Meeting Room Assistance
During the meeting, a meetings services assistant is the main point of contact for the conference organizer, to assist with in-room services and coordinate about any changes in schedule or required services. The name and contact details of the meetings services assistant are communicated to the meeting organizer in advance. If you don't know who your meetings services assistant is, please call the Meeting Servicing Unit: +41 22 917 22 01.
What meetings services assistants do
- Prepare the room, by setting up the podium and seating arrangements based on approved protocol and room charts, put in place the name plates and check that the necessary equipment is available and functioning
- Obtain lists of speakers from the meeting secretary and receive and sort advance drafts of statements to distribute them to the interpreters and other services, as necessary
- Distribute informal texts and conference room papers to delegations in accordance with the relevant regulations and procedures
- Record the full names of speakers and the countries/entities they represent during the course of the debate (upon request)
- In case of a hybrid meeting, follow the proceedings of the meeting through the platform as a viewer, troubleshoot and ensuring the intervention of relevant technical or IT services, if necessary
- Assist in voting procedures.
What meetings services assistants do not do
- Handle personal requests (e. g. make phone calls or photocopies) for delegates
- Distribute invitations to receptions, which should be distributed by delegations themselves
- Modify the list of speakers at the request of a delegation
- Distribute official documents with symbol numbers which are available at the distribution counter or in special racks in the meeting room
- Stay in or in front of the room for the entire duration of meetings without interpretation. They will usually stay for 30 to 45 minutes.
General Contact:
Phone: +41 22 917 3668
Email: mms@un.org
Please always copy mms@un.org to ensure follow-up in case colleagues are on leave.
Hybrid meetings
On the day of your meeting, the audio-visual and IT departments carry out configuration and other tests at least two hours before the start of said meetings and certify that all parameters have been configured and tested.
Technical Moderation
One hour before the start of every meeting scheduled during your session, UNOG technical moderators will be in the conference room at the disposal of the Secretariat to arrange any final details. The technical moderators will also proceed with the tests of remote participants to verify their connection and audio quality, and to assist them with any question relating to the use of the platform.
Technical moderators are responsible for the following:
- The Zoom session is launched with the following standard settings (unless special requests have been made and accepted beforehand):
- Enable waiting room.
- Enable share screen.
- Enable the chat.
- Enable the ‘rename’ function.
- Enable the ‘start video’ function.
- Disable the possibility for participants to unmute themselves. This is particularly crucial in meetings with interpretation, where there must never be more than one microphone on at a time.
- During the meeting no remote participants will be able to take the floor directly – i.e., they cannot simply turn on their microphones themselves and start speaking. Rather, in order to take the floor they need to:
- Click on the ‘Raise Hand’ function.
- Wait for the chairperson’s approval.
- The technical moderator will unmute the speaker’s microphone.
- The speaker can then take the floor.
- The technical moderator will mute the microphone should the Chair so request, or should the Chair interrupt the delegate.
- The technical moderator will mute the speaker’s microphone at the end of their intervention.
- When the Chair calls upon a remote participant, he must click on the ’Raise Hand’ function.
- In-person participants should follow standard procedure for requesting the floor.
- Note that for hybrid sessions with interpretation, where some participants are in the room, the presence of two technical moderators, to operate the Zoom platform, plus one sound operator in the technical booth is mandatory.
- For information about sharing documents, playing videos and recording the Zoom session, please refer to the relevant chapters above.
- The ‘waiting room’ function is always activated, even for public meetings. Participants will be accepted and allowed to enter the meeting from the waiting room no earlier than one hour before the meeting starts. If they are not identified correctly (using the format: Country Name or Organization / First name / Last name) the technical moderator will send a message in the waiting room to invite the participant to rename themselves correctly.
- To avoid any confusion with regard to roles and responsibilities, and to avoid any technical interruptions or problems, only the two technical moderators have co-host rights.
- When you are ready to start the meeting, and just before the Chair opens the meeting, a brief announcement video concerning the requirements for remote participation will be screened.
- The screen in the room as well as the screens on the delegates’ consoles (if the room is so equipped) are configured with the active speaker view - i.e., the person currently speaking appears in the main window), irrespective of whether speaking from the room or remotely.
- Whenever a document is shared, it will have the priority view and will appear in the main window with a view of the speaker in a smaller window.
Interpreter’s Message
This message should be read out by the Chair at the start of the session:
Your attention is drawn to the fact that poor quality audio is having an increasing and serious impact on the health of interpreters. In order to ensure appropriate sound quality for the benefit of us all, proper equipment and connection must be used. Details are available from the Secretariat, but the minimum requirements for remote participants are a USB-connected, unidirectional, desktop microphone, a separate set of headphones, a strong and stable internet connection and a quiet location.
Remote participants who feel they may have difficulty in meeting these requirements are requested to contact the meeting moderators and the Secretariat. Please be advised that where sound quality poses a risk to the interpreters’ health and hearing they may suspend service. Participants are further reminded that, in order to allow for full and accurate interpretation of their statements, they should speak at a reasonable pace.
FAQs
Conference rooms are usually open at least one hour before the start of the meeting. If conference organizers need more time to set up the room, they should liaise with the Meetings Management Section. Access will depend on other meetings that may be scheduled before the meeting in question.
In accordance with General Assembly Resolution 56/242 of 18 January 2002, meetings at the Secretariat should take place during normal office hours on working days, defined as from 10.00 am to 1.00 pm and 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm. Extending a meeting beyond three hours may only be granted in exceptional circumstances and is subject to extra costs. Meeting organizers needing to request such an extension must contact the Meeting Management Section (MMS) of the Division of Conference Management or through the meetings services assistant in the room no later than 30 minutes before the meeting is scheduled to finish. Requests addressed to the audio-visual services, the webcasting team or other service providers will be referred to MMS. MMS will coordinate between the different parts of the UN Geneva conferencing ecosystem to determine if the extension can be granted. The meeting organizer will be informed if the meeting can continue in the same room and if all required services are available, e.g. the hybrid meeting platform, webcasting, etc. Due to the provisions of the UN common system agreement with the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), it is not possible to extend interpretation services beyond 15 minutes of the regular time unless specific exceptional measures have been put in place in advance of the meeting in agreement with the Chief of the Interpretation Service (exceptions may apply to the Human Rights Council). Meeting extensions of more than 15 minutes incur additional costs which will subsequently be charged to the meeting organizer through the final bill.
The “UNOG_Public_Wifi” Wifi Network is open to all conference participants and does not require a password. Access to it is guaranteed in common areas.
Use of IT equipment inside conference rooms is restricted to technical staff, support staff and conferencing staff. Sometimes, publicly accessible cyber-cafés are made available to conference participants where they can access both computers and printers.
In case of a medical emergency of a conference participant, the Security Control Center can be contacted at +41 22 917 21 12 or a UN Geneva Security Officer can be informed. The emergency number 112 can also be called from a fixed phone.
Participants can also contact the Medical Service for advice at +41 22 917 28 07 (nurses) or +41 22 917 25 20 (reception). These numbers are not for emergencies, as there may be moments when the phone cannot be answered. You may also contact the nurses by email: unognurses@un.org.
Conference participants have access to a space in the E-Building, ground floor (on the same level as the Cafeteria, near the offices of UNTV) to pursue religious practice.
A dedicated room for nursing mothers is available in the E-building, third floor, room E.3054-2. It also contains a changing table for babies. Conference participants who need to access the room, should contact the Security at +41 22 917 29 00 and ask them to open the door remotely.