Concordia Model United Nation’s Club (CONMUN) acquired six awards at the Seventh Annual Virginia International Committee Simulation (VICS) last month in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Benoit Charron, already a two-time VICS winner, received an Outstanding Delegate Mention as Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the European Union. Jason Hatrick, CONMUN Vice President for Finances, received an honourable mention as Foreign Minister of the United Kingdom in a historical simulation. Michael Vicentijevic, Chief Justice nabbed an honourable mention as the US Attorney General on the US National Security Council and Yaron Conforti received a verbal mention for his performance on the Committee of Sustainable Commerce for Water Use Interests.
Catherine Letendre, who received two honourable mentions for her work as Head Delegate of the Concordia Delegation and performance as a judge on the mock trial of a Nazi war criminal, said the delegation “proved to be a wonderful group…I am proud of everyone regardless of awards.”
At last year’s VICS, CONMUN took home five awards, including three Best Delegate mentions.
Over the past two years, CONMUN has been training members to make them competitive with Ivy League teams from the US, whose universities make MUN courses available for credit, unlike Montreal schools.
Despite having one of the top five teams in the country, the club was unable to send a delegation to the 2002 World Model United Nations Conference (WorldMUN) in Brazil last week. “Unfortunately, while CONMUN only possessed a certain amount of funding to send delegates to the Model NATO Conference [in Ottawa] and VICS,” said CONMUN VP Finance, Jason Hatrick. “A delegation to WorldMUN could not be assembled due to the lack of financial support, notably by the CSU.”
Nonetheless, Nadia Minassian, Chris da Rocha and Philippe Ou paid their own way to Brazil to join a delegation comprised of members from the UN Association in Canada and the University of Alberta. Da Rocha got an honourable mention for representing Canada at the Organization of American States stimulation and Ou got a verbal mention for representing Canada at the World Bank re-enactment.
For more information about CONMUN, visit www.conmun.org