CANADA CONFERENCES – STAFF
(2018 edition)

This is not a Conference. This is not a Project. This is not a Grand Prix.

This is something... Other.

Judge Conferences in Canada have grown exponentially in the past few years, both in number and scope. It is no longer feasible to have only a single judge organize a conference, nor is it efficient to have a given set of judges organize only a single conference.

TL;DR — If you are a judge residing in Canada, we need your help to make our Judge Conferences awesome in 2018.

History

The first ever (foil-supported) Canadian judge conference was held in Toronto in 2012. At this time, most conferences were attached to GPs, either on the day before or the day after. Regions were restricted to two such conferences per year, regardless of geographical size, and the expectations were low: seminars were often presented at the same venue as the GP, making it difficult to hear and concentrate; presentations were (almost) exclusively lecture-style, non-interactive, and of mixed quality; camaraderie was (almost) non-existent outside of regular GP judges seeing familiar faces.

This continued on through 2015, with one or two conferences each year—generally one west of Ontario and one in Ontario. In 2016, we petitioned the Conferences Lead (Damián Hiller) and WotC for a special exception, and in return we were able to double the number of conferences in Canada to four: one each in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and New Brunswick.

Conferences burgeoned again in 2017, with nine conferences hosted in seven different provinces across the country, from Victoria to Halifax.

Schedule for 2018

For 2018, we're hoping to run about fifteen or more conferences in Canada along the following timeline:

February–March: ~4 major cities*
April–September: ~8 smaller centres†
October–November: ~4 major cities*

*A "major city" is currently defined to include Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montréal; these locations are expected to draw 20 or more judges to a conference.

†Smaller centres will be determined by demand and availability of local judges to host. If you are interested in having a judge conference near you, let us know!

Plan for 2018

In order to run all these conferences, we're building a Goud Project™ team for 2018. Just like a popular event with the same abbreviation, this GP will require Team Leads and Floor Judges working on multiple teams:

• Paper: Pairings – responsible for soliciting and identifying qualified presenters and quality presentations.
• Paper: Slips – responsible for distributing, collecting, and parsing feedback forms.
• (Slide) Deck Checks – responsible for verifying that presentations are appropriate for their audience and well-prepared.
• Logistics – responsible for finding, booking, and liaising with venues. This team will include some local "on-site" judges.
• Logistics: Escape-of-Room – responsible for arranging pre- and post-conference activities (including dinners and gaming).
• Coverage – responsible for all "tech", including displaying slides and streaming audio/video.

We also have a few appointed positions:

• Tournament Organizer – Jon Goud, our RC, will be providing us with whatever tools we need to do our job.
• Head Judge – David Poon will be overseeing this GP, making sure that everyone knows what they're doing, and that everything needing doing has someone doing it.
• Appeals Judges – Our L3s and L2 Testers (Darren Gamble, Robert Hinrichsen, Niko Skartvedt, Jason Wong) will be in charge of testing L1 and L2 candidates.
• Scorekeeper – Damián Hiller, Conferences Sphere Leader, will be tracking the numbers and allocating our foils.

Some judges will also be selected for "Keystone" positions—that is, their involvement in past years will secure them a guaranteed position this year and/or in future years.

The mandate of judges in all of these roles is to bring the best possible experience to our "players": judges attending conferences in Canada. To that end, we'll be doing a lot of what might be considered pushing in chairs and picking up trash: making judges feel welcome and excited to be attending!

Join the Team!

Now you know what this is about: making Canada's Judge Conferences awesome. Apply to join us, and lend us your skills to make every Magic Judge in Canada a better judge.