The following description of the Model G8 Youth Summit Project was drafted by me and Tom Hartley. It is also availabe as a PDF-Document, as well as Previous Communiqués from 2007 and 2008.

Model G8 Youth Summit - Yokohama, 10th of March-15th of March 2008

Introduction

The Model G8 Youth Summit took place in Yokohama, Japan, and was organized by students from Keio University in Tokyo. About 80 students from the G8 countries, observer countries and organizers participated in the event.

The Model G8 Youth Summit is already the third summit of its kind. The first Model G8 Youth Summit was convened in April 2006 in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the Russian presidency of the Meeting of the Group of Eight Heads of State/Government (G8). The second Model G8 Youth Summit took place in Berlin, Germany, during the German presidency of the G8. The third G8 Youth Summit was organized in Japan because of the Japanese presidency of the G8.

Organization

The Model G8 Youth Summit is organized by student volunteers from the host country with the help of national student teams in the other G8 countries. It receives support from public and private organisations, universities and government agencies, yet the complete format and content is decided upon by the students themselves.

The national teams are responsible for recruiting their national delegation to the summit, raising funds and establishing contacts to public and private sponsors. The host team is responsible for organizing the summit, accommodation, communication and preparation of the summit.

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Melina Gehring, who is studying together with her boyfriend here in Cambridge, has written a wonderful article about the May Ball Season that has occupied Cambridge.

I had the chance to visit four events: the June Event at Emmanuel College, the May Balls at Clare College and St. Johns, and last night the June Event at my own college, Trinity Hall. Melina is right that these Balls are a really unique experience: champagne, cocktails food at every corner, music of all kinds, comedians, fairground attractions.

The luxus is reflected in the Ticket prices, starting at around 50 Pounds and running up to sometimes three times as much at the more fancier May Balls of Trinity and St. Johns. That is the reason why a lot of Cambridge students, including me, work for half a night at the balls and then get the rest of the night off, saving the ticket price while still be able to enjoy the good times.

May Balls (even though they take place in June) mark the end of the academic year in Cambridge. Next week, undergraduates will get their certificate and leave the university, the last two week exams were written and May Bumps allowed to relieve some of the tension built up through the year.

The May Balls requires festive clothing and yes, from a German perspective the whole affair sounds very posh. The May Ball at St. John’s College is considered to be one of the best parties in the world. But my impression was not that the May Balls are celebrating some sort of elite-thinking, like Melina suggests in her article.

Cambridge is simply a university where most of its traditions and social occasions have had centuries to develop. The May Balls are a way to celebrate a student party like they would have been celebrated a hundred or two hundred years ago (except that most Colleges did not admit female students before the second half of the 20th century). At Clare May Ball, I could listen to excellent piano music at five in the morning, and I was not the only admirer. Most students preferred some quiter music at the end of the night. Yesterday, I went to a packed concert of a young folk singer, which was really a counterbalance to the Techno and Rock bands playing in other parts of the College.

What I want to say is: yes, it is possible to behave like a complete snob in Cambridge, exaggerating poshness and feeling detached from the rest of the world. But my impression is that this is a matter of choice. It’s also possible to simply have a good time with your friends, most people here are really normal in the sense that they don’t think that they belong to a special group of people who deserve to study here and only here. Most people I met here are aware that Cambridge comes with lots of really strange traditions, like the May Balls. But the real world is not a May Ball, and I think everybody is aware of that.

We got bumped on Friday and Saturday by some really fast crews. It turned out that all three crews which bumped us got their “blades” in the end, which means they bumped other crews each day, had the glory of taking home their flag and a blade from their boat will be “retired” with their names on it and us as their “victims”. But it is certainly not a shame being bumped by three outstanding crews, it’s almost like losing to the Soccer World Cup Champion Italy in the Semi-Finals.

The crash happened almost after we got bumped. After one crew bumps the other crew, both crews have to try to get to the left or right side of the river as quick as possible to allow the oncoming boats to race through. We did that, the crew behind us did it, but then another crew got bumped at almost the same spot on the river, which meant that by now there were two boats on either side.

Then a fifth boat came, struck the blades of one of the parking boats, could not go on and had to wait as well. Meanwhile the river was getting so narrow that we all had to tuck in our blades as much as we could. The river is only 20 to 30 Meters wide, probably even less at the bends, and a rowing boat is probably about 5 Meters wide.

Anyway, on the way home, the mood was gloomy first, but we cheered up on the way and sang tributes to our coaches and our cox San.

So, on rowing. Great fun, even though it is quite stressful sometimes with the dissertation, but early morning outings were not too bad actually. It’s a good start into the day. Our boat really formed a team throughout this term, and now we are all excited because of the bumps, the races on the River Cam.

The way this works is that about 15 boats line up on the Cam, one after the other with about one-and-a-half boat length between them. After the start, each boat tries to ‘bump’ against the boat in front of them while trying to avoid being ‘bumped’ by the boat behind them.

Yesterday we got bumped by a crew from another college, which means the two crews stop and get on the side while the race continues. The next day the two crews switch places in the line-up. So all crews which got bumped move down, all crews which were able to bump, move up.

There is however a third possibility, which happened today. The crew behind us got bumped from their boat behind them, which meant that there was a huge distance to next boat chasing us. The crew in front of us bumped the boat in front of them, moved to the site, so were chasing a boat that was about six boat lenghts away from us.

Normally bumps are over really quick. We were almost getting bumped because we ‘caught a crab’ at the start, which means that one of our rowers couldn’t get his oar (in rowing terms: his blade) out of the water on time. Because the boat moves forward and we sit backwards, this means that his oar was slammed into his chest and he had to really quick pull it out of the water and get back into the rhythm.

Normally if something like that happens, the crew is screwed, but we managed to recover, race away from our pursuer. However, at that time the two crews in front of us were already parking at the side of the river because of their bumps, but we still had to race all the way to the finish which was probably about two miles down the river.

This meant we had to continue in full speed for about 6 to 8 minutes, probably even longer. Now my arms hurt a lot, but it was a great fun. On the bank, people were cheering and screaming “Tit Hall” (the nickname for Trinity Hall”). Afterwards, time for cookies, a shower, and back to the computer for some work.

Yesterday we got bumped after about 1 minute into the race, today we were all a little bit gloomy. We star

I finally understand the psychology of rowing. More after I finished May Bumps and dissertation.