Hello!

As most of you have probably heard, we hosted a small judge conference last week. Including a few of our neighbors from Canada and the US-Midatlantic, we had 184 judges present. We raised the collective level of the judge program by 5, certifying two new L1s, AJ Warner and Luke Kennedy, and advancing three new L2s, Paul Holbrook, Rusty Potter, and Tate Prodigalidad.

We had 19 unique presentations at this conference, as well as a wide variety of breakout/discussion sessions during the lunch hours. Thank you to all of the presenters, discussion group leaders, and room leads that made that happen.

As always, we could not run these events without support from great venues. Thank you to Worcester Polytechnic Institute and their Science Fiction Society for making this event possible, and to Pi Fisher for his help securing this venue, as well as his help on-site. We’d also like to thank John Brian McCarthy, the conference photographer, and Rick Salamin, who prepared the printed judge name tags and provided some other admin assistance during the day.

As usual, we have recordings of the presentations available online:

• John Alderfer – State of the Region
• Paul Baranay – Keynote
• Mani Cavalieri – Making Great Calls
• Eli Meyer – Proper Randomization
• Justin Purcell – Demystifying Judges
• Elliot Raff – The Lesson Plan Approach
• Jonah Kellman – Self Evaluation
• Tom Davis – Confrontation
• Rick Salamin – Event Rejections
• Chris McGuire – Slow Play
• Riva Arecol – Making Magic More Inclusive
• L3 Q&A Panel

Thanks again for everyone who presented, volunteered, led discussions, and attended. We’ll see you next time!

— Dan Collins, Bryan Hare, and Alex Mullins