Nobody arrives at their first conference knowing what to do. Everyone in the room was new once. What follows is the three days in order, so that none of it is a surprise.
If you have not read How a conference works, read that first. This document is the version with the detail in it.
Finish three things before you travel.
Your account. Your MediBook account has to exist and be complete. See What you need to take part.
Your position paper. Written and submitted, on time.
Your reading. Read the research report for each of your committee's topics. Know the three or four points your country would always make, and know which countries agree with you.
In MEDIMUN, lobbying starts online before the conference. You can find the delegates who want the same outcome before you arrive, which means day one starts with allies rather than strangers. See The lobbying process.
If you have not finished your preparation. Come anyway. A delegate who arrives underprepared and listens carefully will still have a good conference.
You arrive with your school. Your school director will have told you where to be.
Registration is the first thing. You are scanned in, which records you as present for the day.
In MEDIMUN, registration is done via QR code scanning in MediBook. It happens at the start of every conference day, not only the first. See the morning register.
If your parental consent is not complete. You are not allowed on the premises. This cannot be sorted out at the door. Check it before you travel.
Check the programme for dates and times
Everyone gathers in one hall before the committees start. The ceremony opens the conference and sets its tone. Sometimes delegates gather in their committee rooms and meet their fellow delegates before the opening ceremony. If this is the case, it will be made clear on the program.
The opening ceremony features speeches by secretariat members, executive board members, celebrities, professionals, and politicians.
After the ceremony, you go to your committee room. If this is the first time you are visiting your committee room, you will be accompanied by members of the Admin Staff department.
If, after the morning registration, you are meant to go directly to your committee room before the opening ceremony, you will be accompanied by members of the Admin Staff department. Find a member just after your QR code is scanned.
Your seat is set in advance. Find your country's placard and sit behind it.
Look around. The delegates you will work with for the next three days are all in this room.
The chair opens the session and takes a roll call. Your country is read out, and you answer.
You have two answers to choose from.
"Present" means you may vote in favour, against, or abstain.
"Present and voting" means you may vote in favour or against. You cannot abstain.
"Present" is the answer that keeps every option open because it allows you to abstain.
If you arrive after the roll call. Tell the chairs straight away. They will add you. If you say nothing, they will ask you why.
In MEDIMUN, roll calls are taken in MediBook. The answer you give sets what you are able to do when a vote happens later. See Committee roll calls.
Most of day one is lobbying. The chair declares the committee open for lobbying and the room stands up.
Here is what to actually do.
Say your country out loud to the people near you, and say in one sentence what you want the
resolution to do.
Listen for delegates saying something close to yours. Go and stand with them.
When a group forms, make sure your idea gets written into the draft before the group starts
arguing about wording.
The group picks a main submitter. That should be the delegate whose draft the group is actually
building on.
If you are unsure. When nobody has spoken to you, walk up to a group and ask what their resolution does. That is the normal way in. Standing at the edge of the room is the one thing that will cost you the day.
In MEDIMUN, every alliance is declared in MediBook, and the chair enforces that. Lobbying also continues through the call feature in MediBook. See Forming and declaring an alliance.
Your resolution needs co-submitters. Collecting them is part of lobbying, not something to leave until the text is finished. See Main submitter and co-submitters.
The chair announces breaks as a time, not as a length. You will hear "we will meet again at 12.30", not "we will have a thirty-minute break". Be back at the time given.
After every break there is another roll call.
Always check the medimun.org/programme page for the most up-to-date version of the programme.
Ordering food is not allowed at any point during the conference.
Day two is debate. This is the day people are nervous about, and it is more orderly than it looks.
The chairs choose which resolution the committee debates. For each one, the sequence is the same.
Reading time. The chair gives the room time to read the text. Use it. Write down two
questions and one amendment while you read.
The main submitter speaks first, on their own resolution.
Open debate. Delegates speak for the resolution and against it. The chair recognises whoever
they choose to recognise.
Amendments. Delegates propose changes to the wording. Each amendment gets its own short
debate, split into time in favour and time against, and its own vote.
The vote on the resolution as a whole.
When you want to speak, raise your placard when the chair asks for speakers. Wait to be recognised. Stand.
Address the chair and the house before you start. Speak in the third person throughout. Say "the delegate of France believes", not "I believe". Say "the honourable delegate" or "fellow delegates", never "you".
When you finish, the chair will ask whether you are open to points of information. If you say yes, delegates will ask you questions. If you say no, the chair will ask you to yield the floor, and you say that you yield to the chair.
If you are unsure. Say you are not open to points for your first speech. Get through the speech. Take points on your second one. No chair will think less of you for it.
A point of information has to be a question. It is not a chance to make a speech at the delegate on the floor. You may put one short sentence before your question, and that is all.
A point is a short intervention that is not a speech. You wait to be recognised before you state it. No point interrupts a speaker. The only exception is a point of personal privilege about being able to hear.
If you get the name of a point wrong, the chair will work out what you meant. Getting the wording wrong is a mistake, not an offence. See Points.
When debate time ends, the committee votes.
During voting, points are out of order. Do not raise your placard for anything except the vote itself.
You vote in favour, against, or abstain. If you answered "present and voting" at roll call, you cannot abstain. A resolution passes when there are more votes in favour than against. A tie fails.
There is one point that is still in order during a vote. A point of order about the conduct of the vote itself. Nothing else.
In MEDIMUN, voting happens in MediBook. See Voting in MediBook.
Clapping is in order when a resolution as a whole passes. It is not in order after an amendment, and it is not in order when a resolution fails.
Day three is a half day.
The General Assembly delegates leave their own committees and come together in one room for a plenary session.
In MEDIMUN, there is usually a Plenary Session on the last day. All the delegates representing the same country sit together, debate, and act as one delegate.
See The Plenary Session.
The conference closes with a ceremony and awards.
If you say something wrong. Nothing happens. Correct yourself and carry on. Chairs correct their own mistakes out loud too.
If you are unsure. When you do not understand what is happening, wait for the chair to ask for points, raise your placard, and ask a point of parliamentary inquiry. That is a question to the chair about the rules, and it is what it exists for.
If your resolution fails. It says nothing about you. Each resolution is debated on its own merits, and the passage of one resolution on a topic does not weaken another resolution on the same topic.
If you have not spoken on day one. That is normal. Day one is for lobbying, and very few delegates give speeches on it.
Two things rule you out of an award. Submitting your position paper late, and breaking the code of conduct. See Awards, what they recognise, and Conduct.