Procedure and Committee Flow

 Hi Delegates!


I wanted to check in with you to provide some more insight to how our committee is going to work at BMUN 71. JCC will be using Crisis BMUN Procedure.


Procedure 


Our committee(s) will use standard BMUN crisis procedure. From our collective experience as chairs, we believe that this procedure is the best method to promote thoughtful debate while also enabling the dynamic nature of crisis committees. This procedure also lends itself to our committees in that delegates will be representing members of a sort of cabinet or alliance that must discuss and debate on what  collective actions to take as a united front while also getting regular updates to the situation of Algeria. 


For those of you not familiar with BMUN or crisis procedure, I'll give a brief overview here. Crisis committees at BMUN use similar procedures to General Assembly committees with some key differences. We will facilitate discussion in committee with moderated and unmoderated caucuses, just like in GAs, however the small size of crisis committees also allows us to use the round robin caucus, which is helpful for getting an idea on how everyone in committee feels about a certain topic or giving introductions. We also do not have a speakers list, instead our default state is just a perpetual moderated caucus. Delegates can get things done through directives. Directives are documents usually written in bullet points or numbers that, unlike resolutions, use action-oriented language which, if passed, will create an immediate change to the universe based on the language of the directive. These directives come in 3 forms: public, which are drafted and voted on by the committee; private, which are written by individual delegates and take action using your respective portfolio powers; and joint directives, which are like private directives but can involve more than one delegate and will combine these delegates portfolio powers. Public directives are presented and voted on much less formally than in GA; delegates can motion to "present directives" or to "vote on directives" as they and the dais see fit. Caucuses can and will be interrupted at any time for crisis updates, in which we will inform you about developments in the crisis universe through news announcements, skits, or more. Crisis is a balance between frontroom (in person committee where you engage in debate and draft and pass public directives to advance the interests of your committee as a whole) and backroom (the overall crisis universe where you use private and joint (and even sometimes public) directives to advance your characters personal agenda). Frontroom and backroom collide in crisis updates, which give the committee insight into what is publicly available about the state of the backroom as decided by the dais.


Expectations for Flow of Committee


Because crisis is dynamic in that the state of the universe is constantly changing, time must also progress throughout the committee. As stated in the topic synopsis, committee starts on February 10th, 1954. We are planning for our committee to take place over the proceeding 6 years, about the length of the real war, meaning each committee session will represent about 18 months. This will allow you to enact actions in directives that would realistically take significant periods of time to implement, such as moving troops across Algeria or planning attacks on the pied noir population. Please keep this in mind as you prepare your crisis arcs.


Committee will start with a round robin caucus to allow for delegates to introduce their characters to the committee and dais. After that, we will give you all a crisis update, and the rest of committee will flow organically. It should be fun and probably very chaotic!



Thank you for reading this blogpost and your hard work in preparing for committee and writing position papers! We are looking forward to seeing you all in conference! Don’t hesitate to reach out for any questions on procedure or flow, and leave a comment below if you’re excited for BMUN 71!!


Best,


Aisha Gupta

Head Chair of JCC, BMUN 71

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