Today's the Day!

Oh Canada.... Here we come!

SSUNS is finally here! I should probably pack...

- Maddie

Meeting Update

Tomorrow's meeting has been canceled. In order to allow our delegates to do laundry and last minute packing and such, we have decided NOT to have a meeting.

Nonetheless, PERMISSION SLIPS ARE STILL DUE TOMORROW!
You can give them to Maddie, Shannon, Mrs. Martin, or, if you're desperate, Mr. Bushey. If you can't find any of us, put them in the envelope attached to the Stu. Gov. Office door. If we don't have the permission slips tomorrow, we cannot let you on the bus. (Seriously, the school won't let us.)

Also, don't forget the paperwork needed to cross the border!

For SSUNS delegates, we'll see you on Thursday morning (8:00, in the Office). For all our other MUNers, we'll see you on the 19th!

- The Secretariat

(Yet Another) Important Meeting Notice

The meeting scheduled for this Wednesday will be from 5:30 to 6:30, and ONLY SSUNS delegates need to attend.

ALL permission slips will be due at this meeting!

Remember, we leave on THURSDAY, at 8:30. Below is a checklist of what you should bring. You'll get a hard copy tomorrow in TSA. See you then!


SSUNS Checklist

Toiletries
- Toothpaste
- Toothbrush
- Shampoo
- Etc.

Clothing
- A comfortable outfit for the bus ride to and from Montreal
- Three appropriate outfits, including shoes, for each of the three days of committee (Western Business Attire)
- Various street clothes for outside of committee
o Jeans
o T-shirts
o Sweatshirts
o Etc.
- Pajamas
- A warm jacket/coat
- Mittens (optional)
- Hat (optional)
- Scarf (optional)
- Sneakers
- Dress Shoes
- Swimsuit (optional)
- An outfit for the SSUNS Gala

Committee Items
- Pens and/or pencils
- A pad of paper
- A tote or briefcase like bag (recommended)
- Water

Other Items
- Identification
o Passport
OR
o Photo ID and a birth certificate (copies can be made at school if desired, and/or originals can be given to advisors for safe keeping)
- Spending money ($100 dollars recommended for food and entertainment)
- Snacks (optional)
o Water, crackers, candy, breakfast bars, etc.
- Clothes hangers (optional)
- Camera (optional)
- DVDs/other entertainment (optional)

Important Meeting Notice!

The meeting this Wednesday (the 29th) will be for SSUNS delegates mainly. Everyone else is still welcome to come, but our focus will be conference preparation (meaning we will be continuing research on committee topics, going over rules of procedure again, writing a mock resolution, etc.) and may not get to debating. For SSUNS goers, this meeting will be extremely important to attend, as it is our second to last before the conference.

And remember, your permission slips are due on Wednesday!

- The Secretariat

Position Papers

It is 1:00 on Saturday, the 25th of October.
Meaning that it is no longer Friday.
Meaning that if you have not submitted your position papers, you are officially late.
Quite a few of you are late...
To say the least, the Secretariat is not impressed.
Perhaps we did not make it clear how important these position papers are. They show us that you are committed to this club and conference, have done your research, and will not embarrass our school at SSUNS. We intend to bring only our best delegates to this conference, and we certainly do not have a problem with refunding your money in order to allow a student who is more dedicated and better prepared to go.

Position papers received any later than noon today will not be edited by the Secretariat, and will be submitted to SSUNS the way they are. If we have not received your position paper by Sunday at midnight, you may be replaced on this trip.

We intend to step it up this year, and that starts with you doing a little research.

Sincerely,
A Disappointed Secretariat

FYI

Oops... There was a typo on the border crossing permission slip that we sent home at the last meeting! We accidentally said that SSUNS ran from the 6th to the 8th. As you know, we will actually be in Montreal until the 9th, so don't get confused (and don't let your parents get confused either!).

Remember, we need all the permission slips (check the list below to see what you need) as soon as possible. If you didn't get copies of some of them, make sure to see a member of the Secretariat.


PERMISSION SLIPS:
Parental Permission
Delegate Expectations
Teacher Release Form
Pool/Border Crossing Permission

Position Papers

A reminder to all delegates attending SSUNS, your three position papers are due on Friday, the 24th. Please email them to mvuhsmodelun@gmail.com. The Secretariat will review and edit your papers, and return them to you to finalize.

