Introduction

Hello everyone!

I am excited to be the newest Regional Coordinator regeneration of the Great Lakes region. I am looking forward to working with each and everyone of you. In that same vein I want to assist you with accomplishing your goals within our region along with any goals you may have within the judge program.

For those of you who may not know me, my name is John Temple. I’ve been a Magic judge since 2011 and a Level 3 since 2015. I live in Taylor, Michigan with the amazing Meg Baum. While not judging, I attend college at the University of Michigan-Dearborn (GO BLUE!) where I study Philosophy and English. I really enjoy playing boardgames and roleplaying, especially Dungeons & Dragons.

My number one goal as your regional coordinator is to continue the growth of our outstanding community of judges who challenge, motivate, and support one another. I continue my path in the judge program because of the amazing friends and people I have met through it. I hope that this tradition will continue long after my time as your Regional Coordinator.

Thank you for reading this and if you need anything, please reach out!

John Temple
Regional Coordinator – USA Great Lakes

What is a Regional Coordinator?

From https://blogs.magicjudges.org/o/advanced-roles/regional-coordinators/

Regional Coordinators are the leaders of the region they are responsible for. They coordinate judges, help with staffing events, and serves as a bridge between judges, players, and tournament organizers. They are usually the first point of contact for any judge related matter.

Tasks of Regional Coordinators

Provide an in-region judge whom other judges can contact for questions about the Judge Program.
Provide a regional resource for organizers and distributors seeking judges for events.
Provide the region with a spokesperson to the Judge Program leadership.
Provide a leader whom the Judge Program can use to communicate with judges in the region.
Provide assistance to Wizards of the Coast or distributor representatives for major tournaments within their area.
Be involved in player investigations in their region.
Be consulted on serious matters regarding judges in their area.
Be consulted about sponsorship of deserving in-region judges.
Provide support for major events and conferences.
Assist in recognition of judge efforts in their region.
Help Level 1 judges gain experience and skill to advance to Level 2.
Report on major events in their region.
Be involved in the certification process during Grand Prix.
Mediate and help in conflicts in their region involving judges and/or Tournament Organizers.
Foster acquisition of new Level 1 judges.
Cooperate and coordinate tasks with Level 3s in their region.
Provide assistance with the Level 3 Advancement process by evaluating the self-reviews provided by Level 3 candidates, and creating Level 3 Assessment Exams.

Qualities of Regional Coordinators

Regional Coordinators are evaluated during a selection process on the following qualities:

Responsiveness. Should answer to emails and messages they receive within 1 week.
Accessibility. Should be easily reached through at least one communication channel (emails, phone, Facebook, chat programs) known to their community.
Level 3 recommendations. Should be able to help Level 3 candidates get recommendations, or to provide feedback on how to improve in order to get one, or to facilitate someone who can help the candidate.
Growth and improvement. Should have a plan of action for growing their community both in quality and in quantity.
Retention and morale. Should have a plan to avoid judge burnout and to keep the community involved and motivated.
Conferences. Should be able to organize conferences every year as a tool for community building and improving the quality of local judges.
Recognitions. Should motivate judges with recognitions and should lead by example participating in the Exemplar program.
Mentoring. Should have a plan and awareness of different levels of mentoring in their region.
Performance evaluation. Should be able to evaluate the judges in their region, provide feedback, and intervene in case of underperformance.
Demotion procedures and disciplinary measures. Should be able to determine when misbehavior from judges in their region needs to be escalated to the appropriate channel.
Conflict resolution. Should be able to mitigate conflicts involving a judge in a diplomatic way.
Protection of diversity. Should be able to create and support a safe, welcoming and diverse community.
Professionalism and diplomacy. Should be able to be respected and to have a good, diplomatic and professional relationship with their regional leadership.
Communication with the community. Should be aware of all major changes in the Judge Program and be able to communicate with the judges in their region explaining said changes in their structure and philosophy.

Where We Are

The Great Lakes region covers the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. With our region being very central to the rest of the United States we receive multiple Grand Prixs and Star City Games Tour events every year which results in a lot of large-scale tournament experience for Great Lakes judges. All of the region’s states have strong player communities and there are ample opportunities for anyone who wants to become a judge.

At the beginning of this year we moved to a project based system for our region and will continue with it modifying some of the projects. There is room for more and if you see something that our region needs and isn’t currently doing, step up and do it!

