Basics of  Organizing an MUN Conference

Before you start organizing your own MUN Conference you have to make sure that you have enough time to dedicate to this project for it will be a big part of your life for the next 6 to 12 months depending on the size of your conference. You will be responsible for everything that may happen during the preparation process therefore sometimes you may have to make concessions from your other responsibilities. But let’s say that you have the required time and you really want to do this with all the good and the bad. Then the first step is:

1-) Assemble Your Team

This is the first and the most important step for this will serve as the bone structure of your conference and if you fail to create a passionate team that shares your vision, many crises will emerge through-out the preparation process and believe me you wouldn’t want that for you will already have too much to handle in hand. When it comes to recruiting members, you should pick each one carefully. Are they suitable for the position they are applying for? Are they team-workers? Do they really care about this project as much as you do? Do they have enough experience? And keep in mind that it is fun to work with friends but at the same time negative incidents during the preparation process may affect your relationship so if you are not hundred per cent sure that you guys can work things out, try to abstain from recruiting friends as team members.

How to Create MUN Teams and Appoint MUNers to the Ecaxt Positions

You should know your friends’ abilities in order to gain the highest productivity from the members of the conference.

But what are the positions in MUN?

First of all, you need to split the team into two as Academic Team and Organization Team

Let’s start with the Academic Team:

1. Secretary-General
2. Deputy-Secretary-General
3. Under-Secretary-General
4. President Chair
5. Vice Chair
6. Rapporteur
7. Crisis Team Members

Secondly the Academic Team:

1. Director-General
2. Deputy-Director-General
3. Head of Finance
4. Head of Logistics
5. Head of IT
6. Head of PR
7. Head of Press
8. Head of Entertainment
9. Head of Admins
10. Head of Security
11. Head of etc.

2-) Committees and the Schedule

Now it is time for you to choose your committees! You can get creative with them. Try to be original because there are many MUN conferences these days and as a result, you need to stand out and committees are the best way to do that! You can even create a committee of your own but if you rather not to, there are still many committees that you can choose from. After you decide what your committees will be, you need to create your conference schedule before you start looking for a suitable venue because you need to have a schedule in hand in order to abstain from altering it later on.

Keep in mind that you need to set the procedure for the conference. You may choose HARVARD or THIMUN procedure or you can write your own procedure which requires expertise on MUN and the UN. If you organize an MUN for the first time, we kindly suggest you choose HARVARD Procedure.

3-) Date and the Venue of the Conference

After you created an infrastructure that you can work on you need to choose a date. Choosing a date is very important for it will roughly determine the number of delegates you can attract. (MUN Conferences are known for their addictiveness therefore as long as the date is right and prices are just, attracting delegates should not be a big problem.) I would like to advise you to be wary of the exam weeks and other educational or special occasions that may affect your conference in any way and also keep in mind that if you don’t have multiple choices for the venue it is also important to contact with the venue of your choice, especially if you are planning to hold your conference in a university, because they will have their own schedule. And if you are a Ministry of Education based institution this is where you take care of MEB Procedures.

4-) Conference Fee and the Marketing

Now that you know where your conference will be held, you need to determine your conference fee. While determining your conference fee you need to take the overall price of your local MUN Conferences into consideration. As an example, in Antalya fees are generally between 60 TL to 90 TL. But in other cities fee varies between 120 – 1000 TL as accommodation is included. First thing you should do is to decide what services you are going to offer to the delegates. Is accommodation included or not? Is food included or not? And finally, shuttles are very crucial for the conferences, especially in the winter time. You should also consider the materials and their cost. For example in a classic welcome bag, you need to give a bag, folder, notepaper or notebook, pencil, guide and some gifts. Plus you have to give a placard, badge and you need to hang a lot of posters on the wall. You should be very careful when you are calculating expenses. You can always send an email to info@munturkey.com if you need any further assistance.

And while determining a price, regardless of how many sponsorships you may get, always charge enough fee to carry out the conference with zero sponsorships so if any inconveniences occur you won’t have to deal with a financial crisis. And after you determine your fee, you need to start marketing your conference. You may open an Instagram account and of course, PR members play a huge role in the marketing process. Marketing is also very important because as I stated before due to the conference abundance we have in these days it is important for your conference to stand out and marketing is another, and the most efficient, way to do it! If the MUN is not common in your area you may also want to go to your local high schools in order to introduce them to MUN. And you can also buy promotion packages from MUNTurkey.com for reasonable prices.

5-) Sponsorships, Accommodation and Registration.

Now that you are out in public, you can start looking for sponsorships. This is a very important step because sponsorships can really improve the quality of your conference and they can also help you to lower your participation fee. Accommodation is a very important step also because nobody would like to stay in a hotel that is far away from the city centre because even though the main purpose of their accommodation is attending the conference your participants may also want to wander around the city. You need to find a nice place preferably in the city centre at a reasonable price. And after that is done, we can open our applications!

Organizing a MUN is a very detailed process and it is almost impossible to put all the details into one single article. And my aim with this article was to give you an overall view of how things proceed while you are preparing a conference. So keep in mind that this is not an actual guide. If you have any further inquiries don’t hesitate to contact me via mertkaracam_@outlook.com

Mert KARAÇAM
Writer of MUNTurkey.com

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