It seems only yesterday that a wonderful group of 7 people met for the first time to discuss how we were going to go about planning EuroMUN 2022. How strange it is to think now that we barely knew each other at the time and now, fast forward 9 months and it feels like we became our own little family.
It is safe to say that planning for the conference was no easy task. Funnily enough, although I took part in the Secretariat last year as Under Secretary-General Academics in the online edition of EuroMUN, it is a completely different experience planning for an offline conference.
The days approaching the conference were stressful to say the least. The nerves, the excitement…the anticipation. I’ll be honest and I think I can speak on behalf of the entire team…it was extremely overwhelming at times. Did we manage to think of every little detail? We tried, but unfortunately, no, we did not think of every little and honestly no one does. That’s the interesting thing about planning a conference, you can plan and plan and plan, will it ever go according to plan? Likely not.
You might be asking yourself now…did EuroMUN 2022 go according to plan? Well, to a certain extent yes. We had an excellent Chairing team, two wonderful guest speakers, Ms. Fleming from the UN and Mr. Agotha from the EU, the delegates were engaged in debate, and I think most would agree that the home-made snacks at the coffee break were a wonderful addition. Behind all the positives were 10 working days, four hours of sleep, stressful moments and 20,000 steps a day.
All in all, what mattered most to me was that the participants enjoyed themselves. I made that very clear in my opening speech. Too many times have I attended MUN conferences where participants took themselves too seriously. I can truly say what an honor it was to serve as Secretary-General of EuroMUN 2022. I can definitely say it was an experience I will never forget. EuroMUN was my first UNSA experience in Maastricht a few years back, the least I can say is that it is extremely bittersweet to end my time in Maastricht with the same conference that made me feel so at home in this beautiful city.
Maria Elena Tsitsiloni, Secretary-General & Conference Manager
