Eastern European Winter Conference

I am excited to announce, in cooperation with Wizards of the Coast, The Easter Europe Winter Judge Conference starting on February the 5th, 2016.

Judge conferences represent an opportunity to socialize with regional judges, but more importantly they are a fantastic venue for education. Come see old friends and new, all while hearing seminars and attending workshops designed strengthen and hone your judging skills. Your peers will be presenting seminars and work groups on a wide variety of topics, so there will surely be presentations of relevance regardless of your level or position in the program. This is a standalone conference, not associated with any event. This will allow you to focus all of your efforts on the topics at hand without being distracted by other duties or the anticipation of such.

EVERYONE is welcome, regardless of level or geographic location. Come one, come all! That said, if you do plan to attend, please be sure to apply here so we have an accurate head count in advance.

SCHEDULING

Topics in italic are workshops, All topics include a 10' brake

Self-reviews - Mihai Bîrsan: Sometimes you have to stop and reflect on your goals, assess the feedback, evaluate your progress and, if necessary, set new goals. Whether it's your personal goals, career at work or judge career, self reviews are a tool you can use to make sure you know which track you're on and then stay on track. And you don't have to be on the path to L3 to reap the rewards of writing a self-review. In this workshop we'll answer the 5Ws of self reviews and get practical by using a simple self-review framework

Body Language - Theodoros Millidonis: This presentation will be aimed at outlining the key elements of body language and their importance for the purpose of becoming better seminar presenters. We will be looking at how seminar presenters can utilize proper body language tells to convey their messages more clearly to the audience, but not only. We will also be examining how to interpret the body language tells our audience is giving us. And of course, we will be explaining what exactly we mean by body language tells!

Investigation Workshop - George Gavrilita: "You know very well that this call has something weird about. But how do you collect the missing elements? How do you make a decision? In this workshop we'll put into practice investigation techniques that'll help you tell apart the clumsy from the cheater!"

Slow Play - Christian Gawrilowicz: Many judges are hesitant to punish Slow Play. In this seminar you will acquire the tools to spot and deal with Slow Play. After the what, how, when, and why in the theoretical part you will be given the chance to spot Slow Play "in the wild"

Deck Checks - Arseniy Egorov: 'Now you see me, now you don't - Deck Checkniques' / 'Sneaky marked cards? Traditional vs Modernity. Don't miss a chance to join "10% DCI recommended" team!'

Ruling Workshop - Yuval Tzur: A seminar that talks on how to present a ruling to a table, how to prevent and avoid mistakes and how to handle difficult situations. The seminar will include a quick presentation followed by the opportunity for you to practice for yourself or observe other judges as they do their magic.

Mentoring - Tomas Kriz: Mentoring candidates, mentoring colleagues, mentoring again and again....with a fun of course. A lot of examples and tips how to improve your mentoring skills. Many stories with useful advices how to give your knowledge to your friends in black shirts. Practical using new abilities during the seminar. What you can expect? Which informations you will recieve and you will practise?

Unsporting Conduct - Georges Rehak: Unsporting conduct, keeping things fair and making sure everyone is having a good time

Reviews - Georgi Benev: A workshop on how to right good review and how the ideal review would look like. Stay alert, after the presentation there will be hands on experience!

Quiz - Krzysztof Ciesielka & Łukasz Bylica:Based on a famous Polish TV show "One out of Ten", the quiz will have ~10 teams of ~3 players compete against each other and answer questions related to MTG (prepare for general MTG knowledge, not just judge questions). Whenever a team answers a question correctly, they decide which team answers the next question. Every team has 3 chances and if they fail to answer the question, they lose one chance. When there are only 3 teams left, the Grand Final begins and their chances are replenished - from that moments it's Last Team Standing.

TESTING

L1 an L2 testing will be available. Email Giorgios (george.trichopoulos@gmail.com) or Adrian (aditeojr@yahoo.co.uk) beforehand.

FOIL SUPPORT

Our leaders in all things Magic, Wizards of the Coast, are graciously rewarding attendance of certified judges at this event with a selection of judge foils. The number of foils distributed will be dependent upon the number of sessions attended as well as completion of a survey to provide feedback to the presenters.

In order to guarantee that you will receive foils at this event, you must pre-register. There will be no exceptions for any reason. Judges who register after the application deadline of December 15th, 2015 will be welcome to attend, but will not receive foils. Judge candidates testing for Level 1 at the event will, also, not be elegible to receive foils.

ACCOMODATION

Staff Hotel

Hotel: Rina Cerbul

Address&contact info:
Bd. Carol I, nr. 19?Postal code 106100?Sinaia, Prahova
Phone/Fax: 0244.312.391?Phone: 0244.302.925
For more info on the hotel please check: http://www.rinahotels.ro/cerbul/en/

Across the street there is another hotel (in the same group):

http://www.hotelsinaia.ro/en/contact-us

TRAVEL

There is no direct way form the airport to the venue, so anyone arriving at the airport, must travel first to Bucharest.

For train routes to Sinaia, please check: http://www.cfrcalatori.ro/
Also private trains can be found here : http://www.regiotrans.ro/

Detailed information is in the travel guide.