{"id":73,"date":"2015-11-25T10:36:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T07:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/?page_id=73"},"modified":"2019-01-05T01:00:41","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T22:00:41","slug":"the-europe-east-region","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/the-europe-east-region\/","title":{"rendered":"The Europe \u2013 East region"},"content":{"rendered":"

Encompassing the Balkans and the Middle East, the Europe \u2013 East region is a diverse and lively region. With the warm, friendly and passionate cultures of this wonderful region, you\u2019ll always find people ready to help, cheer you up, or just give you an unforgettable night out with memories for life1<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Contact information<\/strong>
\nIf you want to talk to us about anything, be it judge certification, staffing events, praises or improvement ideas, we\u2019re here for you. You can always reach out to the relevant country coordinator<\/a>, or talk directly to the regional coordinator, Yuval Tzur<\/a><\/span><\/span>, by filling out the \u201cContact a Regional Coordinator<\/a>\u201d form or sending an email directly to rc.europe.east@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re part of the region and you want to reach out to people more publicly, you can do so on the JudgeApps regional forum<\/a> or the regional Facebook group<\/a>. Being attentive to both channels is important if you don\u2019t want to miss the regular Exemplar judge features, monthly highlights, and the occasional article or report, but most of all, tuning into these channels is crucial because this is where all the official communication (such as announcements about conferences or leadership changes) is made.<\/p>\n

What makes the Europe-East\u00a0region special?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Europe \u2013 East is the most diverse region in the judge program. The region is composed of 17 different countries (Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Kuwait, Montenegro, Macedonia, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates) that speak many different languages and use at least five different alphabets. English is the formal language of the region, even though it is not the native language in any of its 17 countries.<\/p>\n

Europe \u2013 East judges are known for their warm hearts and directness, so you can always count on them to tell you what\u2019s on their mind without \u201csugar coating\u201d it, but love you like a sibling anyway. Camaraderie is one of the great strengths of the region, but so is friendly ribbing. As an example, we had “Jewish steak” in a pub once, in the company of some of our Israeli friends… (it was delicious, and didn’t even require a human sacrifice!) <\/p>\n

The geography is also extremely diverse – from the magical coastlines to the impressive cities (the closest you can get to real-life Ravnica!), Europe \u2013 East includes everything from scorching deserts to snowy mountains, and is a great region for travel. The regional conferences are incredible multicultural events that attract people from all corners of the region, and out-of-region judges as well (conferences are held in English). <\/p>\n

Regional History<\/strong>
\nThe Europe \u2013 East region was created when the judge program introduced regions in May of 2010. Its first regional coordinator was Philipp Daferner<\/a><\/span><\/span>, and its geography was different. At first, the region included Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. During some adjustments a month later, the \u201cGerman Speaking Countries\u201d region was formed and Austria moved there (so the RC was living outside of the region), and Israel, which belonged to no region before, was added. In November 2011 the \u201cEurope \u2013 Mid-East\u201d region (which later changed its name to \u201cEurope \u2013 Central\u201d) was formed under Sebastian P\u0119kala<\/a><\/span><\/span>, and some countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) moved there. In July 2013 Philipp decided to step down, and Giorgos Trichopoulos<\/a><\/span><\/span> took his place. In December 2015, under Giorgos\u2019s leadership, the region gained three new countries from the Arabian Gulf (Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates). Giorgos led the region for over five years, until he in turn decided to step down, and was replaced by Yuval Tzur – the current regional coordinator – on October 2018. That same month,\u00a0Saudi Arabia was officially added to the region.<\/p>\n

Footnotes<\/h4>\n

1. No, we definitely do not mean “scars for life”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Encompassing the Balkans and the Middle East, the Europe \u2013 East region is a diverse and lively region. With the warm, friendly and passionate cultures of this wonderful region, you\u2019ll always find people ready to help, cheer you up, or just give you an unforgettable night out with memories for life1. Contact information If you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"language":[],"class_list":["post-73","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2376,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73\/revisions\/2376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/europeeast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}