Every one of these is made by good chairs, usually on day two, usually when tired. Read the list before the conference and again on the morning of day two.
Confusing debate on an amendment with debate on the resolution is the most common mistake there is.
Write down where you are. Which resolution. Which clause. Open or closed debate. Time in favour or time against. Keep it in front of you and update it every time something changes.
If a second degree amendment is moved. It adds a third layer. Debate on it does not count against the time for the first degree amendment, so the clock you are watching is not the same clock. Write that down too. See Handling amendments.
Delegates keep their placards down until the chair asks for them. If the house starts raising them the moment a speech ends, you have lost control of the order of debate.
Remind them to wait. Every time, from the first time.
A point of information must be a question. A short statement may come before it. Using one to attack a resolution is out of order.
Stop it, ask for the question, and move on if there is not one. See Handling points.
The chair on the floor does not handle messages. The chair on logistics does. A chair looking at a screen while a delegate is speaking has told the room that the speech does not matter.
See The chairing team.
No delegate leaves the room during debate without permission. Once three have gone unchallenged, the room empties.
The house will match your tone. Call for order calmly.
Call the house to order, then wait. Stay silent. They will follow. Talking over the noise tells the room the call was not serious. See Keeping order.
Say "delegates". The formality is what holds the room together.
Leave time for the vote when you set the debate time. Reaching the end of the session with an untaken vote is a planning failure. See Planning committee time.
Announce a break as a time. "We will meet again at 12.30." Add five to ten minutes for people to settle. A break announced as "thirty minutes" is never thirty minutes.
Roll call is taken at the start of every day and again after breaks. It sets who may vote. A vote taken on a stale roll call is a vote you cannot defend.
See Roll call.
If a delegate arrives after the roll call. They must tell the chairs. If they do not, ask them for an explanation. Until the roll call records them, they cannot vote.
In MEDIMUN, all roll calls are taken in MediBook. This is not at the chair's discretion. See Chair roll calls.
Every amendment is put to a vote, even a one word change. There are no friendly amendments, and the motion to adopt without a vote is out of order.
The one thing a chair may do directly is correct spelling and grammar. That is not an amendment and it is not debated. Make the change and tell the house.
The chair never says whether the thing being voted on is good or bad. Not with words, not with a tone, not with a face. It will draw a point of order, and deserve it.
Chairs rule on the first four words of a motion or a point and then discover the delegate wanted something else. Hear it out. Repeat it back. Then rule.
If you are unsure. Ask the house to wait. Check with your co-chair. Look it up. If you still do not know, tell the house you will find out and come back to them. Then ask the secretariat.
Delegates say "motion to move directly into voting procedures". The correct wording is "motion to move to the previous question". Correct it, gently and every time, or by the last day the whole room says it.
In MEDIMUN, the committee state is declared in the MediBook control panel at all times. On a break it is waiting. There are no exceptions, and it is easy to forget on the way out of the room. See The chair's committee state.
You will get something wrong. Say "the chair stands corrected", make the correction, and move on. The house forgets a corrected mistake within a minute. It does not forget a chair who argued for five.