Some (very for now) good news:

On a bank holiday Monday, my supervisor has spent the time to reply to my email...Lord knows what he's doing on a "rest-day" emailing me, but never mind.

He replied saying yes to my suggested topics (as long as my advisor says yes too), which is a great thing! It means I can start doing a lot of intensive (pah) research about the topics. Once I get the definite go-ahead I will put the topics up here and tell you a bit more about them.

I can tell you now that my two topics are broadly on human rights and education.

Hold-ups:

It's been a busy week in the form of AS remarks, doing school work last minute and seeing friends. I've been really eager to try and get as much EPQ done over the summer as possible because I really don't want to go back with a lot of work to do, plus all my A2 work!

The problem is that I need the go-ahead about topics from my supervisor and advisor before I can research and make any delegate packs. They're the last (but biggest) thing I now need to do and it's worrying me I won't get them done before we go back to school...oh well.

Ta-da!

The chairing guide only needs the finished resolutions to be inserted, which coincidentally I've not written, but other than that, let's all let out a sigh of relief that it's done.

Next step is finalising my topics so that I can write the resolution and topic guide-type things for it. Delegate packs need doing.

I think I'm on top of things. I need to fill in my EPQ log though as I'm quite far behind on that! (Woops). Looking forward to what's to come!

Time flies

I haven't been blogging as frequently as normal because I've had a lot of other things on, but mainly because the logistics of my EPQ have changed a bit. I'm now having delegates work in threes and having a specific focus on certain skills I want to impart to the delegates.

I've been producing a chairing guide for a few weeks to give to Chairs before the conference so it can run smoothly. Huzzah, fourteen pages later and it is almost fully complete!

Although I'm still at loggerheads, soon I'll post about topics I've chosen to do as I'm still in the brainstorming process. Need to get going though because deadline for all delegate packs is October 1st! (Believe me, it sounds far away, but it really isn't.) Topics need choosing, countries need researching and resolutions need writing!

Lastly, and very minor points indeed, I've realised that I'm going to have to make my own certificates for the conferences with my own logo on. Once I get back to school and can access photoshop for free (yay for being stingy), I'll make my own logo and certificates template.

'Till then I've got a lot more work to do and very little time to do it!

Workshoppin'

I've been spending a lot of time this week writing the policy statement workshop that the year eights will undertake.

It's a lot of hassle, as I'm not sure whether I'm even meant to be referencing here...

Lots and lots to do, this was just a quick post to say I'm keeping up with work AND I managed to get hold of my supervisor. 

I have also emailed some other MUN directors to ask them "what makes a good topic".

Update:

- Munom are yet to get back to me about my inquiry as to whether I can reference their student officer handbook in my chairing guide.

So, the most important things now are:

Try and get hold of my supervisor to run a few urgent questions past him,

Choose topics for the conference, 

Then write two topic guides, one on each

Choose countries to be research dependent on relevancy for topics and ease of research

Make chairing guide

Write before/after conference survey and pilot test 

Too much to do, so little time to do it...

(If my supervisor or anyone who can contact him without using school email reads this, please do, it's very important I ask him a few questions or my progress will be hindered). 

A little bit of funny for you:

Having conducted a bit of unofficial pilot research with some current year sevens (my target audience), here are some great (if not useless) replies to the question: "What do you understand by the phrase M-U-N?"

1.) "It's not M-U-N, it's THE U-N, Lucy I thought you were clever."

2.) "Is it meant to be an insult?"

And lastly, and a personal favourite:

3.) "I don't know, but I think my mum said it's good for your personal ucas"

So, looks like I'll need to tweak a few questions for my survey if I'm hoping to get useful responses to how much the delegates know about Model United Nations before the conference.

Google to the rescue

Having googled "MUNOM", it is now evident that the chair guide I have acquired is from a model united nations in Munich, Germany.

I have contacted the administrators there for referenced use of their handbook as part of my EPQ and will make sure that I keep the blog updated with how it goes.

Brainwave!

Whilst reading through an extremely good chairing guide for MUN, I've decided to create my own chairing guide using this as a basis.

Only problem is, I may (or may not) have "borrowed" this guide from a previous conference and I don't know which one! It was in my MUN stockpile of papers... all I have is "MUNOM" on the front so I shall be searching the internet and messaging all the MUN directors to find out where it is from so I can reference it properly!

More to come soon.

At last, some progress!

So as you know, I've been on holiday and have been very slow progress-wise. However, now I'm back home and got all my documents ready, I'm back on my feet!

Planning has begun and I have a very good structure to the day, with scheduled breaks and knowledge of how the day will now plan out.
The overall structure of the day (without detail) is as follows:
Opening Ceremony
Policy Statement Workshop and Delivery
Break
Resolution Distribution and Lobbying
Research
Debate
Closing Ceremony

I'll need to discuss numbers of delegates with my supervisor before going much further and I still need to decide topics and write the topic guides.

HOWEVER! I have decided upon two committees: political, and economic and social, because I have experience of being in both and think that these are the most exciting and easy to grasp committees for beginners.

The planning will continue throughout the summer, but I'm definitely back on track now!