May 2011 Anniversaries

Hello judges,

It’s that time again – another round of judge birthdays! Starting this month, we’re not
only celebrating the judges who were first certified 5 or 10 years ago, but we’re also going to congratulate the judges who were promoted to Level 3 five or ten years ago. This idea came from Shawn Doherty, who kindly gave me access to his spreadsheet of L3 certification dates
🙂

10 years:

Kouichi Inoue, Shikokuchuuou-shi, Ehime-ken, Japan
Andrea Nediani Faenza, Ravenna, Italy
Martial Quintyn, Panazol, Ouest, France
Lee Singleton, Rayleigh,  England, Great Britain
Kazuyuki Tsunetoku, Kouchi-shi, Kochi-ken, Japan
Sung-Dae Eum, Anyang, Korea (South)
Lars Freitag, Bielefeld, Nordrhein-Westfale, Germany
Daniel Zajac, Opole, Poland
Mike Goodman, Hillsboro, Oregon, United States
Henk Claassen, Tiel, Netherlands

5 years:

Andrew  Cullen, Durban, South Africa
Jannie  Pieters, Boksburg, South Africa
Dominic Dach, Iserlohn, Nordrhein-Westfale      Germany
William Laycraft, New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Timothy Reynolds, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States

Congratulations to all of you, and thank you for your hard work!

Our featured judge this month is William Laycraft, L2 from Canada. L3 judge Aaron Hamer says:

“I met Will in San Diego far back in the misty mists of time (2007, for those of you keeping score at home). He made quite the impression – he was stepping up to lead an isolated judge community and had boundless energy and enthusiasm and was always easy to spot in a crowd; he’s deceptively tall and has shockingly red hair. Will’s efforts have paid off – his community’s doing great, with eight (!!!) L2s where once there was one.

In his own words – “The main thing I love about judging is the people and the joy I feel about being able to help. It’s not about the game, or policy, or rules anymore, but a way to improve people in ways that effect their real lives.” Will takes this attitude in other arenas – he’s also heavily involved with refereeing volleyball, where he gets to have a similar impact.

Will recently got engaged to a wonderful lady that he met hosting a D&D drop-in. Some might call that “living the dream”. You can catch Will at the Penny Arcade Expo every year, and hopefully you’ll see him at a professional event soon.”

Our two Level 3 anniversaries are Richard Drijvers and Ryan Dare.

Richard Drijvers is a L3 from the Netherlands. He was promoted to Level 3 at Pro Tour Prague in 2006. Prague was a very good Pro Tour for him, since he also met his future wife Laura during this trip! (You can read the full story at
http://judge.dcifamily.org/02/ShowTell.htm)

Richard and Laura got married last year and Richard had his bachelor party at PT Amsterdam with a bunch of judges and some friends. “Richard is always looking out to have fun outside events when he goes to them; he’ll gather a bunch of judges and go out for a party — it’s pretty much what defines him”, says L4 judge Jürgen Baert.

Richard regularly writes articles and is as active as ever in Magic — he’s involved in several projects and leads the Benelux region as Regional Coordinator. When he’s not involved in Magical things, Richard devotes a lot of time to his beloved bullterriers Nero, Ranja and Allegra.

Ryan Dare is from Australia and he was also promoted at Pro Tour Prague 2006. L3 Mark Brown says: “As long as I’ve known Ryan, he has always tried to put the fun into judging, and most of the time succeeds with that goal.  As a Level 3 he has devoted a lot of time to also developing the Australian and New Zealand judge community.  I can’t believe that it’s only been 5 years at Level 3, it feels like Ryan has been Level 3 for longer than that; Ryan  consistently asks the right questions of his peers and has consistently wanted to see things done right.  There are a lot of judges in the Australian and New Zealand judging community that owe much to Ryan’s mentoring and I look forward to this continuing for many more years.”

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