AMBASSADORS’ OPENING SPEECHES

Opening Speeches are an integral part of Model United Nations and The Ambassador’s contribution to it. In many ways, the Ambassador of a delegation represents the seriousness of purpose and intentions of the Delegation. For that reason, he or she must be aware that a badly-researched, lightly given, opening speech reflects poorly on the person giving the speech, the delegation, the adviser, the school attended and not least the country represented.

The opening speech lasts for one minute which means that the content should be serious, meaningful and relevant to the country’s policies and ethos. The language chosen should be clear, intelligent, and, if appropriate, clever. It should never be offensive, obscene, designed to be “funny” or pandering to the base instincts within a youthful audience.

In the event of an opening speech being considered inappropriate, any or all of the following sanctions may be imposed, depending on the circumstance involved:

a) The delegate or delegation, may be suspended for the remainder of that day, or the following day; and the delegate or delegation will be excluded from any consideration for any individual or team awards at the conference;

b) The delegate or delegation, may be expelled from the conference entirely.

RESOLUTIONS – SAIMUN 2011

A. INTRODUCTION – THE FUNDAMENTALS
1. All delegates must arrive with a draft resolution on an issue in their committee as well as sound knowledge of the other issues.

2. Resolution must be in digital format

3. Resolutions must not exceed 20 clauses including sub-clauses and not less than 10.

4. Delegates should possess 30 – 35 copies of their resolution for lobbying the first afternoon with the resolution on USB.

• Please do not put line numbers on the resolution

5. Delegates are encouraged to merge resolutions.

6. Each resolution must be submitted to the Approval Panel by way of uploading onto the Resolution Management System (RMS):

• When uploading, a reference number for the resolution will be generated which must be written on the co-submitters sheet.
• Co-submitter sheets should have 12-15 signatures on it with no more than 3 from the same school.
• Once the resolution has been uploaded onto the RMS these co-submitters sheets are handed in to the admin.

7. Only one of the submitting delegations may present the Resolution to the Approval Panel, although any of the submitters of the resolution may read or speak on the resolution in Committee.

B. CRITERIA FOR APPROVAL
The criteria for the approval of a resolution will be:
- format (Sample Resolution)
- language (grammar, punctuation etc)
- logical consistency

The Panel will not presume to make judgements about the content of the resolutions, nor does “approval” imply that the resolution is “in order” according to the rules and procedures of the particular forum.

C. The status of a resolution can be followed on the RMS. Further details of this will be available closer to the conference.

D. AMENDMENTS
Amendments to resolutions will only be entertained in Committee not in General Assembly.
All amendments must be submitted to the Chair at the appropriate time on an Official Amendment Sheet, which will be available in committee.

A separate Amendment Sheet must be used for each amendment or amendment to an amendment.
All amendments must state clearly:
- the clauses which are affected by the amendment;
- the kind of amendment e.g. strike, insert, strike and insert, add;
- the text of the amendment (if applicable) and exactly where it would be inserted.

Amendments may be hand-written but must be LEGIBLE. Illegal or untidy amendments will be ruled out of order.