Chair Guide: Motion Tracking, Note Taking, and Feedback

Chair Guide: Motion Tracking, Note Taking, and Feedback


The role of a chair in a Model UN committee is naturally a critical one. Aside from moderating debate, they are essentially the judges of the committee. Therefore a chair and their fellow members of the dais hold a heavy burden and it is their responsibility to ensure that the delegates not only have a fun time, but also learn a lot during their time at the conference. For these reasons, tracking motions and speeches to ensure fairness, and great note-taking as well as feedback is essential.


Motion Tracking

Motion tracking refers to keeping track of the motions and speeches that delegates give to ensure that a delegate does not speak disproportionately more than others. In large committees especially, it can be difficult to count and remember exactly how many times a delegate has spoken or given a motion, this is exactly why they should be tracked. Every time a delegate gives a motion or gives a speech, the chair or a co-chair can mark it on an Excel sheet shared between the members of the dais. Then when a delegate has more motions or speeches than the rest of the committee, you can prioritize allowing those who haven’t spoken as much to speak. Maintaining fairness in committee is very important so that everyone has an equal opportunity to speak!


Note Taking

Note-taking is another critical part of chairing and it goes hand-in-hand with giving feedback. During every part of a committee, chairs must take notes that are as specific as possible on the actions of delegates, what they do wrong, what they do right, and how they can improve. For example, for every delegate's speech, you want to take notes on what they are saying, the way they are giving the speech, what they could improve on, and what they are doing right. Or when a delegate gives a particularly relevant moderated caucus motion, it should be noted. Chairs should also be walking around during unmoderated caucuses and taking notes on what delegates say and their leadership, as well as how they can improve. 


Feedback

Feedback is not often done in the Taiwanese Model UN. Feedback in the way I am referring to it, is chairs giving general or individual feedback to delegates. General feedback should be brief, comprehensive, and constructive. This means it should quickly not only tell delegates what they are doing wrong, but how to improve it. This is more frequently done in the Taiwanese Model UN. Individual feedback, however, is far more rare. Good individual feedback is time consuming but can be extremely helpful for delegates, so it is good to do it two or three times throughout a committee. The chairs and co-chairs should ideally line up on opposite sides of the room so that each of them can give feedback to delegates, therefore taking up less time. Feedback should be as specific as possible and ideally should outline the path that delegates should take if they would like to get an award and label what they are doing right and wrong. Feedback is also a private matter. Individual feedback should only be given to a single delegate and other delegates should not be listening or even nearby. This is essential to maintaining fairness because if other delegates know their competitor's weaknesses, then they can take advantage of such weaknesses. It should be noted that in-depth feedback is only possible with the help of great note-taking. Written by: Mikele Mancuso

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