UKISA Regional Conference 2019

Welcome to the Judge Apps event page for the UKISA Regional Conference 2019!

Regional Conferences are one of the few opportunities that members of the UKISA community get to come together and share stories, ideas, knowledge and each other's company outside of events, and 2019's offering will be no different. This year's conference will be a two-day gathering in Manchester, UK where we invite you to come and spend time with your peers, friends and mentors.

We are asking attendees to pay £15 towards the cost of the conference. This will operate on a "pay what you can afford" system, please see the Costs sections for more details.

LOCATION

This year's regional conference will take place in the modern surroundings of Manchester Metropolitan University's custom conference space, The Union. We will be taking advantage of the flexibility that a dedicated event space will offer us as we deliver a programme of seminars, lectures, workshops, games and social activities across four rooms with cutting edge AV gear and including our own private bar!

Manchester is a cosmopolitan city and offers a huge selection of accommodation to suit all budgets. We will be sharing our recommendations in the files/links section at the bottom of this page. In addition to the choice of where to stay, Manchester is well connected by air, rail and road giving you a variety of options for making your way to the conference.

PROGRAMME

2018 saw us break with some traditions when it comes to what we deliver and how. Those changes will continue apace - we want attendees to feel like they are in control of their own conference experience and have the best possible opportunity to focus on the things that they want to gain from the weekend. This means our focus will be on the more informal activities that we can facilitate and allow attendees to drive their own agendas and deliver their own content. We will, of course, be offering plenty of conference favourites including simulations and more structured learning spaces in the form of lectures and seminars. There will also be plenty of space for attendees to escape the classroom environment and spend time socialising, networking and community-building.

As we finalise the agenda, we will be sharing that information with you in document form in the files/links section, as well as highlighting the various options available to attendees through a series of forum posts and articles.

If you have ideas for content you would like to see or would like to be part of the delivery team then you can let us know in the application form.

TIMES & DATES

The conference will take place on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th October 2019.

The programme is likely to run from 10:00 until 18:00 on Saturday and 09:00 until 16:30 on Sunday to allow plenty of time for people to arrive and depart on time. There will also be optional activities available on Friday and Saturday evenings.

ATTENDEES

UKISA Regional Conference 2019 is open to all judges in the region and we encourage those at all levels to apply. We would like to emphasise that this will be a conference aimed at catering to judges of all levels and at all points in their judging journey, whether entirely new to the Judge Program, old hands or anywhere in between.

Judges from outside of UKISA are also welcome to apply to attend; these applications will be reviewed and accepted at the appropriate Regional Coordinator’s discretion.

The event has a maximum attendee capacity due to venue restrictions and early applications are encouraged. Once the capacity has been reached, further applications may be placed on Standby and accepted on a first come, first served basis.

As a token of appreciation, all certified judges in attendence will receive a pack of Judge Promo Foils. We believe that giving up your free time and travelling to conference is a sufficient demonstration of commitment to learning and engaging with the community, and attendence will therefore not be tracked during the programme.

We will be closing applications for those wishing to present content or otherwise help facilitate at the conference on 1st July 2019. If you would like to help out with providing presentations, workshops, etc. then please apply as soon as possible.

Judge Foils will only be available to certified judges who apply before midnight, Friday 7th September!

COSTS

We are asking that each attendee pay a suggested £15 charge, with £10 of this covering your refreshments for the whole weekend. We are sure you realise that you get a lot more than a few cups of tea for your attendance fee, which is why we're coming to you for the first time with this request. For those who are able, we would ask that you pay the suggested amount of £15 (or more if you feel able to do so!) to aid us in offsetting the cost of providing the quality of conference you deserve. This will allow us to deliver the content we believe will help educate, inform and entertain you all in a location which is accessible from all corners of the country. For those who feel that the full £15, or even £10 is prohibitive to you being able to come along, we will accept as much as you feel you can afford. For those who can afford to pay more than the suggested amount, you have our gratitude for making it possible to run this event without imposing a mandatory cover charge.

We understand that this is a first for the regional conference and not everyone has the means to pay more, which is why the suggested £15 is a voluntary contribution. Please note, however, that the region is not able to cover the cost of refreshments. Our current hope is to provide unlimited tea, coffee and soft drinks to everyone who attends. If we are unable to meet this cost through attendee contributions then we will look for a lower budget alternative.

We hope that you will see the value for money you are getting in this conference, and we will be providing ample opportunities for you to offer feedback if you have new ideas or concerns regarding this.

Regional conferences have been primarily funded through the sale of excess Judge Promo Foils acquired by the region over the years and we are always seeking to deliver the best value we can for that. We will collect this cover charge through the Magic Judges UK PayPal, and the amount you pay will only be visible to the administrators of that account (David Lyford-Smith and Jack Doyle). The amount you pay will not impact the content you can access during the conference.

ORGANISERS

The organisers for this conference are:

Norman Ralph

Rachel Parkes

Ruth Woodrow