Pine View’s Model United Nations (MUN) competed Dec. 12 at a conference on Pine View’s very own campus where the team had multiple placing members by the end of the day.
MUN is essentially a simulation of what the United Nations actually does except on a smaller scale. “We get split into different committees and prepare a paper for whatever country we were assigned to,” eleventh-grader Claire Shiparski said. The goal of each committee is to work together to come to a consensus with the other delegates.
Those who placed include eleventh-grader Sahil Pankhaniya, eleventh-grader Nathan Jeffries, eleventh-grader Claire Shiparski and ninth-grader Shelly Barber who all received the award “Most Outstanding Delegate.” Ninth-grader Jade Goyette also placed and received the award “Most Improved Delegate.”
This tournament is one of multiple local tournaments that is held throughout the year for MUN. “This was one of the conferences that is held prior to states. It sort of acts as practice at a local level to help prepare for later conferences,” Shiparski said.
“The conference was held at Pine View so it allowed for a sense of comfort to be achieved and made it easier to relax and really have fun with the experience,” tenth-grade member Alex Anacki said.
Since the tournament was at the school and is one of the earlier conferences, it is considered to be a good conference for new members to go to. “I think that this tournament is a great way for new members to really get a handle on how MUN works. I’ve been to this conference for three years in a row and it is really neat to see the improvement that is made over the year,” Shiparski.
“It was a good experience because it gave me the opportunity to get to know other students from all over and also I get to increase my knowledge on things like foreign policy,” Anacki said.