An MUN Club Works Globally: Marmara MUN Club

1. MUNTurkey.com: Hello Marmara MUN Club, we are following you and your amazing work through your social media accounts since the beginning of munturkey.com. We really appreciate your diligent work. Could you please introduce yourself (MUN Club members) to our community?

 

Hello! Thank you for the kind words. Marmara MUN Club is a student club that has more than 50 members from various faculties and campuses of Marmara University. Our club was founded in 2015 and participated in more than 30 international and domestic MUN conferences and earned more than 55 awards in those conferences. We are a big family that expands each day, shortly.

 

2. MUNTurkey.com: We would love to hear about the establishment of Marmara MUN Club. How did you decide to open an MUN Club? How many members do you have? How does the Marmara MUN Club work? How often do you organize meetings? How can students join your club?

 

The club was founded in 2015 by Sami Berkay Sandıkçı in the Marmara University Faculty of Law with students who were wishing to enhance their capabilities in debating while learning about international agendas and diplomacy. As mentioned, the club has more than 50 members. Our recruitment process is quite strict, which brings about success, undoubtedly. We hold an informative meeting with every student of Marmara that wishes to learn about our club at the beginning of every term. After the meeting, those who are willing to be a member of the club fills up a form. Those candidates are then interviewed by the executive board according to some specific criterion, either as an academic team member, organization team member or both. After the interviews, the board selects the members and welcomes them to the club. As for meetings, we usually have rules of procedure training meeting after the recruitment every term, which is followed by a mock debate that includes all of the members of our club. We sometimes have get-together events as well, just for catching up with each other. Marmara students who are wishing to take part in our club must follow our social media accounts for announcements.

 

3. MUNTurkey.com: We are all excited to learn about your MUN career. How did you start? Is there someone special who guided you into the MUN world?(That question is answered by Sami Berkay Sandıkçı who is the founding president of Marmara MUN Club)

 

I, Sami Berkay Sandıkçı as the founding president of Marmara University MUN Club, am answering this question. I will also be the Secretary-General of Marmara MUN 2018. I started my MUN career when I was 15 years old in high school with my school encouragement. I have attended almost 40MUN conferences until this time as a delegate with awards and also a member of organization team in various roles, namely as the Director-General, a Director and an Administrative Staff. When I was 15, I organized a MUN conference in which I was the Director-General in my hometown and when I was 18, I organized another MUN conference. When I started my studies at Marmara University, I have established the Model United Nations Club. The beginning of the establishment of Marmara MUN started in Marmara University Faculty of Law. After a year of hard work, we started to extend our society to the other faculties in our university with the executive board of the club. Until the beginning and the end of this journey, I had good friends who are always working for the continuity and quality of the club. They were a part of our society is both a board member and a member. Also, there are some other people who are not a member of the Marmara MUN Club but worked to help me for the continuity of the club. This club is not a project which is created by only one person. This project is created and extended by several people who are very good friends of mine. I want to thank all of them for walking with me on this journey.

4. MUNTurkey.com: Obviously, you have been attending many international and domestic MUN conferences. How do you decide about which conference to attend? What are the criteria you are seeking for?

Well, our executive board are always researching for international and domestic conferences that we can attend. We usually get invitations from many conferences which evaluate and decide if we will send a delegation or not. There is also another option, our members can make a proposal to the executive board for sending a delegation to a conference. The criteria we seek to decide whether we’ll send a delegation or not is academic and organizational quality.

 

5. MUNTurkey.com: Lastly you came back from Tel Aviv with one best delegate award. First, we would like to congratulate you. Could you please tell us more about TLVMUN?What are the things you like and dislike about the conference? (That question was answered by Alperen Muhammet Mustafa Güner who was the head delegate of Marmara MUN Club in TLVMUN)

 

This was my first time in TLVMUN and also in Israel. The conference was great, especially academically. Also, it was great working with our partner club. The Secretariat and the Organization Team took care of us with their best. Tel Aviv University, where the conference took place, was a developed and crowded university, our delegation and I loved it. The first day, they only did the registration and the opening ceremony. Registration was easily done and the opening ceremony was also great and full of wise speakers. I would say that NATO was pretty well-working however we had a lot of ‘alpha’s in the committee and it was hard to compete against those delegates, which was in the end, a good thing for me. The chairs were well informed and directed the committee perfectly. After all, the conference was great and I would definitely go again next year. The only thing I wish is to see more Turkish delegates in there, to represent our country even more and better.

6. MUNTurkey.com: Most delegates are curious about how to get an award in an MUN conference? How was your turn? Did you feel any trouble while getting ready for the conferences? What tips can you give to the delegates to get an award from MUN conferences?

 

Every accomplishment is based on hardworking but there is a different atmosphere in MUN. Because even a delegate worked hard about a conference If the delegate doesn’t know How to present his argument and make a deal, all of his worksheets become useless. Because How and When to speak is more import than what to speak in MUN. On the other hand, MUN is not a game of person, is the game of teams. That’s why a delegate who wants to get an award shall know that how do sell the arguments to other delegates and control to other delegates under his flag. Before everything else, a delegate needs votes for passing his arguments with resolution papers. But these are not a birth born talents, these are earning with practice and experiences. Therefore, we always do practice as a mock debate in our clubs with our member. Every member of Marmara MUN Club obligated to get ready for all of the challenges which they will face in conferences. We can give some advice for fresh miners like the first step should be attending an MUN club in their schools. Because it is the easy and useful way to make practice before the conferences also there is another chance to attending a MUN Club is be part of a delegation. It is always easy to make an award within the delegation. Because you can ask whatever you want and also demand help to other delegates in your delegation. Normally our members are not facing too much trouble in conferences because they already trained for possible challenges which they can face into conferences. Actually, that is the key part of Marmara MUN Club’s success.

 

 

7. MUNTurkey.com: Dear Marmara MUN club, what is your future plans regarding MUN Conferences? Are there any MUN conferences you are going to attend soon? Or is there any MUN conference that will be organized Marmara MUN club soon, if the answer is yes, can you inform us about your conference?

 

Of course, Marmara MUN Club will attend many domestic and international conferences, for example, SGMUN in Switzerland, HamMUN in Germany and LVMUN in Latvia. As can be seen, our club send delegations all over the globe. In 2018, for the first time, Marmara MUN Club will organize its very own, most awaited conference. Marmara MUN 2018 will be between 19-22 April 2018. With members of the academic team from the Secretariat of the best conferences in Europe and the whole world, the conference will provide academic excellence. Furthermore, our club established many partnership agreements with some of the best MUN societies of the world for our conference, namely, ALMAMUN in Italy, UC3MUN in Spain, TAUMUN (TLVMUN) in Israel and EuroMUN in Netherlands. For further information, please visit marmaramun.org and our social media channels.

8. MUNTurkey.com: Thank you very much for this great interview. We are sure that you would like to add more about yourself or MUN world. And, last but not least, what can you tell us about MUNTurkey.com? Do you think such online platforms like MUNTurkey.com contribute to the development of MUN conferences and students ‘self-improvement?

 

We find MUNTurkey.com as a good source of information with regards to domestic and international MUN conferences. For the international MUN community, there were many sources to find conferences to attend. Yet for Turkey, there was not a portal in which we can find conferences before. Hence, MUNTurkey.com is beneficial.

As MUNTurkey.com PR Team, we would like to send our special thanks to all members of Marmara MUN Club for this amazing interview!

 

For more information, you can visit http://www.marmaramun.org/

 

MUNTurkey.com PR Team

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