#29 the biggest NAMUN yet
2014 Conference expected to welcome 300 delegates
BY: Kate McCullough
The Conference is less than a week away and the North American Model United Nations (NAMUN) 2014 has more registrants than ever before.
"NAMUN is growing every year in multiple areas – staff, registrations, and sponsorship," said Larysa Workewych, director general for NAMUN 2014, who is responsible for coordinating the recruitment of delegates and promotion of the Conference.
This year, NAMUN expects more than 300 students will participate in the Conference, which runs from Feb. 20 to 23 at the University of Toronto. The conference's registration has grown 30 per cent since 2013, and 70 per cent since 2012.
While most of this year’s delegates are coming from North American schools – about a 50-50 split between Canadian and American delegates – some are coming from further afield.
“We have one delegate from Peru joining us which is exciting, because NAMUN has never in its history welcomed a delegate from South America,” Workewych said.
Workewych attributes much of this year’s success to a strategy that was new to NAMUN this year: “reaching out to Model UN clubs and universities that are active in the MUN circuit but have not attended NAMUN before.”
“The hope was to advertise the conference to schools that might not have heard of NAMUN before, and provide them with any information they might need,” Workewych said. Social media, using the hashtag #NAMUN2014, has also proven to be an effective marketing tool.
“Word of mouth has always been an important component of advertising NAMUN 2014 to the University of Toronto community, but we wanted to really utilize the tools available to us to expand promotion and awareness to as many students, schools, and Model UN clubs as possible.”
NAMUN’s significant growth in participants over the last few years means that the size of the committees, number of staff members, and, of course, sponsorship (LINK TO OTHER STORY - http://www.namun.org/news/2013/11/11/namuns-largest-ever-sponsorship-will-allow-conference-to-grow) must increase as well in order for the Conference to run smoothly.
“When you expand one component of a conference, then you need to expand many others to balance it out,” Workewych said.
“Our team this year has been fantastic. They have worked hard to ensure that the Conference was successful in expanding in all directions.”