CLEIMUN Director Reflects on Two-Year Anniversary of CLEIMUN15
Note: Mr. Michael Perrins is the Director of CLEIMUN and is a guest writer for The Plain Delegate.
In August of 2015, we launched the idea of creating a new and specialized Model UN Conference at St. Edward High School as an expression of the developing MUN project at St. Ed's. This quickly morphed into the establishment of CLEIMUN - Cleveland International Model United Nations. CLEIMUN took off spectacularly as a very positive collaborative project between St. Ed's and the Cleveland Council on World Affairs. The first event - CLEIMUN15 - was staged in October 2015 on site at St. Ed's and attracted 70 delegates. Its inaugural success is greatly owed to the dedication of the first Sec-Gen team of Chris Sekerak and Greg Margevicius, the expertise of Director Mr. Michael Perrins, the hard work of Deputy Directors Miss Jess Good and Mr. Charlie Polinko, and many others.
Since then, CLEIMUN17 was held over the President's' Day weekend in February 2017 at a new venue (the One Cleveland Center in Downtown Cleveland). Attendance doubled to 140 and the conference really worked well, credited to a very positive student leadership group from a number of schools in addition to St. Ed's forming the Secretariat Chairing team, with Joint Sec-Gen posts filled by George Hildebrandt and Frannie Smith (from Saint Joseph Academy). A key support feature of CLEIMUN has been the input, direction and expertise of MUN Rapporteurs, brought in from England by Mr. Perrins, and are former school MUNers themselves, now running their own MUN Support Company (“MUNiverse Inc”). We are indebted to Richard Haslam, Oliver Hirschfield and Andreas Payne for their support in preparation, on the ground at conference and for the splendid website development and management.
The third conference - CLEIMUN18 - is scheduled for February 2018 at the same Downtown Cleveland venue and will include international visitors from Chile, New Zealand and the UK with an expected delegate count of over 200. Student leadership and "ownership" of the entire project has steadily increased on each occasion and CLEIMUN18 has benefited enormously from the strong and positive student leadership of Joint Sec-Gens Edsman Anthony Perrins and Claudia Stephens from Saint Joseph Academy - both of whom have extensive MUN experience both locally and abroad in England and The Netherlands. The Student Secretariat Chairing Team - a conglomerate of driven and aware MUN student leaders from a range of schools across Greater Cleveland - have done a tremendous job and have set high standards for the future.
A key feature of CLEIMUN is the hybrid nature of just how the conference operates - combining both the "Harvard-style" prevalent across North America with the "THIMUN-style" used elsewhere, particularly in Europe, in addition to an All Country Delegation based Crisis Event on the last day of conference.
