MUN Chairing

T R A I N I N G S E S S I O N

M O D E L U N I T E D N A T I O N S C D G

PERFECT CHAIR

How to be the

E S T . 2 0 1 3

–William Shakespeare

“Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.”

Outline

• Definition

• Session Preparation

• Session Execution & Follow-up

Part 1 : Definition

What is a chair ?

The person in charge of a meeting or of an organisation (used as a neutral alternative to chairman or chairwoman)

Held accountable for• Preparing the session with the team

• Communicating the materials with the delegates

• Helping the delegates before and during the session

• Ensuring that the flow of debate is respected, the content serious and the order maintained

• Following up with delegates after the session

DOs• Be fair with delegates and encourage them to

participate in a respectful way

• Know the diplomatic procedures and the proper vocabulary

• Know the topic better than any other delegate

• Try to be as close as possible to real UN chairing

• Talk to delegates before the session and during lobbying

DON’Ts • Be disrespectful with delegates

• Send Research Reports and countries the day before

• Be distracted by your phone, internet, etc

• Use someone else RR without reading it

• Be inflexible

Kinds of procedures

American procedure

British procedure

Part 2 : Session Preparation

How we used to work• Chairs decide among themselves who will chair

the next session

• The topic is selected either by the Chairs or by the Committee

• Research Reports are written, participating countries are selected

• Email is sent

• Resolutions are reviewed, committee is selected

Topic Selection

Novelty

Difficulty Suitability

Research Report• Provide enough information to debate

• Written in plain english

• Depending on the difficulty of the topic provide solutions

• Try not to be biased

• Encourage delegates to research more

Country Attribution

Completely Random

Half / Half

Completely Attributed

Completely Random

• Countries are chosen based on topic

• They are entered on the website

• The website generates an ordered list

• The ordered list is match with names in alphabetical orders

Completely Attributed

Competence Enjoyment

Half / Half

• First come, first served

• Random until satisfied

• Random with adjustments

• Random with permission

Email

• Better if you can personalise

• Should include all the links

• Post it on Facebook/Twitter as well

• Follow up on replies

Part 3 : Session Execution

Opening Debate

Speech + Questions

Points

• Point of Information

• Point of Personal Privilege

• Point of Inquiry to the Chair

• Point of Order

Motions• Motion to move to voting procedure

• Motion to enter debate

• Motion to enter lobbying

• Motion to divide the house

• Motion to expand debate

• Motion to follow up

Voting Procedure

Dealing with time

• Open/Closed Debate

• Limit the number of points

• Grant motions to move to voting, deny those to divide the house

• Accelerate things up (due to time constraints, we will now move to)

Useful Phrases• May the house come to order

• Delegates ! Side talk is out of order

• Delegates, the official language is english, please refrain from using french

• There will be no direct dialogue between delegates

• Could the delegate rephrase in the form of a question

Best Practices• Keep a participation sheet

• Thank delegates at the end of the session

• Try to make the process as fair and transparent as possible

• Live tweet during the session

• Send lots of notes

Questions ?

Thank YouBryan Blanchot & Tom Descubes

M O D E L U N I T E D N A T I O N S C D G

E S T . 2 0 1 3

T R A I N I N G S E S S I O N