Virtual Model UN Conference

This past Monday, January 19th, the Carey and Floral Park model UN teams made a joint effort to create a virtual conference. With a 9:30-3:30 schedule, the day was packed. So many delegates prepared for this committee writing position papers and researching their given topic. Mr. Frino included his seventh grade model UN class to join the conference as a source of practice for their future in the club. Anyone in the club who wanted to was able to get involved as well. Many of the clubs board members took part by chairing committees. For example, Vincent Tavernese chaired the novice committee alongside Kristine Balquin and Rachel Rose, Marcella Funes chaired the General Assembly committee, and Reagan Govaert chaired the Crisis Committee. The Model UN club will normally go on two away conferences a year. With the serious threat of COVID-19, we have not been able to go on our usual fall trip. However, the boards of the Carey and floral park clubs thought it would be best to join together to provide practice for our team and the novices taking the class. This virtual conference was also a testing ground for the annual Lee Marcus invitational, SIDMUN which is a joint conference between all of the schools within our district. Because of this conferences success, we are hopeful for a fantastic virtual SIDMUN. There are many challenges brought up with the virtual aspect of model UN but as we go along, we are trying our best to figure it out. In the future we are hopeful for a great model UN season is COVID-19 allows. This conference went outstanding for our Model UN team. We left with various winners from Carey. In the General Assembly, Sam Hanlon in eleventh grade won a Verbal Accommodation, Zara Khan in tenth grade won a Honorable mention, and Gavin Levitt in tenth grade won Best delegate. In the novice committee, Dom Deluca and Daniel Mchugh, both seventh graders won honorable mentions. Lastly, in the Crisis committee, Christopher Stacchini, a tenth grader won a verbal accommodation. The students involved did an admirable job. The committee was a great success and everyone should be very proud of themselves. Reflecting on this conference, 7th grader Emma Scheidling said "The virtual Model UN conference was a great experience for a young high schooler like me. I learned a lot about the conference flow and how things move in committee". With all due credit to our model UN presidents Vincent Tavernese and Marcella Funes, this entire conference was able to happen. Their careful collaboration is admirable to all. It is really great to see efforts to bring back some sort of normalcy into our lives.