Concordia University electrified the competition during Queen’s annual Model UN competition, held Feb. 6-9. The Political Science Student Association’s delegation came prepared, and all that bottled energy erupted during intense negotiations, giving way to a heated debate between the competitors.
The competition was divided among several committees, including the Security Council, UNDP, UNCSTD, Historical Council, African Union and ECOSOC.
Several of the Queen’s competitors did not show up to the competition, or were unavailable due to prioritizing their classes. Due to the amount of time and money spent by the PSSA on this competition, Concordia undergrads were more prepared, admitted David Orr, second year political science student at Queen’s, and co-organizer of the competition, along with his sister, Anne Orr.
In the Security Council, tensions mounted when the delegate of China, who had allegedly participated in nearly 40 MUN competitions, was found to be a friend of the chair of the committee. The chair did not respect Points of Order made by Concordia students when China’s representative went over his speaking time, and had a difficult time finally censuring him.
The competition was not taken seriously by many Queen’s undergrads, and several Concordia students have pledged never to go back.
In ECOSOC, however, committee work was taken the most seriously, and resolutions were passed including ones to solve Offshore Financing issues, and Narcotics trafficking, at least until the last day, when “Manitoban Bear Riders,” sent by your own Concordian-Canadian delegate Tim Weynerowski, crossed the Pacific to attack Mexico, while Monaco went cruising on a mission to solve World Peace, with 5000 bottles of Dom Perignon in hand.
Apparently, the last day of the competition is never taken seriously, as winning delegates are already selected by Day 3, which Concordia was unaware of, leading to some bruised egos. However, many were mended when unexpected awards were received.
Although Concordia represented only 13 out of 146 delegates, they took home nearly half the prizes, listed as follows:
Jawoon Kim won “Best Delegate of the UNDP,” which qualifies as first place.
Javier Eduardo Valbuena Ramirez won “Best Delegate of the African Union,”, which qualifies as first place.
Michael Morgan won “Best Delegate of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development,” which qualifies as first place.
Sanmini Koffi won “Honourable Mention of the African Union, which qualifies as second place.
Princess Tchatat won “Honourable Mention of the Historical Security Council,” which qualifies as second place.
Tim Skinny Weynerowski won “Honourable Mention of the ECOSOC,” which qualifies as second place.
Mathieu Rouleau won “Honourable Mention of the Security Council,” which qualifies as second place, and “Honourable Mention for the Casino Night.”
Gemma Acco won “Best Dressed Award.”
Bruised egos aside, disregarding the tiny co-sex rooms, the smell of burnt popcorn in a small space, five beds narrowly crammed into a 6 by 10 foot room, seeing more than you like of someone’s body, and losing your clothes under someone else’s, massive hangovers, and kerfuffles, the experience was incredibly positive for all of the PSSA, and I would like to thank Queen’s for their hospitality. We all learnt something and took it home with us; we all started off as colleagues and left with friends we will keep in touch with for the rest of our lives.
All twitter pictures posted by your humble blogger are hash-tagged #PSSA and #QMUN. Pictures and a description of the event can be found at:
The organizing committee thanks the honourable delegate for his personal statement. For a more accurate display of the happenings of our successful conference, I encourage the delegate
to gaze upon the plethora of photos that display an engaging event with active and positive participation from both Queen’s and Concordia delegates.
From my understanding, Concordia delegates expressed great gratitude and said they truly enjoyed themselves at QMUN. We apologise if you were unhappy with certain aspects of the conference, but we wish you would have raised them with us during the conference so they could have been addressed.
The honourable delegate is reminded that he as his colleagues are always welcome at Queen’s functions, and we look forward to their positive and engaging contributions at QMUN next year.
Kind regards,
The QMUN executive committee
Commenting on what you apparently “took home” from this conference, I am certain after writing this article, you no longer have friends at Queen’s whom you’ll keep in contact for the rest of your life. Safe to say, posting this article to Facebook, while you have Queen’s students among your friends list, was not the best idea. Then again, neither was attempting to stalk one of the members of the executive. Well done Tim. I must say, that Honourable Mention you received seems to be rather unfitting.
That is a very strong allegation. I am bored so I will address it. I called one member of the Queen’s delegation beautiful, and sent her one message asking her if she wanted to keep in touch. Your base ad hominem attack is a red herring attempting to portray me as a pervert, rather than rebutting my argument, you changed to topic to some imagined personal defect of mine own that would detract from my credibility. Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids. Cheers
Where do we even begin?
First off, with regards to your disparaging remarks about the preparedness-level of Queen’s students:
A) QMUN, unlike the QMUN Invitational, is billed as a “no-experience-necessary” conference, and as such, attracts students from faculties as diverse as engineering and nursing. Obviously, these students would not be nearly as prepared as some Concordia students who admitted to spending months in preparation.
B) QMUN falls directly in conflict with midterm season. We take academics pretty seriously, so throwing away 30% of a grade in favour of a MUN conference on a Friday might not seem like the best idea to us.
Secondly, I believe that the author of this article actually walked out of his final committee session in protest of the perceived unprofessionalism of a number of Queen’s students, as they worked through the final few hours while battling hangovers. For someone who has launched an attack on the Queen’s population, that seems a bit pretentious, especially considering that, you know, we’re supposed to be the pretentious ones.
I won’t mention the arrogant, creepy, slightly stalkerish Facebook tendencies of a very small percentage of the Concordia delegation, because nearly all (but one) of them were very nice, and thanked the executive for their wonderful hospitality.
So, in closing: congrats, Concordia. You cleaned up. Give the QMUNI a shot next year. You must be bored of humiliating a bunch of stressed, unexperienced undergrads.