The Blogspot is Dead!

It's true, spread the news!

Frustrated by the blogspot's slow speed?

Mad because there's no proper way to post?

Getting lost trying to read old posts?

Good news!

The blogspot will be replaced in 1 week's time by a more efficient ning site.

The new url will be at:

http://www.laniermun.ning.com/

Hope to see you there!

MUN Tee-Shirts

If you want a tee-shirt you need to bring me the money and your size by Friday please.
MS. Terry

Games for Change

Great way to spend extra time...

http://www.gamesforchange.org/play

Would you be interested in attending?

Check it out....

http://www.wachouston.org/0/88837/0/1170/?modpage=EventDetails&fid=1&ec=251

GEMUN May 15-16, 2009

General Assembly (Topics in GA: Measures to Combat International Terrorism; Genocide Prevention; Genetic Engineering in Plants, Animals, and Humans; International Programs to Aid in the Development of Africa; Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation; Improving Response to Humanitarian Crises; Implementation of The Millennium Development Goals and Open Agenda)
Security Council (SC Topics: Disarmament, Peacekeeping, The situation in the Middle East, Landmines and Open agenda -- All Issues of Security and International Peace)

Economic and Social Council (Topics in ECOSOC: Eradication of Extreme Poverty and Hunger, Productive Employment and Decent Work, The Digital Divide, Oil Crisis, Indebted Third World Countries and Open Agenda)

Human Rights Council (HRC Topics: Indigenous People, Poverty, Racism, Trafficking in Persons and Open Agenda)

United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP Topics: Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, Chemical/ Hazardous Waste, Alternative Energy Sources, Biodiversity, Regional Seas and Open Agenda)

World Health Organization (WHO Topics: HIV/Aids, World Hunger & Malnutrition, International Spread of Disease, Sanitation of Water, Substance Abuse, Health Action in Crisis and Open Agenda)

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF Topics: Children, safe water and sanitation, Child Education, Children's Rights, Children in War Afflicted Areas, Orphans, Child Mortality and Open Agenda)

Commission on the Status of Women (CSW Topics: Women's Rights, Education and Empowerment of Women, Violence Against Women, Discrimination Against Women, Healthcare and Welfare of Women, Maternal Health and Child Care, Female Refugees, Women's Status in Government/Employment and Open Agenda)

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP Topics: Democratic Governance, Poverty Reduction and UNDP, Crisis Prevention and Recovery, Environment and Energy for Sustainable Development, HIV/AIDS and Human Development and Any other relevant topics)

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO Topics: Eradicating Hunger, Biotechnology, High Food Prices, Food Security, Climate Change, Nutrition Education, Water Scarcity/Quality, Aquaculture and Open Agenda)

Dallas Conference: May 8-10

The Dallas conference is quickly approaching. Everyone needs to bring me $11 for lunch and their permission slips asap! We will be leaving school at 3:45 on Thursday May 8. You will need to bring your suitcase to school with you that day. We will drive to Dallas on Thursday and stop for dinner somewhere on the road. We will be staying the night at the Crowne Plaza in Dallas and on Friday morning we will have breakfast and then take a shuttle to the event. We will have lunch at the event and then go back to the hotel after the conference on Friday. On Friday night we will have some kind of activity and dinner and stay the night again at the Crowne Plaza. On Saturday morning we will have breakfast and bring our suitcases to the conference and check out of the hotel. We will go to the conference all day on Saturday and have lunch there. The bus will come and pick us up from the conference and we will drive home. We will have dinner on the road and arrive back at Lanier on Saturday night.

Position Papers

I must have both of your position papers before you go to spring break! I need a paper copy of your Dallas conference position paper and I need you to email me your Houston conference position paper. Please make sure this is done by next Thursday, March 13th! If you need any help feel free to email or stop by my room anytime.

Houston Conference

Find your background information here: http://www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b=1312913

Economic and Social Council(ECOSOC): Eradication of Poverty
Indonesia: Michelle and Jennifer
Japan: Anna S
Mozambique: Justin
Netherlands: Jake H

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF): Access to Primary Education
Colombia: Caroline and Kathryn
Guatemala: Amy O
Indonesia: Raena and Alex N-F
Japan: Rachel and Vi
Netherlands: Daniel

United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) Global Warming
Colombia: Nikki and Fernando
Indonesia: Maya and Sara
Japan: Anna H
Netherlands: Patrick and Ryan

Security Council (SC): Situation in Israel and Palestine
Indonesia: Brandon and Alex L

Houston Conference Countries

Colombia (2 delegates in UNICEF and 2 delegates in UNEP)
Guatemala (2 delegates in UNICEF)
Indonesia (2 delegates in ECOSOC, 2 delegates in UNICEF, 2 in UNEP, and 2 in Security council)
Japan (2 delegates in ECOSOC, 2 delegates in UNICEF, 2 delegates in UNEP)
Mozambique (2 delegates in ECOSOC)
Netherlands (2 delegates in ECOSOC, 2 delegates in UNICEF, 2 delegates in UNEP)
United Republic of Tanzania (2 delegates in UNEP)


UNICEF Executive Board (UNICEF)
Access to Primary Education
United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)
Global Warming
Security Council (SC)
Situation in Israel and Palestine
Economic and Social Committee (ECOSOC)
Eradication of Poverty

Helpful Links

Hi MUN Club,
Let's help each other out by posting great links here. If you find a great link about your topic please post it as a comment here. Also, if you feel stuck and can't find a link about your topic make sure you check out the comments to see if anyone has found one that can help you!

Where can I find out when my country entered the United Nations

(Many of you had this question today)

HERE:

http://www.un.org/members/list.shtml

How Do I write a position paper?

