

Himangini KhannaIndu Aziz

Yashu Madhavan Adilah Shahril

Yoon Jung Choi Ra’Eesa Lach-man

Ruchir Modi Devesh Dayal

Nina Deoras Ana Einspanier

Christian Charstansen Balvin Singh

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Technology at BOMUN

For over a decade now, ASB has been renowned for its utilization of technology. From tablet PCs to overhead projectors, it is without a doubt that this institution is up there in the world of tech-nology and implementing it to further enhance the learning experience. Appropriately, the 10th grade BOMUN conference will too be using technology so as to eliminate the use of paper for means such as, but not limited to (thought that would be clever) submitting amendments and quickly searching for facts, stats, and news on the web. The deputy chair, Sagar Galani, will be covering the technological aspect of the debate as he controls the projected tablet. It is he who will be scrolling up and down the reso-lution, copying, pasting, highlighting changes being made, and opening up e-mails which

contain amendments which he must also bring up to show to the forum. In an interview with the deputy chair, BC asked Sagar what it took to handle such a responsibility. He replied by saying that it took an immense amount of preparation and courage. Not to mention actually knowing how to use some of the software, like Microsoft Word. He went on the further explain that to ensure an almost infallible techno-logical presentation, one must test it in advance to make sure everything is working properly. In addition, he also wanted to point out that controlling what is on the screen is a courageous task as there is a lot of weight being put on your shoulders since it is what everyone is seeing. Lastly, Sagar Galani mentioned that hope is something that plays into account because sometimes things just don’t go your way; there-fore, we know that Sagar, being the perfectionist that he is, will be praying, under his breath, that every-thing goes as intended. Technology can also be a distraction if delegates chose to fool around on the web instead of utilizing it to search about issues which pertain to the matter at hand. It is solely due to this reason that many of the MUN administrators at ASB, namely Ms. Kelly and Ms. Allison, will be monitoring students. During class, both of them made in absolutely clear what the consequences were if students went on other sits, most popularly Facebook. In the United Nations, technology is also an aspect of the conferences that take place. Not only do they use projectors, translators, computers, et cetera in the general assembly, but in other committees, courts, and forums. It is said that, in the future, advancements in technology will progressively enhance the UN so that more people are connected since sharing information will be made easier.

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Special Thanks

Speical Thanks: Mrs. Allison Mrs. Kelly The 10th Grade Students Coach Barry for the Camera

Look out for the next issue of the BOMUN Chronicle coming soon...

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