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Finn Adamson was Secretary-General for GMUN 2025
Over the past weekend, more than 100 delegates, teacher-sponsors, and conference staff from nine schools gathered at the GNS Pemberton Woods Campus for a day of fast-paced diplomacy and inspiring debate. Hosted annually by students for students, GMUN 2025 marked a strong start for the GNS Model United Nations Club. With the highest ever registration numbers, and a dedicated staff of over 30 members, running this event as Secretary General has been one of the most meaningful experiences I’ve had since joining the GNS community.
Like any MUN conference, GMUN offered students from Grade 6 to 12 the opportunity to represent a country in a variety of nuanced and challenging committees modelled after the UN system. This year, GMUN featured three committees: Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and a Historical Crisis Committee, with topics of countering child-marriage, combatting the financing of Latin-American narcotics, and the Salem Witch Trials, respectively. All topics were aligned with our conference theme of Combatting Narratives of Oppression, as we challenged delegates to develop the skills they will need to serve as the leaders of the future. A huge thank you to the dais teams—student-leaders who moderated each committee—for your professionalism and dedication!
We were fortunate to start the day off strong with an opening address by the Deputy Head of School, Mr Carlson. As one of the most independent events of student-leadership at GNS, we are deeply grateful to the school for its ongoing support. Following my remarks, we received an address from Dr Chris Kilford CD, former Canadian Defense Attache in Ankara, Turkiye, and current President of the Victoria Branch of the Canadian International Council (CIC). His reflections on both his experiences in the military and global affairs, as well as leadership in general, were deeply inspiring.
After a full day, fueled with perhaps one too many slices of pizza, it was rewarding to close out the conference, celebrating the creativity of our delegates and the tireless commitment of our staff. The kindness, eloquence and cooperation on display throughout the conference left me both humbled and profoundly grateful for this amazing community. Thanks to this year’s successes, we’ve already begun to think about how we can make next year’s conference bigger and better—with our student-leaders at the heart of all our plans.
So to all those who were involved in GMUN, thank you. Thank you for all that you brought to the conference, thank you for all that you gave. Together we began to build the foundations for future change—and did it with a smile, a laugh, and the perfect dose of chaos to boot. A veritable success indeed.
