A teacher walks into your class and announces that there's a Model United Nations conference being held somewhere or other and is anyone interested. You've heard about these MUNs. People dressing up fancy and going and debating about international issues. You raise your hand. It'll be your first MUN and you're excited.
You walk in to the venue and you're surrounded by other delegates. A lot of them are far more experienced than you and are talking, quickly and loudly, about all sorts of things. They mention UnMods, RoP, reso, blocs- it's as if they're speaking a foreign language. You didn't know that there would be a whole new dialect of English you have to know.
This situation sound familiar? To put it mildly, it's not fun. Luckily, I, with my *cough* staggering *cough* wealth of experience in MUNs, bring to you a crash course on the basics of this strange language.
(Before you go for any MUNs, though, I recommend you go to some introductory sessions where they explain everything and you can ask questions.)
Agenda: the issue you'll be discussing in committee
Allocation: this is what committee and country or body you have been assigned; for example, you could be Mozambique in the UN General Assembly, or the UNHCR (the Office for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees) in the UN Human Rights Committee
Bloc: this is a group of delegates who have decided they have similar goals and want to work together to produce a resolution; they are bros...for the time being
Chair: the group of people sitting at a table in the front of the room, directing the debate, and trying not to cringe when a delegate makes the same procedural mistake multiple times
Chits: notes; you're allowed to send notes to other delegates in committee or the Chair; you can discuss possible alliances, ask about procedure, say something you didn't get a chance to say in formal session (if you have good points, these can boost your chances of getting an award if you send it to a delegate via the Chair or directly to the Chair), complain about boredom, or flirt; however, if you plan to do one of those last two things, keep in mind that someone will read your chits and derive great enjoyment from them
Crisis: the bane or saviour of committee, depending on when it comes (dull time in committee? nearly close to resolution?), a crisis is exactly what it sounds like, a sudden high-stakes emergency the committee must immediately address; there is an entire panel of people who make up crises and I kid you not they are out to make your next couple of hours as stressful as they possibly can, and if you are a P5 country or some nation important to the agenda you my friend are going to be their running targets and let me tell you, in this metaphor they are snipers
GSL: an acronym for General Speakers List, this is your chance to give a 90-second speech about your (country's) foreign policy and stance on the agenda and show the Chair you're participating; if you make sure to put yourself on this list, you are far less likely to be called upon without warning to say something when you're unprepared to do so because you're not active enough (the Chair will do this to you); there is also something called the SSL or Special Speaker's List, which is basically a GSL during a crisis
Motion: almost anything you want to do in committee must be raised as a motion; motion to start a debate, to open the GSL, to move into a caucus and so on; the most fun one is the Motion for Entertainment, where you can have confessions, dares, and crazy things to appeal to the senses of immature and hormonal delegates
Pre-ambs: short for "preambulatory clause", the kind of words you use in the beginning of a resolution to outline the problem you're trying to solve and how much you hate the existence of the problem; one of those fancy abbreviations experienced delegates use
Reso: this is a shortened form of "resolution", the big document of solutions for your committee's agenda that some delegate puts forward and everyone votes on; this term can be used by anyone, but I first came across it when some fancy kind-of-arrogant delegate with a bunch of awards casually threw it out while talking to me, probably hoping that I'd get intimidated (I didn't and yes, it is possible I'm being paranoid about that guy trying to intimidate me, but it's normal to find delegates showing off, for example me)
RoP: this stands for "rules of procedure" and is basically the list of rules for how MUNs work and how everyone behaves (hint: formally)
UnMod: short for "unmoderated caucus", this is considered informal debate; basically you can get up and walk around and talk to people and write drafts of working papers or resolutions to be presented in formal committee session; more importantly this is an opportunity to suspend formality and use slang and words like "legit" (which is, for some reason, frowned upon in formal session)
And there you have it! A non-exhaustive but hopefully useful guide to MUN jargon. To those of you about to go for your first MUN, I hope this helps you and that you have fun! And to those of you who have been to MUNs before, let me know in the comments if I missed any important terminology calculated to mess with the mind of a nervous delegate.
