By: Delaney Hawkes and Daniela Coe Mcnamara
Behind the biggest debate event at Costa was a team of students who banded together to manage the behind-the-scenes duties of this year’s Los Angeles Invitational Model United Nations The administrative staff heading the event worked for months to provide a smooth debate for the six schools participating in LAIMUN XVIII. The secretariat, which is composed of all staff members who do not chair committees, oversaw the implementation of new technological features and organized the debate.
“LAIMUN was very successful this year,” Secretary-General senior Taylor Lewis said. “We had almost 840 kids show up, and we integrated technology like Wi-Fi connectivity, continual score updates and a chat function for many of our committees.”
According to the secretary-generals, the integration of technology into the conference changed the way the event was run by creating a faster and easier way to exchange information from room to room.” The level of difficulty this year was higher with all of the added technology, but it also made us prepare more because of the added pressure of expectations,” Under-Secretary-General of Economic and Social Committees senior Kristen Gulino said. With jobs for each member of the secretariat, the leaders of the conference were busy during the months leading up to and at LAIMUN.
“As one of the the under-secretary-generals, I selected each chair and vice chair, and I also made sure that all of the topics that had been selected were appropriate,” senior and Under-Secretary-General of the General Assembly Adam Gerard said.
Secretary-generals Lewis and Brady Currey had the highest responsibility in running the program. The secretary-generals made the final decisions about the details of the conference like chair placement. As a student-run conference, LAIMUN was organized mostly by the members of MUN with oversight by advisors Timberlake and Wayne Knutson.“As secretary general, my job is to make sure everything runs smoothly,” Currey said, “I have to manage our staff and make sure that the advisors of the other schools, our customers, are pleased with our conference.”
The secretariat was ultimately responsible for managing the logistics of the conference and for ensuring that all of the committees were running as efficiently as possible.
“The best way we prepared was by working as a team to see that LAIMUN was as organized as possible,” Gulino said.
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