From Thursday 26 June until Sunday 28 June a conference of majestic allure was held in the historic "cheese - city" of Alkmaar. With over three-hundred student delegates from all across Europe, a huge part of the United Nations Member States were represented at this conference. Together with schools from Cyprus, Monaco and Poland, het Stedelijk Gymnasium Schiedam contributed a fair share of the participants; as one single-member delegation travelled from Schiedam to Alkmaar. Because of the international character of this conference the official language was English. And since I stayed in a hosting family with an English delegate, I practically talked English for four days (and still do!).Our school represented the Czech Republic and as there were no other delegates representing the Czechs, I was asked to speak at the Opening Ceremonies on Friday. In one minute time I had to enlighten the over-350-persons-counting crowd about our goals and hopes for this conference. With shaky hands and with a bit of a trembling voice I started my speech. Luckily the audience did laugh after my joke and they gave me a ‘warm round of applause' after my final words.

Three wonderful days followed and I met a bunch of new friends. The weather was the only thing that wasn't wonderful. Although it was rather hot, masculine delegates had to wear a jacket and tie at all times, or else they weren't allowed to take the floor (address their councils). So we were very happy when our council received a fan on Saturday.

Our delegation was placed in the North Atlantic Council (NAC) and we had the task of setting out a NATO policy about several important issues. As every member state of the NATO has a veto-right, every single decision had to be made unanimously by the twenty-six (!) NATO member states. You can imagine how frustrating that can be and why the policy making process of this council is very slow. Allow me to give you some examples of how fast we were: In three days of meetings and lobbying, only eight clauses past in our communiqué. This means it took us three hours to reach consensus about a statement of two or three lines! At some point the delegation of Germany had the floor for over twenty-five minutes!

Still, it was good fun and the Czech Republic was able to achieve some very good results. Two of the eight clauses were from our hand, so we can be satisfied. To this conclusion the delegation of the Czech Republic would like to add the following clause:

The Czech Republic:

1.urges all the students of ‘het Stedelijk Gymnasium Schiedam' to participate in as many MUN-conferences as possible!

With kind regards,Wouter van de Staaij, Ambassador of the Czech Republic at IMUNA 2009.

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