If you need help, feel free to email us. Or, to get guidance from SSUNS, click this link.

SSUNS NEWS

At our last meeting, we assigned countries and rooms to our SSUNS delegates. If you missed it, they're listed below. We strongly encourage everyone to spend some time this weekend doing a little research on their countries (visit your country's website and CIA World Factbook) and reading the background guides that the conference provides. To do that, go to the SSUNS Committee List, click your committee, and scroll down until you find the link to your respective background guide. The password for all of background guides is 08ssuns.

In order to better prepare all our delegates, we have also scheduled a meeting for just SSUNS delegates on Monday, October 20, from 5:30 to 7:00. We know this is rather last minute, but it is extremely important that you attend this meeting if you are going to SSUNS. Also, we have scheduled our Parents Information Meeting following the Monday meeting, from 7:00 to approximately 7:45. If your parents have any questions, this is the night for them to come and ask. But if they can't make it (again, we know it is slightly last minute) let them know that they can call Mrs. Martin or Mr. Bushey, email us at mvuhsmodelun@gmail, or we'll provide you with a detailed itinerary of our weekend for you to give to them.

We'll see you on Monday!

Room Assignments

Room 1:
Maddie
Haley
Shannon
Liz

Room 2:
Allie
Beth
Mandy
Lauren

Room 3:
Brianna
Hannah
Dena
Krystal

Room 4:
Ethan
Remi
Cody
Jeremy

SSUNS Country Matrix

DELEGATE NAME	COUNTRY	COMMITTEE		TOPICS	NUMBER OF DELEGATES
Cody	Canada	First Committee: Disarmament and International Security		Land Mines Clearance, Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, Small Arms Trade	2
Ethan	Canada	Third Committee: Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian		Violence against Female Migrants, The International Food Crisis, The Conflict between Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism	3
Brianna	Canada	World Health Organization		Intellectual Property, Climate Change and its Effect on Health, Malaria	3
Shannon	Canada	United Nations Environment Programme		Natural Disaster Management, Climate Change and Development, Agricultural and Environmental Degradation	1
Liz	Canada	United Nations Commission on the Status of Women		Education and Gender Equality, Social and Economic Integration of Newly Migrated and Urbanized Women, Combating Sex Trafficking	1
Haley	Canada	Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice		Trafficking of Women and Children, Child Justice Reform, Money Laundering	1
Krystal	Canada	Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe		Arms Trafficking and Weapons Control, Human Trafficking Control, Environment and Economic Security	1
Remi	Canada	International Atomic Energy Agency		Preventing Terrorism through Secure Nuclear Facilities and Materials, Nuclear Waste Regulations in Africa, North Korea and Nuclear Weapons	1
Jeremy	Cape Verde	First Committee: Disarmament and International Security		Land Mines Clearance, Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, Small Arms Trade	2
Mandy	Cape Verde	Third Committee: Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian		Violence against Female Migrants, The International Food Crisis, The Conflict between Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism	3
Lauren	Cape Verde	World Health Organization		Intellectual Property, Climate Change and its Effect on Health, Malaria	3
Hannah	Cape Verde	Group of 77		Technology and Knowledge Sharing in Development, UN Reform, Trade Relations between South-South Countries	2
Beth	Vanuatu	Third Committee: Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian		Violence against Female Migrants, The International Food Crisis, The Conflict between Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism	3
Allie	Vanuatu	World Health Organization		Intellectual Property, Climate Change and its Effect on Health, Malaria	3
Dena	Vanuatu	Group of 77		Technology and Knowledge Sharing in Development, UN Reform, Trade Relations between South-South Countries	2
Maddie	Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias (Venezuela)		Press Corps	Press Corps	1

Meeting

The Secretariat would just like to remind everyone that we still have a meeting tomorrow (from 6-8 in the library), even though some of you don't have school. It is especially important that all of the SSUNS delegates attend, as we will be assigning countries. We'll see you there!

-The Secretariat

p.s. Sophomores are in charge of snack.

Important Information

Hey everyone!

