At St. Georges, it is said that each unique boy has a niche for where they can put their uniqueness to use. For some, it’s Ceramics club, for others, it’s Saints Conference.

Saints Conference is St. George’s largest club, with over 80 members. The club has two groups: One for debate, the other for Model United Nations. Debate club, in short, teaches students how to create and support logical arguments, while also expanding one’s public speaking skills. Model United Nations is exactly what it sounds like: a student-populated simulation of the United Nations. This includes simulations of organizations like the World Health Organization, and also “advanced” committees such as Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet, 1979. The boys can choose to do both debate and MUN, or only one.

Boys join the club for a variety of reasons: A passion for debate or politics; to spend a weekend with friends at a hotel; to expand their knowledge of their world, or discover new topics they otherwise wouldn’t have.

To truly understand what Saints Conference means to the St. Georges community, I spoke with Jaden Bains: school captain and a member of the Saints Conference Leadership team.

First, I asked him how he’s involved in Saints Conference, and what they do: “For the last 2 years I have been a leadership team member. Our role is to improve the Model UN, Debate, and public speaking skills of our members. But we also have another goal: to increase confidence in every student an allow them to become independent speakers and analytical thinkers.”

Next, I asked him about the role he believes Saints Conference has in the Saints community: “Saints Conference is the largest club in the school with 80 members. I believe it’s important to school as the school is starting to embrace Harkness (open, student-led discussions) in class, which means that the skills learned in Saints Conference get applied in school now, which I think is awesome!

Lastly, I asked him how Saints Conference had affected him through his time a Saints: “Saints Conference allowed me to evolve the way I spoke in a way that I could merge different structure so I could apply it to all types of speech, not just for MUN.”

Saints Conference runs every Tuesday and Wednesday after school from 3:30-4:30. Come find out more!