This past Monday and Tuesday, November 9 and 10, 47 delegates in the NC Model United nations team attended Georgia State’s annual high school conference.

The award winning team headed into conference with high expectations. “I had full confidence in our school’s performance,” junior Shelby Estroff said , who represented China in the Security Council. “We have such a well developed program that the results only reassured my confidence in our club as a whole”

The team ultimately left victorious, winning a position paper award for the German delegation in General Assembly Plenary  for junior William Willis and freshman Spencer Paige, a Distinguished Delegate Award for the Chinese delegation in the Economic and Social Council for senior Holden Haley and freshman Nathan West, an Honorable Mention Award for the Kazakh delegation in the Economic and Social Council for junior Zac Mullinax and sophomore Bryant Davis, an Honorable Mention Award for the German delegation in UNICEF for freshman Harrison Haley, an Outstanding Delegate Award for the Chinese delegation in Security Council for junior Shelby Estroff, a Distinguished Delegate Award for the Saudi Arabian delegation in General Assembly Plenary for juniors Dylan Kellos and Saul Marimon, an Outstanding Delegate Award for the Chinese delegation in General Assembly Plenary  for senior Alex Flack, and an Honorable Mention Award for the Chinese delegation in the Peacebuilding Commission for senior Dev Pandya.

Preparing since September, weekly meetings consisted of experienced delegates offering advice to new participants regarding the basic skills needed to succeed in conference.

“[We’ve] been preparing for the GSU conference since the beginning of the year by teaching newcomers the necessary skills and procedures they need to learn before going to conference, such as how to speak in public and communicate clearly, write a position paper, defend a topic, and create a resolution paper,” Junior Andrew Gasparini, one of three lead planners of the conference, said.

Despite the team winning a multitude of awards, stress levels rose prior to the conference regarding delegates dropping out, leaving empty spaces and members scrambling to find alternates.

“We always have to make changes in the last minute, so it’s not new for us…. kids have last minute things that have gone wrong, or they have a test and don’t wanna make things up, but we’d prefer if we didn’t have to do that,” AP World History teacher and MUN adviser Carolyn Galloway said. “What we tend to do is look at students who have gone with us in the past, and see if we can find someone.”

In this case, senior Maddie Arnold stepped up to the plate, deciding to fill in for Germany in the Development Programme three days before the conference. “I gathered as much information about the topics as I could over the weekend. I went to the conference with the intent to practice public speaking and get as much as I could out of it. Germany ended up winning a delegation award, so I think it turned out well!” she said.

Despite the stressors the team faced, the outcome far outweighed the setbacks.

“I think they did really well. We’re really proud of them,” Galloway said. “We had a lot of our kids individually recognized, which is a hard thing to do.”