Report by Victoria Ward.

On one fine, rather foggy, morning in March 33 delegates, guest chairs and unfortunate accompanying teachers dragged themselves out of bed to congregate at 5:30am outside the Methody school gates. Despite this, hopes and feelings were high as we climbed aboard the bright yellow Chambers bus to travel to Dublin. On the way we picked up our friends from Friend’s School Lisburn and after a 3 hour bus journey we arrived at the rather impressive modern buildings that are Wesley College.

Having refreshed ourselves with the coffee, tea, muffins, hot chocolate and biscuits provided by the school (for which we are eternally grateful) we attended the opening ceremony of the conference. After an introduction and a welcome we listened to the thought provoking speech of an honoured guest, Mr Tom Kitt TD, on his experiences of African countries such as Sudan.

Anxious to get started and to “Raise our placards” we moved to the committee rooms; some armed with Ben&Jerry’s Ice Cream Notepaper, some with “illegal” yield cards, most with bribes and one person even felt it necessary to adorn themselves with 4 ties AND a scarf. Throughout the day the standard of debate was high and important topics such as Tibet, Abortion, Arctic Exploitation and the Cuban Missile Crisis (in Historic Committee) were discussed.

Throughout the day there were many strange and notable happenings, for example in one committee a man climbed through the window! In another committee there was a drugs bust where several Wesley security guards took away the delegate from Cuba for questioning. These security guards are the most fearsome we have ever seen at any conference, unsmiling with sunglass adorned faces they were EVERYWHERE. All these incidents and other conference gossip were reported in the conference magazine “Vetoed!”.

After four hours of intense debate (or arguing) committees dissipated in order to join together in general assembly, chaired by the rather brave Viki Veitch, to discuss the urgent question of torture. During the debate Methody Delegates managed to get a lot of recognition making several points of information and submitting two amendments.

Methody Delegates Charlotte Higgins and Edward Nickel, representing the USA ended their impassioned speech, supporting their amendment, with an arousing simultaneous shout of, “Yes, we can” and we feel sad to report that despite their efforts it still failed. Unfortunately, no resolution was passed, however we feel that with the addition of the USA’s amendment it probably would have passed.

During the General Assembly we were treated to an extremely thrilling and attention grabbing speech by the honoured guest speaker Senator David Norris. After the General Assembly, 39 delegations from across the UK and Ireland waited in expectation and trepidation for the awards. We are very happy to say that (as usual) Methodist College Belfast did itself no dishonour taking a whole stack of awards (see end for further details on awards). Our friends from Friends also did extremely well.

After the presentations and speeches, pizza arrived from Dominos and we all settled down to watch the big match “Ireland vs. Wales” on the big screen. Despite some technical hitches with the screen, the atmosphere and tension during the last 5 minutes of the game was unbearable and couldn’t be repeated again, apart from Methody school cup matches of course!

Eventually, having been fed, watered and entertained, we clambered aboard the bright yellow chamber’s bus for another long coach journey. Tired we might have been, but resigned and depressed we were not for Methody (and Friends) had had a brilliant and rewarding day in Dublin.

Much to the teacher’s annoyance (and Friend’s confusion) riotous Methody pupils serenaded their way up the M50 to Belfast singing such classics as, “Dies Irae”, “Mister Blue Sky”, “Hallelujah” and “Oh MCB is wonderful”. Tired, exhausted and happy we returned to Belfast at 10 o’clock already looking forward to the next MUN conference.