New England Model United Nations Moderators Association meeting held at the Catholic Memorial Model United Nations, Saturday, November 18, 2018
Minutes
Present: Donald Franke, NEMUNMA President and Teacher (retired, sort of), Chris Hilton, Westwood High School, Sue Larson, Seekonk High School, Bill Foley, Xaverian Brothers High School, Steve Pacheco, Tahanto Regional High School, Scott Ferbert, Foxboro High School, Michael Bagshaw, Duxbury High School, Jessica Stokes, Ursuline Academy, Michael Noyes, Ursuline Academy, Nick Argento, Boston College High School, and Jordan Grubb, Archbishop Williams High School.
Mr. Franke began with a note of welcome and thanks for all the good wishes he has received since his retirement. He continued with a presentation of the new website, focus on the section that dealt with support for faculty moderators. He noted that much of the material in the website is designed to help new faculty moderators get their feet on the ground model UN, but that it also reflected the experience that could help moderators at any level of experience navigate their programs through the model UN year- both within their own school and at conferences they attend. Mr. Frank solicited videos that can help augment the website, and suggested that website is available for schools to post pages that promote their programs.
Mr. Franke also provided an update on the development of a guide that would help faculty moderators in public schools meet the requirements for augmenting the new rules for handling student activity accounts mandated by law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Mr. Franke believed the laws only applied to public schools, but he would look into if this was true to just to make sure. The new law is detailed but not burdensome-it just needs to be implemented so schools do not get caught in an audit.
After this introduction, Mr. Franke opened the floor to suggestions for topics that could added to the site to help faculty moderators.
The first of these involved developing a general job description for faculty moderators that can help them define their programs within the school, as well as help them negotiate a salary or stipend for their position during any contract negotiations. Out of this discussion came a loose formula for trying to determine what a salary should be: this included building a description based on the total number of hours put into model UN, along with both weekly meetings and prep time, and the number of students involved along with a number of months that the activity is operating. Making sure that the job description was aligned with the mission statement of the school was considered helpful-though the financial gain and this might be only marginal in any contract negotiations, it may help with establishing continuous support for the program in contracts over time. Mr. Franke will be working out models of the job description, the formula for calculating hours and the alignment with mission statements to help faculty moderators present what they do both to the school and to their administrations and contract negotiations. They should be available by the second week of December, 2017. Mr. Franke suggested that the job descriptions aligned with the mission statements could be part of a posting on the NEMUNMA website that allowed faculty moderators to see models of them, and see how they compare as well.
The second topic suggested for the website were notes on how to deal with getting students to commit to conferences, as well as help faculty moderators deal with the financial implications of students dropping out one or two days before the conference. involved everything from deadlines to collecting checks to how to use writing a position paper to get a student more invested in the conference. Mr. Franke is going to compose a list of tactics faculty moderators use, in the hope that faculty moderators will find an approach that works for them in the context of the culture of their school. Suggestions for this list will be posted on the website by the second week of December, and all faculty moderators on our mailing list will be alerted to this as soon as it happens. Any suggestions for this list will be welcomed by Mr. Franke at any time.
Tied to the issue of the job description involved in discussion on how faculty moderators present the performance of their students at a model UN conference when they return to school the following week. It is common for a faculty moderator to go back to school on a Monday and face this question-“well, how did you do?” People are looking for anything that measures success in terms of waiting awards, etc. We all know the answer to the question of how well we do conferences very simple-great! But finding a way to give some clarity to this, so colleagues at school understand what actually goes on at a model United Nations conference is always a challenge. Mr. Franke has backlog of announcements and other strategies that can be used to help faculty moderators with this issue, and they will be posted the week after Thanksgiving break.
Faculty moderators also raise the issue of building a set of resources for fund raising. Faculty moderators introduced a wide range of fundraisers that they use, noting that the gaps between sports seasons of the best times to run fundraisers like flag football games, dodgeball, handball, and volleyball, Mr. Franke noted that when all the sports are done this spring, there's actually an additional window of opportunity. Mr. Franke will be compiling a list of fundraising activities that includes not just sporting events but also calendar and gift card giveaways. He is also soliciting ideas for this list. The fundraising section will be ready by the end of December, 2017.
Finally, Mr. Franke was asked to compile a list of vendors for model UN equipment, clothing, awards and supplies that can help enhance the model United Nations experience for students at their school noting that Mr. Franke has certain skills as a craftsman, it was requested that he look into the possibility of actually making gavels for model UN programs. Mr. Franke is conducted a preliminary investigation of this, and he is found that the idea has potential. The list of vendors will be posted by the end of December, 2017.
The report on the Catholic Memorial Model United Nations conference will be posted on the website after Thanksgiving. Congratulations to the Catholic Memorial Model United Staff for running a successful conference, and special thanks to Mr. Vincent Bradley for his support in allowing us to host our first NEMUNMA meeting in a year.