Today, we started out the morning with a special speech by TYA 14's president, Emilie O'Herne addressing how the rest of the conference was structured and what is entailed by the projects that participants are supposed to do. Additionally, she gave a short speech on the subject of project management and risk analysis of projects - basically a checklist of common problems to look out for. Basically, the point of her speech was to give the participants all the tools that they needed to be thinking about in order to have a successful project and because they all understood this it was very well received. The only complaint that I heard about the speech is that people had really wished it had come earlier in the week (at least the points about what the project was) because they had been slightly confused for the first two days.
Irregardless, armed with a wide array of new knowledge all my participants really dove straight into their projects as soon as the speech was over – most choosing to remain working as individuals, while a few who happened to be at the same school decided to combine their smaller projects into a big campaign.
For the most part, this is what the participants worked on for the rest of the day, only stopping for a short speech by one of the deputy presidents Akua Nyame-Mensah about sponsorship and TYN and the quais-requisite mid-afternoon photo shoot*. Nyame-Mesah's speech was focused on how to ask organisations for money and what to do for in order to get funding; like O'Herne's speech in the morning, its intention to supply the participants with yet more tools to help them create and implement their projects. Additionally, Nyame-Mesah also talked about the TYN (THIMUN Youth Network) and what you could do after this conference, and outside of it; the potential to join international delegations to proper United Nations conferences such as the UNCSD in New York, or the World Water Forum, which was last held in Istanbul. Both of things really grabbed the attention of the participants and even though their attention span was beginning to waver, I think they found both parts of the speech really useful.
*On the note of the photos, it was actually really amusing to watch — one person who basically start staring off into space and within minutes another person would join them, then another, then another, until the entire committee was completely distracted and out would come the cameras. This would then go on for a few minutes but the participants would always go back to work immediately as soon as their 'break' was done.
About an hour before the end of the day, when it seemed that most of the participants had self-proclaimed themselves 'finished' with their projects, we came back together for a peer review session. Very similar to the presentation/discussion we had the day before about people's research, the basic structure was one individual would give a short description of their project and maybe some background and then everyone was invited to give comments or questions on what they thought it, specifically focused on the feasibility of the project and its potential risks. Once we had then gone around the entire committee and discussed all the projects, the participants then split back up and continued working on their projects using the new ideas that they had gotten from the review.
Finally, today ended a bit early because we it was the middle of the week, the 'slump' so to speak and the school that was housing our conference DiSDH (Deutsche Internationale Schule Den Haag) wanted a picture of all of us so we all had to file out onto the stairs and pose for the cameras.
I have always that Wednesdays are always the hardest days during conferences like these. Often times people have lost their initial excitement but have yet to gain the "it's-almost-over-must-savour-it" kick and so they tend to be particularly low energy. Also, it is usually at this point that the stress, wear, and tear begins to appear in the participants which can be equally hard to deal with. All that being said, I think all of my participants performed admirably; it was long, tedious, and some parts downright boring, but they humoured me and stuck with it 'till the end. In short, they are the best committee I have ever had.
Irregardless, armed with a wide array of new knowledge all my participants really dove straight into their projects as soon as the speech was over – most choosing to remain working as individuals, while a few who happened to be at the same school decided to combine their smaller projects into a big campaign.
For the most part, this is what the participants worked on for the rest of the day, only stopping for a short speech by one of the deputy presidents Akua Nyame-Mensah about sponsorship and TYN and the quais-requisite mid-afternoon photo shoot*. Nyame-Mesah's speech was focused on how to ask organisations for money and what to do for in order to get funding; like O'Herne's speech in the morning, its intention to supply the participants with yet more tools to help them create and implement their projects. Additionally, Nyame-Mesah also talked about the TYN (THIMUN Youth Network) and what you could do after this conference, and outside of it; the potential to join international delegations to proper United Nations conferences such as the UNCSD in New York, or the World Water Forum, which was last held in Istanbul. Both of things really grabbed the attention of the participants and even though their attention span was beginning to waver, I think they found both parts of the speech really useful.
*On the note of the photos, it was actually really amusing to watch — one person who basically start staring off into space and within minutes another person would join them, then another, then another, until the entire committee was completely distracted and out would come the cameras. This would then go on for a few minutes but the participants would always go back to work immediately as soon as their 'break' was done.
About an hour before the end of the day, when it seemed that most of the participants had self-proclaimed themselves 'finished' with their projects, we came back together for a peer review session. Very similar to the presentation/discussion we had the day before about people's research, the basic structure was one individual would give a short description of their project and maybe some background and then everyone was invited to give comments or questions on what they thought it, specifically focused on the feasibility of the project and its potential risks. Once we had then gone around the entire committee and discussed all the projects, the participants then split back up and continued working on their projects using the new ideas that they had gotten from the review.
Finally, today ended a bit early because we it was the middle of the week, the 'slump' so to speak and the school that was housing our conference DiSDH (Deutsche Internationale Schule Den Haag) wanted a picture of all of us so we all had to file out onto the stairs and pose for the cameras.
I have always that Wednesdays are always the hardest days during conferences like these. Often times people have lost their initial excitement but have yet to gain the "it's-almost-over-must-savour-it" kick and so they tend to be particularly low energy. Also, it is usually at this point that the stress, wear, and tear begins to appear in the participants which can be equally hard to deal with. All that being said, I think all of my participants performed admirably; it was long, tedious, and some parts downright boring, but they humoured me and stuck with it 'till the end. In short, they are the best committee I have ever had.
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