Monday 7th of July
On Monday we were lucky enough to have some guest speakers come in and talk with us. Our first speaker was Mark Shields (PBS, CNN) one of America’s best known political commentators. He was really funny and made some intelligent points about the election race. Next up was Harold Ickes who had been Bill Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and had also played an important role in Hillary Clinton’s recent election campaign. In the afternoon Dotty Lynch of CBS spoke to us about polling and the super delegate system. That evening we went to St. Albans high school where we took part in some harmless debating with some pretty bright students who were on some kind of a special summer camp at the school. Everyone enjoyed themselves. It is days like these that define WIP, the ability to access such sought after speakers is really impressive and makes our experience here all the more enriching.
Hillary Clinton and the Congressional forum.
Today was a proud day for WIP on the political front. We met in the Russell senate office building in the afternoon to get a group photo taken with Hillary Clinton. Aoibhin O Hare who is interning with Clinton organized the event. The build up was quite exciting. The chance to get so close to someone who got 18 million votes from the American public is a pretty special feeling. We lined up on the stairs and waited for her to arrive. She eventually came around a corner and everyone started clapping. She said a few brief words to us, took a group photo and wished us luck for the summer.
That evening WIP held its annual congressional forum, an event where some of the team make speeches usually attended by a few members of congress. This year we got a record number of members of congress, such as Patrick Kennedy, Donald Payne, Peter King, Jim Walsh, Joseph Crowley and Patrick Murphy. It was touching to see them support the program. Lauren, Laura, Catherine, Luke and Fiona McCarrick also spoke from our team and they did us all proud. After the event Gary Simpson offered me a ticket to go watch a baseball game between the Washington Nationals and the Arizona Diamond Backs. The nationals won in a rather quiet affair, but it was still a great chance to see the stadium and watch my first baseball game.
A Time to Retreat
On Friday morning the team attended a breakfast with the association of Catholic Businesses which was held at a Dominican Friary in Virgina. Breakfast was tasty and then some of our team made speeches. Aoibhin, Fiona Buggy, Chris Andrews and Peter all spoke excellently. Afterwards we had a retreat for the rest of the day where we talked about some of the issues facing our future and just chilled out and got to know each other better. That evening we met at Bethesda to play a game of soccer which was competitive and highly enjoyable.
New York!
Each year the WIP team goes for a weekend to New York. Everyone was looking forward to this weekend and it lived up to the hype. We got a bus from Washington at about 10a.m. and got into New York at about 3p.m. We were based in a central location about a block from the Empire state building. Everyone settled in and went for a quick look around town before meeting up for dinner at the bottom of the Empire state building for dinner. After dinner we went to the apartment of Paddy McGacky a member of the WIP team in 2005. His apartment was really high up in a building so we had an awesome view over the city. We also got to go out on the rooftop of the building, a really cool way to spend Saturday.
On Sunday morning we went to the Bethesda fountain in Central Park and had breakfast. Afterwards we all split up. I went with a group to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and had a super time. That afternoon we went on adventure speed boat ride called “the beast” during which everyone got soaked. In the evening we had dinner together at pier 17 beside the river. A group of us walked the Brooklyn Bridge afterwards and got to see magical views of the city at night time. To end the evening we stopped off at Time Square to see it all beautifully lit up.
UN visit
The UN visit in New York was our big event on Monday. In the morning we had a meeting about the general strategy the UN takes followed on by a presentation about the UN peacekeeping missions. In the afternoon we all split up into sub- groups and attended different speakers. I attended a talk on UNOCHA: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It was interesting and provided us with great insight into how these organizations work. Well done to Colm in the management team who worked very hard to organize this event. The whole management team worked very hard to ensure the weekend was a success and their hard work certainly paid off as everyone had a weekend to remember. We got the bus home in the evening and most people tried to sleep after a busy and exciting few days in the Big Apple.
