On the weekend of May 20 and 21 Sophie Newman, Ruby Robertson and Cayden Lange representing Auburn High School, and sponsored by  Hawthorn Rotary, won the Best Runner-up Team award at the MUNA debating competition. They were runners up in the Team Competition to Brighton Grammar, sponsored by Brighton Rotary.

The Best Team Costume was won by Brighton Secondary College,  also sponsored by Brighton Rotary.

MUNA stands for Model United Nations Assembly and is a Rotary sponsored debating program that aims to improve students public speaking and debating skills and encourage them to make sympathetic and informed comments on world problems, and share opinions and friendship with students from other schools.

 The students are allocated a country to represent, which for the Auburn High School students was Brazil, and debate on matters of world politics and  social concern from the point of view of that country.
In preparation for the debates the students were sent a list of the Resolutions that were up for debate, including issues about Security and the Middle East, Health and Education, Human Rights, Environment, Trade and Commerce and the United Nations . In addition they were sent a Background Briefing template as an aid to researching the country they were representing and a list of Rules to ensure that the debates were orderly and ran efficiently. 

The competition was held at the Mecure Hotel in North Melbourne against 30 other teams and the Auburn High School achievement was on the back of their speaking on 9 of the Resolutions.

Our congratulations to Sophie, Ruby and Cayden and we hope that they can tell us more about the experience at one of our upcoming Zoom meetings.

Our photos show the team in action, and with their Best Runner-up Certificates.(Cayden, Sophie and Ruby)