MUN Questions.

[usernamed]

This is my first year being part of MUN..

And I'm going to go to the THIMUN conference in 1 and half to two months.

I have lots of questions about how MUN conferences generally go....(keep in mind, that I haven't been to any before)

My first question is..

Before the conference, will I be given any kind of information? Anything to research on? And if so, what will it be?

 

 

For now that's the only question I want answered. I'm pretty sure more questions will come to mind once this one is answered. 

 

[ultimateone]

Hey there!
Firstly, it's just worth mentioning that IB Survival may not be a suitable place to post or ask this question, it would only be relevant if it was directly related to your CAS and if you have a query about the reflections, hours, etc.

 

But you're in luck! I'm an experienced THIMUN delegate, I've also applied to become a Student Officer there! (but no luck, haha). Please do feel free to message me and ask me any questions you may have, I'd be delighted to help. 

 

But yes, regarding your first question, your school's MUN director should be giving you information and holing information/practice workshops in schools. If not, then that would be a problem. Here's a guide that gives you absolutely everything you need to know for your first conference, it'll be great fun - I promise you that! http://qatar.thimun.org/images/education/THIMUN%20Delegate%20guide.pdf

And here's a link to a plethora of THIMUN resources and educational materials, also includes sample resolutions and policy statements. http://qatar.thimun.org/education/mun-materials

You should really be getting to work because one month may sound like a long time from now, but it really isn't! Good luck!

[Arrowhead]

Hello!

 

There are some useful files in the Extracurriculars section of IBS about MUNs.

 

As for general advice, you will get a country that you will be adelegate of in a particular committee. You will also be given a list of topics that you will be discussing during the MUN. You usually get a lot of notice for them so that you can prepare draft resolutions of your country's position on those topics in terms of finding solutions.

 

Once you're at the conference, you need to team up with delegates of other countries that hold similar positions as yours in relation to those topics and then combine your draft resolution with theirs, make amendments and changes as necessary and then submit it for the committee to debate and consider.

 

MUNs have a lot of procedural rules of behaviour and activity. I'm attaching a document with some guidance on that. Feel free to peruse it.

 

The Guide to Resolution Writing.doc

[alefal]

Hey there!

 

I've been doing MUN for about four years now (though my school never went to THIMUN), and will be an Assistant Director at WorldMUN (considered the 'Olympics' of university MUN) in Seoul this March. I think the others have covered most of the most basic things. Go through the delegate handbook carefully - it'll tell you exactly what you need to know for most situations. For first-timers specifically, it's an absolutely indispensable resource.

 

There's another web-page that I've personally found very useful, though, which the others haven't mentioned: bestdelegate.com
It's a good reference that helped me a lot before and during some of my first conferences, and I still use it intermittently.

A lot of the focus on that page is to get the so-called 'best delegate awards', though. Although it's fun to be awarded such an award, I would recommend you to not focus on the awards at all, especially not during your first few conferences. MUN is all about getting to know other people, learn about topics of global importance (as well as about the UN and diplomacy), and through that acquire certain personal skills that are useful in most careers. If you focus on the awards, you'll lose track of the main purposes behind MUN, and, after all, diplomacy is not a competition. Most of the things there are very useful even if you're not pursuing an award-oriented approach, but don't mindlessly buy into their idea that awards are somehow very important. They're not.

 

Definitely read the 'Getting started' article under resources (and the other articles under the same tab as well if you can). That'll give you an idea of what to research on, as well as more general information that'll help you prepare well for the conference. One thing I seem to find much more important than them, though, is the focus on feasible solutions to the issues. In the end what your country thinks generally on a topic means nothing unless you can also point to some ways of improving the situation. Since this might be a bit tricky to find for some topics, spend about 20% of your time on your country (5% - this should be done with rather quick - the main thing here is to identify your economic, political and cultural connections to other states and who your allies are) and the history (15% - both the actual history to the issue at hand as well as previous actions by your country, UN, as well as other international actors). Spend the remaining 80% on researching your country's national interests and political position on the topic (make sure you understand it!), various specific solutions to the topic and whether or not these are coherent with your foreign policy. Within this, you should also include some research on what countries would support those solutions, what effect those solutions would have on you and your key allies and if your country is likely to be open for compromise on certain aspects of those solutions. If you need to, and have the time, make sure to fill any relevant holes in your knowledge. 

Now, these percentages are just guidelines - you're completely free to change them to your liking. However, my main point is that you should focus more on figuring out your foreign policy and what specific solutions your country would support. It is from this part you'll get to the substantive aspects of the debate, and it are these things that'll truly make you 'prepared'. You can speak till you're out of breath about how much you're denouncing ISIS, and 'everyone' would agree with you, but that doesn't matter at all unless you come up with some feasible solutions. 

 

If you have the opportunity, read the Rules of Procedure document from THIMUN. That'll give you a much better idea of how the committees are run and what to expect in terms of how the committee is run. There are also a number of motions and points that can be raised by delegates at different points, and the RoP should outline the functions of each and every one of these. 

 

 

Good luck!