Events Skills Conference Series

Presented by Pastimes 

Some skills are learned best from experiences and interactions with fellow staff at events. For the last year, there haven’t been the opportunities we used to have to polish old skills, gain new skills, and interact with each other. Even with digital events, those opportunities are precious and few.

The Events Skills Conference Series are Judge Academy foil supported conferences presented by Pastimes; designed to create a space for all judges to polish skills gone rusty or get exposure to the kinds of skills and knowledge they would have gained naturally from attending events.

Anyone with a Judge Academy account is welcome to apply, however only certified Judges will receive foils. Sponsorship includes one pack of four promos for each Judge Academy Certified Judge at the Conference. There is no regional lock, nor cap for this event.

The conference will be held over Zoom and Discord. You can join the Discord here. Chats and general conference announcements will happen over Discord, while the lectures themselves will be given over Zoom.

This event will begin at 10 am Eastern US Time and run till about 6 (1800) pm with party to follow.

Presentations & Activities Schedule this month:

10:00 – 10:30– Introductions with Meg Baum
Setting expectations, conference etiquette, and general welcome.

10:30 – 11:30– Feedback in Every Day (and Judging) Life with Ivan Petkovic
Feedback is an essential skill to enable personal growth as well as lead teams. In this seminar participants will learn the basics of giving and receiving feedback, discuss with participants, as well as get practical first steps in personal feedback development journey.

11:45 – 12:45– Being an Ally: Authority, Not Adversary with Sheldon Menery
In his talk Being an Ally: Authority, Not Adversary, former Level 5 Judge Sheldon Menery discusses strategies for judges leveraging their authority for positive player-judge relations in their communities. Set against the backdrop of the judge program’s history Sheldon discusses how significant events and attitudes from the past has shaped how we operate today, and how to raise the bar in the future.

13:00 – 14:00– Lunch and Story Time!
There will be a break halfway through the conference. During lunch, a time-honored tradition will commence of telling stories and bonding with one another. These conferences tend to make ancient beings come forth, elder gods awaken from slumber, and all of us go “hey remember when?”. That can be just as educational as any presentation! Bonding is optional but highly encouraged.

14:00 – 15:00– Toby Doesn’t Talk About Policy with Toby Elliot
Feeling a little rusty? Never got a chance to flex those policy muscles in person? Don’t Panic! Who better to help you get back in the swing of things than the man who wrote it himself! Presentation to be followed by Q&A session.

15:15 – 16:45 – Wizards EventLink and the Magic Companion app with Bill Stark and Alex Green
See description below

17:00 – 18:00 – Applying for Success: A Staffing Managers Panel
A panel-style Q&A with some of the world’s most experienced staffing managers. This will be a panel discussion centered on their experiences as staff managers and their advice on improving your application game for events both online and in person. Any questions asked in this panel will be run through a moderator and submitted (at the latest) the night before the conference; if there is time after submitted questions, any remaining time will be semi-open mic.

1800 – 2200 PARTY and Trivia!
Looking to party in style? Test your Magic knowledge in ways it’s never been tested before, and join us for MTG Judge Trivia with our ineffable host John-Paul Adams! There will be games, raffles, prizes, and various shenanigans! This part is optional but also totally awesome.

We are excited to announce a special guest for this conference!

Bill Stark from Wizards of the Coast will be joining us for a presentation on Wizard’s newest events scorekeeping software, Eventlink!

About the Presenter
Bill Stark has been with Wizards since 2008. A former pro player, he has worked for Magic R&D, the Wizards Play Network, and now the Core TableTop Technology team. He is the product manager for Wizards EventLink and the Magic Companion app.

About the Presentation
Learn about Wizards EventLink and the Magic Companion app, powerful new tools for judges and organizers alike to organize events as we return to in-person play following the pandemic. What are EventLink and Companion? How do you get access to them as a judge? All those questions and more, plus an interactive demo and Q&A session.

We are not taking applications for presenters, but welcome applications to help admin the conference. If you would like to learn how to run your own conference or would like to just learn more about how conferences work I encourage you to apply to help admin this event. I will only be taking a limited number of admins for this event. Admins will receive an additional conference packet.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or prophecies please feel free to email Meg Baum at meg@pastimes.net!

Application will be updated as more information becomes available. Any important updates after acceptances have gone out will come via email.

If you are having troubles applying, please make sure you are logged into Judge Academy 🙂