November 2014 anniversaries

Here are the November 2014 judge anniversaries!

15 years

Stephen Foster from Dartmouth, Canada
Stephane Damizet from Lyon, France

10 years

Luis Angeles from Tampico, Mexico
J.d. Chamberlain from Littleton, United States
Jordan Baker from Waunakee, United States
Eli Shiffrin from Lowell, United States
Jens Strohaeker from Herrenberg, Germany
Eric Brown from Richmond, United States
Antti Malin from Helsinki, Finland
Constantin Palfinov from Ulyanovsk, Russian Federation
Andre Dembitzky from Sao Paulo, Brazil
Daniel Lee from Irvine, United States
Carlos Rangon from Santo Andre, Brazil
Hironori Suzuki from Ageo-shi, Japan
Kazuyoshi Yokoyama from Kawasaki-shi, Japan
Alex Bastecki from Mechanicsburg, United States
Daniel Schmidt from Lincoln, United States

5 years

Oren Firestein from Redmond, United States
Tasha Hayashi from Portland, United States
Steve Peterman from Roanoke, United States
Addison Miller from Boone, United States
Enrique Naranjo from San Fernando (Cadiz), Spain
Takuya Natsume from Meguro-ku, Japan

Congratulations, and thank you for all your hard work!

Our featured judge this month is Tasha Hayashi, L3 from Portland.

Regional coordinators Jeremy Behunin and David Zimet had this to say about her:

“Tasha is at the threshold of her five year judging anniversary, and it has been a great five years for the Magic Judge program. Tasha certified for Level 1 at Grand Prix Minnesota in 2009, and she has become a regular at Grand Prix events around the world, judging well over twenty of them all over the planet.

Tasha worked at Star City Games in an events coordinator role, and her emphasis on careful preparation and communication helped make Open Series events a success for two years. More recently, she has moved to the west coast where she is currently working with Cascade Games as part of the events management and planning team.

She is active in program work as well, contributing to several projects (especially the Judge Wiki and Regional Pages, all the while helping us figure out how to be better people by coaching and by example. Since moving to Portland she has taken every opportunity to help build a thriving community there, and across the western United States.

At judging activities like conferences and study groups, Tasha is a reliable and intelligent participant and contributor, and can always be counted on to develop and present great content that gets people thinking. For a recent example, her seminar on preparing for the unexpected at the LA conference that she gave with Kyle Knudson was a great talk on a relatively novel topic. She’s also very approachable, and helps make shy folks feel welcome at non-event gatherings, building bridges to bring judges together socially.”

Here are some words from Level 4 judge Sean Catanese describing how his work with Tasha has influenced the program:

“Tasha is one of the most fair-minded Judges in the program – and that alone should speak volumes. In pursuing this passion, she has positioned the program to lead transformations in the game itself.

“Magic is more inclusive and diverse now due in no small part to Tasha’s own contributions and her penchant for collaborating with players and peers who might otherwise be marginalized. And that change isn’t going to stop anytime soon.

“She’s also shown me that there is a depth of skill in asking for help when you need it. That’s not easy for most of us to do, but when she does ask, it’s because there’s a genuine need – either for herself or someone she’s helping. These are just a few of the ways that she embodies Andy’s often-repeated refrain, ‘If you’re doing it alone, you’re doing it wrong.’”