With 2015 drawing to a close, I’d like to take this opportunity to summarize the Welcome Wagon’s activities this year. The Welcome Wagon is a project that the Northeast has been using to help bring new judges into the loop. Every new judge of course has a mentor in the L2 who certified them. Our hope has been to provide a few more points of contact, including the judge’s Area Representative, Regional Coordinator, and the Welcome Wagon rep themselves, as well as answering some common questions and helping them feel comfortable as part of the greater Judge Program.

Well, it’s gone quite well, because in our first full year, we’ve welcomed 110 judges to the Northeast – that’s more than two per week! What’s more, a number of those contacts have helped start conversations between these new judges and their Area Representatives or the Welcome Wagon rep, and have helped get those judges involved in the Facebook group and in JudgeApps.

We’ve also seen growth of this project to several other regions. Joe Hughto has led up the effort to share this with other regions, and we know it’s been implemented successfully in several US regions as well as Europe-North. If you’re interested, get your RC involved and contact either Joe Hughto or myself, we’ll be happy to share the assets we’re using here in US-Northeast.

And if you’re a Northeast L2, make sure to use the L1 Advancement Resources hosted here. The Checklist reminds you of all the steps in the process, which are important in order to get your judgeling’s status set up in all the necessary places, and the Welcome Wagon Form is here to let us know where to send the welcome letter – so make sure to get an e-mail address. And if you’ve forgotten for any of your recent certifications, it isn’t too late to go back and enter them now.

Thanks for everything you’ve all done to grow the program in 2015!