Every session starts the same way, regardless of what’s on the agenda that day.
Before roll call
Normally, you would be given 5-10 minutes before the session itself to talk to delegates. This is an extremely under-focused area of MUN. This is the time to have small talks and make good first impressions of delegates who could later one of the major contributors in your bloc.
Roll call
The chair calls each delegation alphabetically. You respond either “present” or “present and voting.” The difference matters later: at conferences that offer this distinction, answering “present and voting” means you’re giving up the right to abstain on substantive votes for the rest of that session. If you don’t know yet whether you’ll want that flexibility, “present” is the safer default. But, by choosing “present and voting” you are showing the chair that you are confident in your abilities to debate. By choosing this chairs usually have a better first impression of you. In cases of neutral countries choosing present is a usual response as those countries might choose to not side with anyone due to their neutrality.
Quorum
Quorum is the minimum number of delegations that need to be present for the committee’s decisions to actually count. It’s checked via roll call at the start of session. Exactly how much is required varies a lot by conference. You’ll see everything from roughly a quarter of enrolled delegations to two-thirds cited as the threshold across different rule sets, so don’t assume a number; check your conference’s Rules of Procedure. But, in almost all cases, the quorum would be reached so don’t worry if the chair doesn’t even mention it. Normally, only 1 or 2 delegations would be missing.
Setting the agenda (This can be skipped on committees with singular topics)
Once quorum is confirmed, a delegate moves to set the agenda, choosing which topic (of usually two, look at your topics inside the allocation packet in most cases) the committee debates first. This motion gets a short structured debate of its own (commonly a couple of speakers arguing for, a couple against, before a motion to close that debate is in order), and passes by simple majority.
This is the first real decision the committee makes together, and it sets the shape of everything that follows:
Roll call → set the agenda → formal debate (the GSL), interspersed with caucuses and other motions → draft resolution introduction → amendments → voting → adjournment.
Next: Speeches and the GSL