Conference on National Affairs

Every year the Indiana YMCA Youth and Government Program sends 5 - 10 of it's brightest delegates to North Carolina to participate in the YMCA Youth Conference on National Affairs. Delegates are selected after Model Legislature and Court conference in February following an extensive application process.

Each delegate brings their own proposal relating to an issue of national or international importance to debate in one of 18 first committees. In this first committee delegates proposals are presented, debated, and eventually scored based on National/International Importance, Evidence of Research, Feasability, and Presentation. After the scores are tabulated, eight proposals from each first committee continue on to a second committee (second committees are made of two first committees).

The process is repeated in Second Committee, where six proposals from each group are sent on to one of three third committees. By this time, only 54 of the original 450+ proposals remain, thus the quality level is extremely high.

Each third committee repeats the debate and scoring process but adds Debatability as a fifth ranking criterion, and sends seven proposals on to be debated in General Assembly. The General Assembly proposals are considered "the best of the best" and are debated and voted on in a method similar to that used by our model legislative houses.