United Nations Association: Training Officer

Hi! I'm Maria, for those who don't know me, I'm a Russian-French student in Politics and Sociology with East European studies and I am hoping to be a training officer for UCL UNA next year. 

To say the least, MUN has been a major part of my first year at university. Throughout the year, I’ve participated in quite a few conferences, both as chair and a delegate, both in the UK and abroad. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that when picking a country as a delegate, I usually tend to go for the most controversial ones - this year my choices were Iran, Russia and the Serbian counsel denying its war crimes in the ICJ. Two out of the three times I managed to win awards, showcasing that as problematic as those countries are, I was able to successfully defend their stances in debate, and can aid UCL UNA’s future delegates in doing the same for any country they end up with. 

The committees I’ve been involved with have equally been diverse. Besides General Assembly committees, I’ve been involved with the Summit of the Future, ICJ and am currently preparing to chair an even more specialized one - the Judiciary Crisis Committee (which is essentially ICJ with elements of crisis). Those experiences made me well acquainted with all sorts of procedures and expectations for pre-written submissions. I therefore believe that, as training officer, I can guide delegates (and chairs!) in preparation for success in any committee they’ve applied for and I'd be very grateful for your support:)

The main reason I am here is because of MUN Crises. Compared to General Assembly committees, Crisis allows delegates to view a situation not from the viewpoints of nations as a whole, but as individual stakeholders who may have various agendas and commitments. Crisis simulates a less microscopic, but far more 3-dimensional world for delegates to learn from.

For the longest time, Crisis has not been a part of UCL-UNA activities, the absence of a Crisis committee in last year's UCLMUN conference is a great indicator of that. 

Having delegated in two Crisis conferences (including LIMUN), backroomed in three, and directed one, I possess the ideals, the passion, as well as the experience needed to both train Crisis delegates as well as Crisis officers who work hard behind the scenes to make Crisis committees possible.

With me at the helms, UCL UNA shall develop a strong Crisis culture. I will also push hard for a Crisis committee to be established in the next UCLMUN conference, thereby filling in a crucial missing component long part of many other MUN conferences in the UK.

Hi! I’m Sophie Chee, a first year student taking Politics and International Relations. I’ve always been happy and proud to be part of this society which not only allowed me to join conferences where I’ve gained so much valuable experience in debating and speaking, but I’ve also made amazing friendships with delegates from conferences, and of course, within the society itself. I’ve had so many positive experiences, so I hope to extend this to all current and future members, to ensure that others in the society can learn a lot from our events and trainings, and make valuable connections and great memories.

As the Training Officer, I will coordinate and run training sessions. I have years of experience in debate and MUN; specifically in MUN, I have experience in the General Assembly, Crisis, and chairing committees. I also have taught and helped others improve their confidence in public speaking and improvisation, so I would like to add this in sessions. There are a diverse range of international topics I’ve debated and am interested in, so I know what topics are rarely debated on but are worth mentioning, and I know the difficulty of these topics, to allow training sessions to cater to different delegates. Moreover, I can arrange support and extra training sessions if needed, which can help members improve if they are less confident speaking in normal sessions. I will ensure the training sessions in our society will help members’ proficiency and prepare them for conferences.

Ozan Training Officer Nomination

Prior Experience: 

• I have 6 years of MUN experience as a chair and delegate. I ran my high school’s MUN club for two years, organised a conference while chairing UNESCO.

• I have partaken in conferences around the world at HarvardMUN and NSHMUN. I have also won numerous Best Delegate awards in both local French conferences and international ones. I have equally partaken in both standard and crisis format conferences. 

• I have run numerous weekly sessions in my high school, created interesting committees and subjects, organised public debate sessions, and researched and prepared for conferences. 

• I have studied the UN and Geopolitics for over 6 years in my spare time to know how delegates can debate better and how the UN can concretely solve current world problems. 

UCLUNA Experience: 

• For all the weekly simulation sessions, I have written close to 20 simulation topics. These were later posted on the Instagram page for you to see. 

• I wrote two reports for the weekly sessions on Kurdistan and WWI simulations. I will continue to do these reports for future weekly sessions. 

For the Future:

• I plan to create simplified preparatory documents for conferences and MUN since it can be intimidating and confusing to remember, especially for beginners.

• I plan to prepare fun public session activities to develop debating skills, which are essential for delegates who want to get a Best Delegate