Judge Data

Total Judges: 349 (340 in 2016, up 2.6%)

Level	Current	End of 2016	Change %	% of Region
1	297	285	+4.2%	85.1%
2	49	52	-5.7%	14%
3	3	3	0%	0.9%

This data was pulled from Judge Center before it’s down time and then compared to JudgeApps. There are still probably some discrepancies between Judge Center and JudgeApps that are not accounted for here.

What does this data tell us? We have some solid growth in Level One judges but have not seen that translate into Level Two advancement. With developments in Conferences for 2018 along with a stronger push on Mentorship I believe that we will see growth at Level Two as well as Level One.

It also tells us that we haven’t seen any growth in Level Three since 2015. There are a few great candidates and I strongly believe that we will see growth in Level Three for 2018. Our region still is a great place where judges can work their way to the highest levels in the program.

Judge Apparel

Thanks to the efforts of Randy Tice, we have official Great Lakes judge shirts and Name Tags! We will be opening the store in the next few weeks so if you haven’t gotten your official Great Lakes judge shirt or if you want a shirt to represent the best region, your chance is coming! Look for announcements on the Great Lakes Magic Judges Facebook Group and Slack.

Slack

Our Regional Slack has been amazing for bringing together our region. We have had great discussions on rules, policy, and ways to make our region better. With the loss of PTQs it is getting harder and hard for judges to gather and share knowledge. If you haven’t tried Slack yet, visit our blog and request an invite!

Where We Are Going

This is my first state of the region and I want to set some clear goals for our region moving forward. I believe that in pushing forward toward accomplishing each of these goals we will be positioning our region to do amazing things!

Judge Advancement

For Level Three advancement, I would like to see a 67% growth (2 new Level Three). Having more Level Three judges will give more opportunities for judges of the Great Lakes region to interact with the higher levels of the program. This will also further support Regional Pro Tour Qualifiers in our region.

For Level Two advancement, I would like to see a 20% growth (10 new Level Two). Having more Level Two judges will assist with burnout associated with PPTQs and allow other Level Two judges to pursue other goals in the judge program. This also helps with developing more Level One judges in the region.

Regional Projects

In January we moved from Area Captains to Regional Projects. Unfortunately our Regional Projects have been a bit hit or miss. With that in mind I am refocusing our Regional Projects for 2018!

Our Regional Projects for 2018 are…
Conferences lead by David Elden
Mentorship lead by Meg Baum
Communication lead by Alex Smith

In the upcoming months each of these project leads will post articles outlining their project’s visions and goals along with recruiting for their individual projects!

You may have noticed that Next Step and TO Relations are missing from this list. In discussion with the Project Leads and Level Threes I decided to roll Next Step into Mentorship since those two projects were very closely related and sunset the TO Relations project. The TO Relations project was filling a very niche role that was already being covered by Level Twos in their respective communities however, Patrick Nelson will still continue on helping to maintain a regional PPTQ scheduling document and the PPTQ winners documents to ensure that no PPTQs are canceled because a store could not find a judge.

Community

Bringing together the Great Lakes judge community is a big deal to me. To that end I will be hosting monthly townhall meetings via a TBD online platform. These townhall meetings will be to announce any major changes in the program, upcoming large events in the region, and anything that the participants want to discuss. Anyone is welcome to come by and chat! As always, I’m still available through virtually every means of communication.

In Closing

I would be remiss if I didn’t say thank you to Jarrod Williams. He has been a solid Regional Coordinator while setting up a new region which very few people in the program have ever had to do. He rose to the challenge and has set me up for success in more ways than I can count. Jarrod has been a great friend and mentor through the Regional Coordinator selection process and during his time as the Great Lakes Regional Coordinator. I could ask for no better partner in crime than him during this transition! Thank you!

Again, I am extremely excited to be the newest Regional Coordinator regeneration for the Great Lakes Region. This is one of the highest honors that can be given in the judge program and I will do my best to work hard for each and every one of you. I look forward to all the amazing things that we will accomplish together in the next year!

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this document or anything please feel free to reach out to me. You can contact me on Facebook, Twitter @zombijudge, Email john.temple3@gmail.com, Slack @temple, or text me at (386) 292-9958.

Thank you all for your continued efforts,

John Temple
Regional Coordinator – USA Great Lakes

USA Great Lakes Judges

State of the Region 2018