COMUN 2011

4 - 6 March 2011,

As I have said before, I was Secretary General of COMUN 2011. We started planning for this huge event in September, and the organizing committee is made up of 20 members, including me. There are five committees, three General Assembly Committees, ECOSOC, Sec Council. There are about 450 people taking part as delegates debating over the three day conference. Before the conference, we had three full Saturdays of Practice Debates, where the delegates, as well as the chairs can practice what to do before the actual conference. About 25 schools in Sri Lanka took part, as well as 3 schools from India and Pakistan.

Although this activity is not new to me (this is my 4th year in MUN, 3rd on the organizing committee), I continue to learn more every year, as well as the fact that I have moved further up the ladder to gain the highest position. It is always fun, and there are always many new people that you meet every year, and you always learn so much, because the issues that are discussed are relevant to current affairs. This year's topic was Natural Disasters and Humanitarian Assistance.

Before the conference, we had things to sort out, such as the food, water, and every year we give the delegates a folder, which has things such as paper, pens, etc in it. This also has to be sorted out before the conference. Possibly the hardest thing to do is finding sponsorships so that we can balance all our expenses. This year, we were lucky, because we had one large sponsor, but we still had to find other sponsors on top of this because the amount the delegates pay does not completely cover costs.

Ironically, the thing that I hate doing the most is public speaking. During the duration of the conference, I had to make multiple speeches, something that I was really worried about. However, I managed to overcome this fear of public speaking and open the Conference with a speech. After I had made it, I was pleased with myself for being able to do it. I also had a lot of positive feedback about it, which also made me feel much better, and slightly more confident about public speaking.

Overall, the conference went much better than expected. One of my goals at the beginning of the year was to have a conference were more overseas international schools attended, and making the conference more international, and also for people to say at the end that this was the best COMUN they ever attended. Although my first goal wasn't really fulfilled, although we did have more people attending from overseas than the previous years, my last goal definitely was. People in OSC, such as Ms. Shanthi in the IT lab, and Mr. Kularatne in the Photocopy room, who have been working in OSC in MUN for the last ten or so years, have been saying that this was the best conference they have ever seen, which made me ecstatic. As this was the most important goal.

I think that as a team, the whole committee worked very well together and we worked very efficiently. In previous years that I have been in MUN, on the second day when we are setting up at the hotel, we are fully finished at around 3 am. Yet this year, we managed to be out of there at 11pm, which is a huge achievement. Also, things ran almost seamlessly throughout the three days, and I am so happy with all of the hard work that we have done over the last three months to get to this point. It has all definitely paid off.