Chair for Press Corps at MUN

At the most recent WellsMUN I had the opportunity to chair 'Press Corps' which is a new committee which focuses on emulating journalists' jobs at UN conferences to report on ongoing news. My co-chair and I had to do all the planning to ensure this committee ran smoothly, and were also tasked with watching over the journalists and posting all the news articles of the journalists present.  

An obstacle I faced was the tediousness of writing the chair report to establish ground rules, and basic information for all the journalists to follow. I've never written one before which made it difficult for me to decide what to add in. However, I persevered and used past examples from conferences I'd attended to in order to write an adequate report, whilst also improvising to create the format and which images to use. 

Another obstacle I faced was public speaking to around 25 delegates in the room (the majority of whom I did not know), and having to reiterate the rules and explanations since I'm not comfortable taking leadership positions that require public speaking. Last of all, it was difficult to keep up with all the article submissions coming in since my co-chair and I worked non-stop to grammar check and publish these articles before more came in from the members of our committee. This pressuring atmosphere was not one I was used to, so it began rockily since I spent too much time on taking the liberty to change words around and edit the graphics, however by the end of the day I had gotten much faster at checking articles. 

This was also made easier by the help of my co-chair who helped write the chair report and worked alongside me to proofread articles and edit graphics. He'd also had prior chairing experience and so he advised me on keeping calm with the journalists, and helped me brainstorm the ground rules. 

Overall, it was a great learning  experience since I did not succumb to the pressure, which made me feel quite accomplished. I had also managed to gain experience as an MUN chair, and not just a delegate, which meant stepping out of my comfort zone to try something new that required taking the creative initiative to organize which I'm not very used to. 

CAS LEARNING OUTCOMES: 

• Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

• Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience 

• Show commitment to and persevrerance in CAS experiences 

• Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively