Final roll call – day 7

Well, there we have it, the end of the IFMSA’s 65th General Assembly at San Pawl Il-Bahar in Malta (aka, the original Baie St-Paul).

And what a journey it’s been.

6 days of work, a grand total of nearly 1300 medical students members of 95 different organizations in 5 regions from 89 countries, including 3 new members (Antigua and Barbuda, Malawi and Uzbekistan). It’s also 7 standing committees, with 120 projects presented at the activities fair, more internal bylaws than even I dare count, and each with hundred of participants with their own unique set of ideas and backgrounds – a truly incredible learning experience.

For me, it’s also delivering 2 trainings on making it rain (money), a small working group on solving dual representations in exchanges with no confirmed deaths thus far, 5 plenaries with 43 points on the agenda and nearly 150 motions, including more than a few silly ones – particular shoot outs to IMCC Denmark for the proposition of the creation of IFMSA-Viking to reduce violence related to stealing or otherwise « acquiring » viking helmets during the General Assemblies, swimsa Switzerland for the proposed adoption of Toblerone as the official currency of the Federation, IFMSA-NL for the proposed mandatory coffee and popcorn for plenaries lasting after midnight (which is all of them) and AMSA Australia for the proposed motion to « shout » the voting assistant a beer every time a revote is required, until such time as he fails the straight line test. Special mention to the Constitutional Credential Committee for also admitting that the motion was valid as long as the beer was consumed outside the plenaries room.

More importantly, it’s been more or less 12h of sleep over 6 nights, nearly 50 cups of coffee – including the now infamous sixtuple morning espresso thermos, more English bacon than anyone has a right to eat next to Muslims, and numberless attempts to determine the origins of the strange Maltese accent. All in all, it’s been enough work to make me wonder why I ever though this might have been a vacation, but also dozens of new friendships and hundreds of memorable moments that made it all more than worthwhile.

In the end, Winter did come to Malta – we would like to apologize for bringing the winter weather with us, although I daresay we enjoyed our short and tumultuous stay there!

And remember kids, Change the World, or go home!

This is Gabriel Lavoie, signing out