Greetings, friends! I’m David Elden, and I’m the head of the Great Lakes judge conference project for 2018. Judge conferences are one of my favorite parts of the judge program, and I’ve been a frequent attendee and presenter over the past few years, so I was excited to take over this responsibility for our region. We have a lot of exciting changes planned for conferences next year, so I want to take some time to share what you can expect.

More conferences

The biggest change you’ll notice is that there will be more judge conferences. There will be 12 conferences in 2018, one in each calendar month. That figure doesn’t count community conferences (more on those later), which will operate independently. It’s my hope that this change will increase interest and attendance at judge conferences by making them more available to judges who can’t or don’t want to travel long distances. And, you know, let people go to more conferences because there will be more of them.

To complement the increase in conferences, we will be dividing the 12 conferences next year into the following categories:

Regional Conference (1 per year; 125 attendees, including 8 presenters and 1 organizer)

This will be a large, regionwide conference with the expectation that judges will travel from all over the region to attend. The Regional Conference will feature multiple presentation tracks and will feature content designed to appeal to the widest audience possible. With so many judges in one area, the networking opportunity inherent in this conference will be emphasized. This would also be a great time for regional leadership to make announcements, introduce projects, and field questions about program change and philosophy. The Regional Conference for 2018 will be held in July in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Area Conference (4 per year, 1 per quarter; 30 attendees, including 5 presenters and 1 organizer)

Area Conferences will be medium-sized conferences, with the expectation that judges will travel from within the state to attend. Each state will have one Area Conference per year. Organizers for these conferences will be selected on the basis of established leadership and demonstrated ability to manage projects. These organizers will have discretion to implement a traditional seminar/workshop based structure or an alternative structure such as a “worst tournament ever” (more on these later) according to his or her perception of area needs. Any alternative conference structures must be approved by the conference project lead. The first Area Conference in 2018 is scheduled for February in Columbus, Ohio.

Local Conference (7 per year; 17 attendees, including 4 presenters and 1 organizer)

Local Conferences will be aimed at developing skills of judges in a city and its surrounding area. As such, they will be smaller and more intimate than Area Conferences. Regional leadership will invite judges to host Local Conferences based on regional development goals. Remaining slots will be filled by an application process which will be open to judges throughout the region. The conference coordinator will establish a timeline so that organizers will know approximately when they should expect to complete tasks and so that regional leadership can confirm that the conference organization is proceeding according to schedule. The first Local Conference in 2018 will be held on January 27 in Lexington, Kentucky. You can apply to this conference on JudgeApps here.

More conference types

In addition to the familiar lecture- and workshop-based conferences you’ve all come to know and love, we will be introducing two new conference types:

Community Conferences

In an effort to improve community on a state level in our region, community gatherings and meetups will take on a larger role as officially sanctioned judge conferences in 2018. Here is how they will work:

Each state will have four Community Conferences each year, one per quarter. These conferences will be a chance for discussion of issues important to the state, exchange of ideas, planning of initiatives and projects on a state level, networking, and community building. Attendance will not be restricted based on level. Any judge who wishes to be a part of that area’s judge community can come. In an effort to make such conferences more accessible to all judges, it is required that no city play host to more than two official Community Conferences throughout the year. It is recommended that all four Community Conferences be held in different cities for maximum penetration. These rules do not exclude additional meetups, but foils will only be awarded for participation in the four officially designated Community Conferences in each state.

One judge per state will assume the role of organizer for that state’s Community Conference series. This judge will be responsible for the duties listed below. Any of these may be delegated, and should be, for example, if the organizer will not be able to attend one of the officially designated conferences.

• Scheduling and securing a venue for each conference
• Keeping a record of which judges attend each conference. These records will be used for foil distribution at the end of the year
• Submitting a record of the proceedings of each conference to the regional coordinator (John Temple)

These conferences will be foil supported in the following way:

• Any judge who attends at least two meetings will receive one pack of judge foils.
• Any judge who attends all four meetings will receive an additional pack of judge foils.
• Each state’s organizer will receive an additional pack of judge foils.
• All judge foils will be awarded at the end of the year.

Worst Tournament Ever conferences

After great successes of similar programs in our and other regions, “Worst Tournament Ever” Conferences will be an official option for Area Conference organizers in 2018. Rather than utilizing traditional lectures and workshops, a WTE Conference is designed to give judges firsthand experience with situations that might arise in actual practice by simulating a real tournament environment. For a more detailed overview of how such a conference will look, check out this tournament report.

Conferences run as WTE conferences will be considered JTQ’s, and as such will count as a Competitive REL experience for the purposes of L2 advancement. The first WTE conference is scheduled for February in Columbus, Ohio.

More communication

My vision is for judge conferences in our region to achieve a level of standardization and professionalism that you would expect to see from an experienced tournament organizer at their flagship events. I believe solid communication is the key to doing that. I will have a special Facebook chat with the conference organizers specifically dedicated to sharing our ideas and experiences running conferences and for planning improvements in future conferences. If you are considering volunteering to be an organizer, or even if you’re just interested in what type of planning goes on behind the scenes to make this all happen, I invite you to join in too. Your ideas and feedback are valuable, and I want it to be as easy for you to share them as possible. Just send me a JudgeApps message or private message me on Facebook if you want to join in!

More involvement

I know this is an ambitious plan, with a lot of major changes from how we’ve done things in the past. I know we can take our region’s conferences to heights we’ve never even dreamed of before, but I also know that I can’t do this alone! I need your help! If you want to help out, send me a message on Facebook or JudgeApps. Here are some examples of ways you might help out:

• If you want to organize a conference
• If you have an idea for a conference presentation or workshop you’d like to see
• If you would like to join in the Judge Conferences Discussion chat
• If you have feedback for how we might improve future judge conferences in our region
• If you just love judge conferences like I do and want to do something, but you’re not exactly sure what yet

In the year 2018, we might not have flying cars or robot butlers, but there’s one thing we will have: Awesome judge conferences that make us the envy of every other region! We have a lot of positive changes planned for next year, and I hope all of you are as excited as I am about them.