MUN delegate reflects on this year's Cheadle Hulme MUN

A group of delegates recently travelled to the annual Cheadle Hulme MUN. 

George R (SH, V) has reported on his time at the MUN. 

The trip began at 6:45 on a Saturday morning, where 12 debaters filed in to the bus, headed for Cheadle Hulme and their famous MUN conference. After snatching a few more hours of sleep, we had arrived, and we geared up for intense debate, with many of us feeling extremely passionate about our issues we would be tackling. Topics were extremely diverse, ranging from access to education all the way to brain implants and space colonisation. Shrewsbury represented two countries – Rwanda and Jamaica, and I was part of the Rwandan delegation in the historical committee. After the opening ceremony, we all scattered off into our committees, ready to fight for what our country believed in.  

My committee included three topics – the fall of the Soviet Union, segregation in America and the Chernobyl disaster. In the historical committee, debating is done as if it was the time when these issues were the most prevalent – for example debating the Chernobyl disaster as if it was three days after. I find these really interesting as you have to both delve deeply into the issues themselves as well as look at the views and political stance of your country for three different time periods! 

The second day brought the crisis, where we were told that mammoths had been successfully cloned and would be an excellent food source. However, time travellers from the future had come back to warn us that a deadly virus would emerge from the cloned mammoths which would cause huge famine as food could be infected. This led many sceptics in the room to immediately plan speeches on how various scientific theories show how time travel was impossible and I certainly wasn’t expecting to get a talk on quantum physics! 

As the conference drew to a close, many Shrewsbury delegates won awards for their good debate in both the Rwandan delegation: Liam G – Highly commended in the Health committee, Chelsey D – Best young delegate in the Education committee and Jade C M – Commended delegate in the Youth committee. In the Jamaican delegation awards were won by Jeremy C – Commended delegate in the Human Rights committee and Chloe L – Commended delegate in the Health committee. 

I would finally like to thank Mrs Von Kuk and Mrs Stockburn for giving up their time to take us on such a wonderful trip, as well as Mr Peach, who sparked my passion for MUN and was an inspiration to so many others. It was touching to see Cheadle Hulme award Mr Peach the Mike Chambers award to honour his immense contribution to MUN over the years.