At 8 a.m Saturday, Oct.19, the doors opened in the North entrance, and 14 nervous and excited middle schoolers streamed in for the RBHS Model United Nations (MUN) Conference, which was hosted by the MUN team. They were checked in at a table made of four studies desks, and the conference officially began.

The conference went until 2 p.m. and started with MUN team members teaching the middle schoolers from Jefferson Middle School (JMS) and Gentry Middle School (GMS) about the basics of Model UN, such as rules of MUN and the procedures. For the lessons the participants split off into grade divided committees: Zombie Virus and Climate Change. 

The Zombie Virus committee only had four members, so some members of the RBHS MUN junior varsity team joined to make the experience as engaging as possible for every participant. The Climate Change committee was a more serious group for eighth-graders, and it had 10 members. All of the participants represented different countries in the United Nations and ran through a simulation with the topics they were assigned. 

Chris Fischer has sponsored the club for eight years, and he said this middle school conference is the first in the history of Model UN at RBHS. He said the previous coach did not try anything like the workshop because he thought fundraising would be too challenging.

“I wouldn’t have been able to plan this [conference] without the leadership of my two Secretary Generals, and I think it went really well,” Fischer said. “The [MUN] kids were really well prepared, and I hope we can do it next year.” 

In the closing ceremony, the chairs of the committees congratulated the middle schoolers and said they “exceeded all of our expectations”. The chairs presented awards for Best Delegate, Runner up and two honorable mention awards.

Fischer said the purpose of this event was not only to raise funds to make the MUN competition hosted by the University of Chicago more affordable, but also introduce middle schoolers to Model UN and recruit eighth-graders for next year. He said MUN is a great activity because it gives participants “an experience like no other.”

“More importantly than money, I just want to expose kids to Model United Nations and what we do,” Fischer said. “I always knew that this conference was not going to be a big moneymaker. This will barely cover the yellow bus to the airport. The most important thing to me is that we tell kids about what [MUN] is all about.”

The reason RBHS MUN is fundraising is partly because of a change in transportation to Chicago for the conference at the University of Chicago in February 2020. Previously, the team went by bus to the La Plata train station and then to Chicago. The RBHS MUN team prepares for that one conference each year, and the trip in total costs around $700-800 per member.

Because of last year’s snowstorm in February, the bus was not able to go to La Plata. Amtrak has a no-refund policy, and so the team lost all of the money for the train tickets. They got a partial refund from the University of Chicago and from the hotel; however, the team still lost thousands of dollars. To avoid the events of last year, the team is going by plane from the Columbia Regional Airport. 

Memphis Cutchlow, senior and Co-Secretary General (leader of the team), said she thought the conference was a success. She said the middle schoolers adapted well to the new experience, and they learned very quickly.

“They passed resolutions very quickly; the funds we raised from concessions and the entry fee were great, and the kids had a lot of fun,” Cutchlow said. “I could see that some of them were interested in being in Model UN in high school.”

Michael Powell, an eighth-grader at GMS, said he enjoyed the experience because it was fun stepping into the shoes of a different country and solving problems with other people.

“I thought it was a great time,” Powell said. “I had fun with my friends and friends I hadn’t seen since elementary school, and being able to negotiate and debate about certain topics. I like the way it was run because it made things a lot easier for me. I’m definitely thinking about joining [MUN] next year.”

Cutchlow also said she was hopeful for the future of RBHS MUN. She said the middle schoolers were great negotiators and debaters that gave her hope for the coming years. 

“The middle schoolers that came were great, even though they didn’t have that much time to learn the material,” Cutchlow said. “They were a lot better than we expected. We originally made the committee content a bit easier because we didn’t know what we were dealing with, but they handled it really well.”