A chair leads a committee. The committee is a room of delegates debating a set of topics, and the chair is the person who runs it.
A chair is a Student Officer. See What is a Student Officer.
Before the conference, a chair prepares the committee. They set out the topics, write the research that delegates will read, answer questions from delegates who are preparing, and read the position papers that come in.
During the conference, a chair runs the floor. They open the session, take the roll call, run lobbying, recognise speakers, time speeches, rule on points, put motions and amendments to the house, and run the votes.
Throughout, a chair keeps order and keeps the room fair. One loud delegate does not dominate a group. A nervous delegate gets a turn. Every ruling is explained to the whole house rather than to one person.
In MEDIMUN, chairs write the research reports for their committee's topics. The Secretariat reviews them and they are published to delegates. See Research reports.
In MEDIMUN, chairs review position papers and give feedback on them in MediBook. See Position papers in MediBook.
Chairing is a team job. The chairs of one committee divide the work between them.
One chair runs the debate. They answer points, recognise speakers, time speeches and count votes.
One chair handles logistics. They keep the records, reply to messages sent to the chairs, and track who has spoken.
One chair handles amendments. They read every amendment, judge which are worth debating, and keep the resolution text up to date as amendments pass.
Only one chair speaks to the house at a time. Chairs never contradict each other in public. They swap duties only at clear points, and one resolution should be chaired from start to finish by the same person.
See The chairing team.
If you are unsure of a rule, 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.
A chair does not say whether a resolution is good or bad, and does not say whether a delegate is right. The chair runs the debate. The house decides the outcome.
A chair who tells the house what to think will draw a point of order, and will deserve it.
Two things are the chair's choice. Everything else is not.
In MEDIMUN, the chair decides whether to accept motions through MediBook, and whether to accept speech requests through MediBook. That is the whole list of what is optional. Roll calls, speeches, amendments, alliances, position papers, voting and the committee state are all handled in MediBook. See Chairs and MediBook.
SCREENSHOT: /medibook/sessions/22/committees/ga1/debate/control - the chair control panel with a speech running
Chairing is usually open to experienced delegates who have been to conferences before and know the Rules of Procedure well.
In MEDIMUN, chairing is the one role on the organising team open to students from any participating school. About half of the chairs come from other schools. At least one chair in every committee is from The English School. If you are not at The English School and you want to run part of the conference, chairing is the route. See Becoming staff.
Chairs follow a set of binding rules covering conduct, contact with delegates, language, neutrality, how documents are handled, and what must be done in MediBook. They are collected in one place. See Chair rules.
A chair may not deviate from the Rules of Procedure. Where the rules give the chair discretion, the rules say so. See Rules of Procedure.
If a delegate is missing. Under the missing delegate policy, the chair tells the Secretariat immediately, using the MediBook feature for it. This is not something to deal with quietly inside the committee. See Reporting a problem.