A position paper is an essay that presents an arguable opinion about an issue. It organizes ideas in order to convince its audience of a certain set of point of view.

http://www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b=457141


Top Bun (Introduction) - A brief introduction to the country and its history regarding the topic
and/or UN body
• Contents - The country’s background on the topic including:
• Lettuce: The country’s actions on a national level, including political and/or foreign policy
• Tomato: The country’s actions on the international level, including resolutions, conventions and
declarations that the country supports;
• Burger - Quotes taken from speeches made by heads of the government and/or government
representatives.
• Burger 2 (optional) - Statistics regarding the issue
• Bottom Bun (Conclusion): The country’s recommendation for a resolution for the topic.
Review the importance of ordering things logically (e.g., the hamburger shouldn’t be on the top of the
bun!).

Fun Way to Make a Difference

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

GEMUN COUNTRIES: Sri Lanka, Colombia, Philippines, and Mexico

We have been assigned our countries for the conference in Dallas! Now we need to decide who wants to be in which committee based on the topics. Check out the different topics to see which ones interest you the most:

General Assembly (Topics in GA: 1. Measures to combat international terrorism, 2. Alternative energy sources, 3. Biotechnology and genetic engineering, 4. Nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, 5. Poverty eradication and 6. Open agenda)

Economic and Social Council (Topics in ECOSOC: 1. Sustainable Development, 2. Human Settlements, 3. Extreme Poverty and Hunger, 4. Globalization and 5. Open Agenda)

United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP Topics: 1. Global warming, 2. Biodiversity, 3. Deforestation, 4. Sustainable Agriculture/Consumption, 5. Freshwater Quality, 6. Persistant Pollutants/Chemicals in the Environment and 7. Open Agenda)

World Health Organization (WHO Topics: 1. World Hunger, 2. Water Sanitation, 3. HIV/AIDS, 4. Immunization, 5. Tobacco and Drug Abuse, 6. International Spread of Disease, 7. Health Education and 8. Open Agenda)

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF Topics: 1. Child Soldiers, 2. Children in Darfur, 3. Children of the Natural Disasters, 4. Achieving Universal Primary Education and 5. Open Agenda)

Commission on the Status of Women (CSW Topics: 1. Education and training of women, 2. Violence against women, 3. Women's literacy and development, 4. Discrimination against women, 5. Empowerment of women and 6. Open Agenda)

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA Topics: 1. Disposal of radioactive wastes, 2. Management of live radioactive materials, 3. Water resources, 4. Nuclear technology and 5. Open agenda)

You can find more information at http://www.gemun.org/gemun/topics.html

Child Soldiers Debate

How did you all feel about our debate today? Did you enjoy it? Was the debating language difficult? This is a place to post ideas/questions/suggestions about our debate. Don't forget we will continue the debate during our next MUN meeting the Thursday after Thanksgiving break!

Other Opportunities

Central Texas Model United NationsJanuary 11-12, 2008"A Climate of Peace"
http://www.ctmun.org/

The Central Texas MUN is a high school conference that happens in Austin. They have invited us to take part as either associate delegates (we would be partners with a high school student in the debate) OR as a scribe (we would deliver messages to delegates and the president of the committee- we wouldn't take part in the debate but we would get to see what a real debate looks and sounds like!).

We can try to organize and go as a group or small amounts of students can go. Please let me know if you are interested.

Global Elementary Conference in Dallas

I HAVE GREAT NEWS ABOUT THE CONFERENCE... they can offer us housing! We will be able to stay with local delegates who live in Dallas. This will save us a lot of money! Now we will only have to fund raise for the price of the bus! I am so excited. I hope this will allow for more of you to be able to attend.

http://www.unol.org/gemun/

** We need to decide SOON if we want to go to the GEMUN conference in Dallas. If you would like to go, please bring a check for $27 made out to GEMUN.

Fund Raising Ideas

hola! (hello!) this is alex (the fundraiser) sharing my ideas for different ways to raise money for the upcoming dallas stimulation
all of these are first draft ideas, this is your club, not mine, so if you utterly detest all of these ideas, we can think of some new ones, any way, here we go
- before we get to deep into anything i think it would be good thing to know if there is any kind of food packaging rules. i think it would be bad if we were shut down/fined by the health department
- it might be cool to sell crystal light and water bottles, we could get all of that at sam's for very very cheap
- school supplies would be a pretty cool thing to sell, i think it makes sense selling school stuff, in a school
-i know a lot of kids don't eat breakfast so we could have some kind of breakfast deal
- and as we are so rapidly coming up on the winter season we could have some kind of secret santa deal were you purchase a card, write on it, and we could deliver it to the correct GSG the cards could also have candy canes and make them look really sweet
again, you make think that these are the worst fundraising ideas in the world and if so we can think of some more or modify these so they better serve our club in the way we need them to. i'm really sorry i can't be at MUN today, if you have any questions please fill my inbox ruthlessly at alexlonghorn@sbcglobal.net i'd love to hear your imput

Happy Pictures

I remeber someone asking me to do this so I'm going to put some cute pictures up just to make everyone feel good and have a happy day!!!! ^_^

http://www.cynical-c.com/archives/bloggraphics/44334153_3e9114058d.jpg
http://www.amy2kyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/chococat.jpg
http://www.pinkcakebox.com/images/cake208.jpg

Click the links to make your day happier!

Bloggalicous Blog

Hello everybody!! I was just wonderin gif you liked the current layout of the blog. If you do plz tell me and if you don't... well ummm.... tell me too!! If you would like us to add anything (pics, problem posts, etc.) just ask! This is a blog totally up to you and if you don't like it, were not happy. Also if you are not reciving ANY emails from me or Mrs.Terry, post it and we'll add you.

P.S. I'm sorry I haven't sent out this weeks email, but we did the same stuff as last week and all the forms are on this blog.

Have a totally tubular week!