The year started off with the Sailing Expedition, which has grown so much in popularity that we had two boats for the first time. Aided by Jacob Kenedy's (DD) cooking and Caroline Newte-Hardie's (PP) graceful shouts of 'Lee ho!', this trip was a great success. The other Play Term favourite, the Lyke Wake Walk, was also popular, with 30 participants this year. Only two of the participants failed to complete the walk this year - the best completion rate yet. Conditions for the Walk were almost perfect: a balmy night, not too cold and no rain. The Head Master's arrival on the second day of the Walk conveniently coincided with Damian Riddle's putting one of the minibuses out of commission; thus the Head Master was able to become fully involved in the Walk. This certainly provided a shock to some of the pupils, who thought that the exhaustion had got to them ('Do you know, I was convinced that chap looming up at us out of the fog was the Head Master....').
After such a successful first term, things were bound to go astray eventually. Caving was a great success, but the Exeat trip to Snowdonia had to be cancelled due to the ill health of the leaders. Another casualty was the proposed Easter Camp to Norway. Sadly, the School Ski Trip to Vermont proved more popular than the idea of Norwegian Cross County Skiing. In its place, a hastily organised Skye Camp saw a party of OWW, Staff and Adam Wood tick off all the remaining peaks on the Cuillin which had not been achieved in the last two years (such as the Pinnacle Ridge on Sgurr na Gillean and the Cioch). With Skye well and truly 'done', we'll be more stuck for Easter Camps in the next two or three years.
The better weather of the Election Term brought the traditional outdoor Expeditions. A group went to South Wales to do some Riding, and a small party also undertook the traditional Parachuting Expedition in Headcorn, Kent. But again, not everything goes to plan. The final Camp of the year was to have been a Scuba Diving Expedition off the Sinai Peninsula. Again, apathy was to be the downfall of this trip. It seems that Westminsters are fairly set in their ways: they like the good old favourites such as Lyke Wake, Caving and Parachuting, but are less keen on the bigger camps.
Looking forward to next year, plans are a little uncertain. Of course, the old favourites will be there, and at the time of writing, the two big Camps look like being Gliding and a return visit to the Picos de Europa in Spain. Watch this space....
Damian Riddle
Eventually however the Second Annual Westminster School Model United Nations was held on the weekend of the 21-22 February. By 1:00pm on the Saturday, schools and delegations were already arriving amid the chaos of end of school for the Westminsters. In the true British tradition the heavens opened and our security guards ushered the delegates into School, catching a few confused Westminsters in the process. There were 28 schools representing 37 countries ranging from the global superpowers to Slovenia and Gabon.
Tempers were a little frayed, but after all, this was supposed to represent the real UN and the abuse that the Greeks and the Turks and the Indians and the Pakistanis hurled at each other demonstrated that some had definitely taken this to heart. Whether this had anything to do with the fact that India, Pakistan and Greece were all represented by Westminsters is anybody's guess.
Nevertheless some important issues were decided: in the same weekend that Kofi Annan flew to Baghdad our MUN settled the very same dispute. The USA appeared to back down on the issue of weapons inspections - though they reportedly allowed a certain Chinese delegate to inspect their own - much to the chagrin of the Iraqis who were left with nothing to do apart from form an extremely close relationship with the Iranians. A security council task force touched down on Taiwanese soil at the end of the Sunday to oversee a five year handover to China, which seemed finally to solve that problem.
Other important events:
the undignified scramble for walkie-talkies when the committee chairs realised there were not enough;
the near auto-asphyxiation of an American delegate by means of a plastic bag;
the removal of an overly irate Greek delegate to cries of 'Free Ferdinand!' from Canada - strangely enough, the only thing they ever said.
Of course a lot of non-political work was done as well. Our UN worked on the basis of different committees: Economic, Social and Human Rights, Ecology and Technology in addition to the Political committee. For example a Food for Oil programme was established in the economics committee, and new international legislation tackling prostitution was ratified in the human rights committee, as well as a resolution banning biological and chemical weaponry in the political committee.
All things considered, the MUN was a great success and we received a lot of positive feedback. Thanks to the Head Master and Brian Smith for giving the go-ahead and for the emergency funds, to Philip Needham for his technical assistance, and to Jonny White for his support and guidance.
Neil Fisher (Milne's) and Aqib Aslam (Dryden's)