As you know, we've been very busy trying to prepare for SSUNS financially, and we've made quite a bit of progress. We raised 400 dollars through all our fundraisers! Nice work everyone! Unfortunately, that won't fully cover the registration cost. In order for SSUNS to assign us countries, they need to receive our payment, so it is VERY important that we get that sent out by Thursday. Therefore...

ALL DELEGATES WHO ARE ATTENDING SSUNS MUST BRING IN A PAYMENT OF $65.00 NO LATER THAN WEDNESDAY'S MEETING IN ORDER TO SECURE A SPOT ON THE TRIP.

Make all checks out to MVU Model UN, and Bri will be collecting your payments (so if you want to impress us and get it in early, find her). If this is a problem for anyone, please let Maddie or Haley know.

Remember, this is only the registration cost, and does not cover the cost of the rooms. Once we have our final delegate number, we will making our reservations at the Delta and you'll be asked for an additional payment (as of now, the cost will be between 175-200 dollars). It may seem like a lot, but keep in mind that we have some more fundraisers coming up (like the Techno Dance Party!) that we expect to be very successful. So even though we will collect large payments for the reservation, our hope is that we'll be able to pay everyone back, at least in part. We're all going to have to work really hard to make sure that our upcoming events are as sucessful as possible.

We'll see everyone this Wednesday!

- The Secretariat

More Success at Open House!

The secretariat would like to thank everyone who helped out at the 50/50 Raffle at Open House. But even more thanks go to Mrs. Martin , who won and returned her half of the money to the club. We raised over 150 dollars! Since tonight was so successful, we'd like to have another raffle at the Middle School Open House, on the 17th. If you'd like to help, leave a comment here or let one of the Secretariat members know.

Tonight was a great start in our fund raising efforts. Let's keep it up!

- The Secretariat

p.s. We were suppose to have a meeting on the 17th. It was placed on the calendar without any complications, but I have just realized that MS Open House is the same night. I'll look into this a let everyone know whether or not we'll still be able to have our meeting.

First Meeting Success!

Model UN is off to a roaring start, and it's only going to get better.

Our first meeting was fantastic! We had a great turn out and everyone seemed really excited about getting involved. This year we have new advisers (Mrs. Martin and Mr. Bushey) and a new meeting day (Wednesdays), and we're sure that both changes are going to work out quite well. A main goal for us this year is to fund raise for our conferences and cut down on our club expenses, so we spent most of the night planning and organizing events. After a great brainstorm, we decided on a traditional bake sale, which will be on September 17 and 18 during lunches. Members of the advertising committee made some amazing (and "punny") signs, and if you'd like to help plaster them around school just leave a comment telling us when you have some free time and we'll set you up. Remember to bring your baked goods to the student government office on the morning of the 17th (When you walk in through the old guidance door, it's the third office on the right. We'll have a sign up.), and we'll try to post a reminder of what everyone is suppose to bake within the next few days.

Another idea we had was for a techno rave (I can't believe we didn't think of this sooner...). Our new member, Deanna, looked into getting the Sheldon Casino. She reported back with an amazing list of dates and options, so this event is looking pretty promising. (Thank her, if you get the chance.) It will take quite a bit of planning, but we can pull it off. We'll discuss it further at our next meeting, as well as some of the other fund raising options.

We also talked a lot about the SSUNS conference in Montreal. This year it's from November 6th to the 9th. It's a fun but somewhat grueling conference that takes a lot of preparation and commitment. It was great to see so many new faces at our first meeting, and so many kids interested in SSUNS. We typically try to keep our numbers to a group of 20 or fewer (hey, it's tough enough for our advisers to keep an eye on Shannon alone...), and we select delegates by seniority. We also mentioned the NCMUN conference in New York. It's three days, has a much more laid back setting, and anyone interested is welcome to come. This is a great first conference (it was my first one) to learn the ropes, get comfortable with public speaking, and to just have fun. And it's only about 20 dollars to go.

All in all, it was a fantastic first meeting. If you missed it, no worries. Our next meeting will be Wednesday, September 17th. We can't wait to see everyone there!

- Maddie and the Secretariat

p.s. Take a look at the new blog. We've added a calendar (which includes the snack schedule), a news feed, and lots of other cool stuff.