A weekend away

One of the approximately gazillion things I have found myself taking on responsibility for at this school is overseeing the Model United Nations group. I knew fairly little about this until I became involved with the CIS Hangzhou project two years ago, and it is not a particular passion of mine; but I do appreciate the enthusiasm it excites in many of our students. And, luckily, I don't really have to do very much to help the group along, as we have a very effective student leadership team taking the reins this year. They only need me for the mundane logistics of booking travel and accommodation, when they want to attend a conference....

CISSMUN VI, the sixth annual Model United Nations conference to be hosted by Concordia International School of Shanghai, was our first opportunity this year, held over this past weekend. The whole of our very vigorous and enthusiastic MUN Club took part. Emily Duncan, Flora Xiao, Lauren Mok, and Jacky Tam represented Thailand on four of the six General Assembly committees, while Natalie Chak, Katherine Ye, Tippy Pei, and Adam Guo represented Yemen on the same committees; Enrique Chuidian was a Yemeni 'expert' on the special Advisory Panel; and Sabrina Chan and Dominic Law were invited to join the press team on the conference's own magazine, the Vigil.

Our parent school, CIS Hong Kong, also sent a delegation of nine members, seven of whom had been with us in CIS Hangzhou last year: Kenny Jeong, John Yap, Axel Leven, Victor Yin, Hannah Hui, Gloria Schiavo, and Jemima Barr. This was the first time members of the current and previous Hangzhou cohorts had had occasion to meet on official business - a moment of such historic import that two of my younger colleagues, Ms Lam and Ms Lee, travelled nearly 100 miles on public transport to join us all for dinner on Saturday evening (they appear in some of the group photos in the restaurant about two thirds of the way through the slideshow below)!!!

I must say, the students and staff at Concordia deserve unstinting applause for a superbly organised event - much the best of its kind that I have ever been to. I very much hope that both CIS Hangzhou and CIS Hong Kong will make this a fixture in their MUN calendars from now on.

Once again, I attempted to record the trip in photographs, and assembled them into a slideshow.

The music is - of course! - Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears For Fears. [Sorry - I couldn't help myself!]