COMUN has come to end and it has been fun and engaging. The past couple of months have been quite academically stressful and COMUN has been a productive unacademic experience. Compared to the details in my last CAS blog about COMUN, this semester of COMUN has been quite different. Instead of organizing important events online, COMUN had many important meetings in-person, some of which I could attend and some of them I could not. I had also done important work in the events I did attend as well online work in the ones I could not.
The events I did attend were Practice Debates 1 and 2. These were preliminary, formative debate simulations that are used by the EXCO to judge the candidates and provide help and advice for those who are new. Although the EXCO met in the person, the debates themselves were held on zoom, online. The duty of making and starting these meetings were given to the tech team. I was assigned the GA3 zoom link. The reason that such a seemingly trivial task was assigned to the Tech Team most of the other chairs and members of the EXCO were unable to create and sustain the meeting for a long period of time. On the 30th of January , I went to the Kestrels Hotel, Colombo and started the meeting for PD 1 at 9:45 a.m. After starting it and giving those in charge host control, I started working on school homework and preparing for upcoming tests. Later in the day, we were assigned the task of making the emails for the different committees and my colleagues in the tech team and I worked on making them. Later on in the day, I was given the task of making the committee video of GA1. Shortly after this, committee ended and we were sent home.
A few weeks later, it was time for PD 2 and the venue was unchanged, and so was the start time. The day was very similar to its counter part and it went by smoothly. I had a bit more free time this PD and I focused on refining my school work and playing chess online. This day went by quite quickly and nothing happened that was worth mentioning in this post.
Lastly, there was conference. Arguably the most important part of COMUN. And I was not there for it. The week after conference, I had the SAT and I did not want to risk getting ill and missing such an important appointment. However, this does not mean that I was of no use at all. I still started the zooms at the appointed time and finished up making the GA3 video. The rest of that day I spent preparing for the SAT. The second day, in preparation for the closing ceremony, I assisted with the making of the presentation of the same.
This year of COMUN has been an engaging and unique year, with the presence of COVID and the online conferences. Out of my three years in COMUN, I can safely say that this has been my favorite one. The only thing that I would change would be the removal of COVID’s effects on the entire event. Some of the learning outcomes that I demonstrated in this experience would be showing commitment and perseverance, working together and bettering collaboration skills, and improving personal strengths.
Photo: Image of the two gavels I received for being part of COMUN 2020 and COMUN 2021.