Crisis Note

In a Model UN crisis committee, a crisis note is the primary tool a delegate uses to act outside the committee room. Unlike a directive, which is voted on by the whole committee, a crisis note is sent privately from an individual delegate (or small group) to the backroom — the crisis staff who simulate the world responding to committee actions. The backroom reads the note, decides whether the requested action succeeds, and may respond in writing, send a crisis update to the room, or escalate the storyline.

A typical note is addressed from the delegate's character using their portfolio powers — the resources, contacts, and authority the character realistically controls. For example, a delegate playing a finance minister might move funds; a general might reposition troops; an oligarch might bribe a journalist. Notes are usually handwritten on numbered paper, passed to a runner, and kept confidential from other delegates unless leaked deliberately.

Effective crisis notes generally share several features:

• Specificity — naming actors, locations, quantities, and timelines rather than vague intentions.
• Plausibility — staying within the character's realistic portfolio powers.
• Secrecy and sequencing — building arcs over multiple notes rather than asking for everything at once.
• Contingency — instructing the backroom what to do if the first step fails or is discovered.

Notes fall loosely into categories: information requests (asking what a character knows), action notes (ordering something to happen), communication notes (contacting non-present figures), and joint notes signed by several delegates coordinating a scheme. Most circuits — including conferences run by Harvard, NMUN, and WorldMUN-style crisis committees — weight crisis-note quality heavily in awards, since notes reveal a delegate's strategic creativity and historical knowledge in ways floor debate cannot. Overly grandiose or out-of-character notes ("I nuke Moscow") are typically rejected or punished with in-character consequences.