FSMUN 5.0 (CAS Project)

MUN stands for Model United Nations. MUN is a small version of a real United Nations Conference. FSMUN is a MUN organized by our school’s students where each year students apply for a designated position in the MUN’s Core Committee. I had applied for the post of Deputy Director-General. This person has to manage the MUN and make the arrangements for it. I had applied for this post as I thought I am good at handling resources and leading a team. 2 people including me were assigned this post and we had to work with the Director-General and keep her updated about the tasks at hand and the tasks to perform further. This was my CAS project.

Learning outcomes Achieved-

Lo 2- Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.

When I was appointed as the Deputy Director-General, I was very happy but at the same time, I was quite unconfident as I had taken part in a few MUN but had never seen the process of the organizing one. I had a word with the teachers and they started to guide me through the process of management. The initial days were quite tough for me as I had to work with people who knew a lot about MUNs and so I felt a bit sidetracked and hence I used to delay my task or was not able to complete them. Then I started to communicate with my friends who had organized a bunch of MUNs before to take guidance and so we started meeting and hence I began to understand the management and the process. I then performed a few tasks like making the leaders of a few teams which were the correct ones which impressed my teachers. I used the skills of critical thinking when appointing the group leaders of a few groups as the leaders have to be someone who can delegate the work and motivate the group to work on time. I had taken the decoration team under me because I was confident I can handle the decoration team well. We had planned to make circular threads for the decoration of the conference.

The initial few circles were made as demos and were kept to dry for a day. The next day when we saw the circles, they were deformed as a specific type of strong glue had to be used which was not available. We tried a few more circles but they failed too, hence we changed the decorations before a few days of the conference. These circles were not wasted but were used at another place of the conference where it suited perfectly. This again shows critical thinking and the power to make decisions at last moments.

Lo3- Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.

While I was having a normal conversation related to FSMUN 5.0 with a friend, he informed me that the interview for getting selected in the core committee was the following day. I took permission from the teacher to give the interview which was accepted. Then we were given a few situations during the interview for which I had provided apt answers. Later the results were out and I was appointed as Deputy Director-General with another friend of mine sharing the same post. It was 3 of us, 2 deputy Director-General and one Director general to manage the whole event and its requirements. Our first task was to get appropriate volunteers which we got by sharing a form with the students of our school. Then we appointed team leaders and started to monitor and help them in the decorations and designing. We had to take care of Food, Transport, Decoration, design and printing, accommodation of the Executive Board members because a few of them were from out of the town, etc. I had managed the decoration and the accommodation part and helped a bit in the designing and printing team. Though we were assigned different teams, we constantly helped each other and asked for suggestions to increase the quality of work.

Lo4- Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.

A lot of dedication and commitment was portrayed by me. I used to come early for a lot of days to complete my tasks, to attend the meetings, for discussion of the designs, etc. Also as I had taken up the responsibility to manage the accommodation of the Executive board members coming from different cities, I was the one who stayed at the hotel till 12:30 at the night before the conference to make them comfortable and get them their rooms. This reflects my dedication to my task. Also, it was my duty to get them to the conference location on time on both days and I had made sure that they reached the destination before the conference starts. To do so, I had to reach the hotel by 6, give them wake up calls and arrange transport for them which was perfectly managed. I even missed a few of my classes when the day of the conference was near to make sure that final decoration materials were ready. This shows my dedication and Commitment. The whole decoration took 20 to 25 days and almost all the deadlines were shows the consistency of the work done.

Lo5- Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.

As mentioned above that the management and teams were distributed amongst the three of us, it became very easy to manage the whole event. The 3 of us were capable enough to take small decisions on our own and so we didn’t have to waste our time to consult everyone for small decisions. This also helped me as a monitor of the decoration team as I get more chances to connect with the volunteers and to bring their creativity out. Also after every 2-3 tasks we 3 use to review them together to analyze them and give suggestions as to what could have been done better. This helped me to improve myself in the next tasks. For example, I was too friendly with the volunteers which lead to a lot of distractions at the time of work, as soon as I received this feedback, I became a bit strict, limited the fun time and made sure that the deadlines set for the tasks are met. This could only be possible when I worked in a team and receive feedback for improvement. Also, when we were deciding the designs for decoration, working in a team helped us to get creative ideas and made us aware of the pros and cons of the ideas as every teammate had a different view which helped us to analyze the designs more efficiently. Hence working in a team has a lot of perks and makes the tasks easy.

Lo7- Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and action.

The whole operations we conducted were ethical. I did not charge separate entry fees for people according to my preference and treated everyone equally. We provided good quality of food and did not order to prepare low quality food to save money. To do this, we prepared the food in the school, the school staff prepared it making sure it is of great quality. I never wasted the school resources nor used the FSMUN’s account to order any resource that I needed for my personal use and not for the MUN. When we had called for spray paints, one of the students was willing to take the spray can home for his personal use. When I came across this, I confronted that specific person to know the reason behind it. The person needed it for a project, I suggested him to take permission from the art teachers and then if they allow, he can take it. This is how the ethics of doing the right thing and Responsibility are shown during my CAS Project.

My Takeaways-

This was a great platform for young learners to know how the UN works and also develop their orating skills as they have to put their point forward. It made me really satisfied that I contributed something positive to the community and helped people to develop their research and orating skills. This event was a success as I could see people happily speaking and even a few of my friends who are normally shy were putting their point forward strongly in front of people which made me really happy. I would definitely like to do such events in the future and contribute to society positively.

Evidence-

One of the posters for the promotion of the event-