The Final USA - North Conference

Greetings,

We are going to host a huge online conference jam as a going away party for the USA - North.

The goal is to have about 4 hours of content then about 4 hours of social activities.

We currently have 7 venues, and are open to more.

The rules for hosting a venue:

• You must have a stable internet connection.
• You must have a reasonable computer that can hook up to a TV or projector so people can tune in.
• If you need a webcam and/or mic, you MUST post at least two weeks in advance.  We will work something out.
• Your venue must be available to any local judges to attend.  (Houses are fine, but you have to let people in.)
• There must be a person involved as the organizer for that location, as a key point of contact.  Organizers must have prior availability for tech testing and on the day of for managing their site's tech.
• The organizer must be able to accept mail the week before the event, for conference materials and foils.

One thing to note as a requirement is that we don't have a minimum size for our venues.  I *will* try to consolidate venues.  If you have one in your city or pretty nearby already, I'll push you to that one, at my discretion.  I want people to be together as a judge community, not alone in their houses, if at all possible. This is all subject to some tinkering and change based on weather, and we will keep an eye on the weather leading up to the event.

So if you are interested in hosting a venue, drop me a line either in chat or email, robbit@gmail.com and we will get it worked out.  If you have a venue suggestion, likewise get in touch and loop in a contact with a venue.  If the venue requires rental and it's reasoanble (a couple hundred rather than a thousand), please include that info.

More venues are likely to be added before apps close.  These will be called out in Slack and Facebook as they get added.

As usual, only certified judges can get foils, but this is open to anyone who either has a historical level or a Judge Academy level, this is not a Judge Academy conference, it is the last regional conference of the old judge program.

If you are interested in putting together content or organizing something with a social activity, please let me know.  It should be more than a powerpoint deck and some talking, though, we want to have some interaction and discussion between multiple locations.  If you have a super awesome idea, we are all ears.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, please let us know.

We have a conference with 8 locations, spread across the Midwest, with the following estimated turnout numbers:
Sioux Falls 7
Rapid City 3
Minot 2
Minneapolis 36
Madison 10
Independence 1
Eau Claire 7
Duluth/Superior 8

Our schedule has some super great things going on, including a complicated maze of a presentation/discussion/live calls thing that Patrick and I are doing:

All times are CST.

10:00 - 10:15: Doors Open, Introductions, Starting the Stream
10:15 - 11:15: Out of the North and into the Midwest - Eric Levine and Rob McKenzie
11:30 - 12:30 Directed Discussion on Mentoring - Ken Andrs
12:30 - 1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 2:30 Panel: Ambiguous or Unclear Calls - Pete Jahn, Eric Levine, Morgan Wentworth moderating
2:30 - 3:45 Judge Calls via Puppet Mode plus Handling Calls discussion - Rob McKenzie and Patrick Cool
3:45 - 4:00 Wrap Up and Foils

After 4pm, we plan on dinner plus social time at every location. I’ve sent out some goodies, and you can jam some Commander for packs, play a draft, or do whatever. I want everyone to have a fun holiday party with their evening, just having a blast with other judges.

It’s possible we may be able to do online Commander or something with all the locations in a terrible mistake of a game. Let’s keep that in our back pocket as “Plan: People With Too Much Time on Their Hands”