By: Eric LeBlanc
Louisiana is in a tough position regionally. It is part of the US – South region, and many of its judges are active in the US – Southeast Slack, and even often work in the Southeast. Even though officially they have these two regions to interact within, they are geographically isolated from the majority of judges in both regions. As an isolated area, community growth can pose some significant challenge. I am pleased to have a guest post from Louisiana L2 Eric LeBlanc, describing how his community has developed and grown over the past years, even in the face of this isolation. Eric has been a judge in Louisiana for 4 years, and in that time has become known as a strong voice there. He often is present at US – Southeast conferences, and has a regional presence in both South and Southeast regions. Many of you know that developing such a presence in just one region can be a challenge, so doing it in two is truly impressive.
Community Building
Growing up, Louisiana was always a backwater for Magic. When I started playing competitively in 2010, we had 3 certified judges; none were L2. We had to import judges to run the one Pro Tour Qualifier we had each season (shout-out to David Hibbs for making that drive to Lafayette for us), and could barely staff the floor for it. Five years later, we boast 26 certified judges, with 3 L2s, and we export judges to events all over the country. What changed? We decided we needed to grow.
Our growth story starts with Nick Buras, affectionately referred to as The Judgefather by other Louisiana judges for his massive part in our surging numbers. After certifying for L2 in September of 2011, Nick certified 2 new judges in 3 months. The following year he certified another 7 judges (myself included). In 2013, 3 of those 7 judges in turn made L2. In just 2 years, Louisiana went from 3 L1s spread around the state to 4 L2s and 10 L1s. How were we able to grow so much so fast?
The key thing we found when growing Louisiana’s community of judges is that you need to be proactive; people that want to become judges don’t always know that they want it. I had been functioning as the organizer for my shop’s FNMs for over a year before I found out we had a judge that could certify me. It was only after someone approached me about becoming a judge that I even considered that possibility.
So, how is a judge supposed to be proactive about growing the judging community in their area? It can be as simple as just talking to people.
Talk to stores. If a store is running Organized Play events, chances are someone is acting as a judge, whether they know it or not. This could be one of the players that is interested in how the rules work, an employee, or even the store owner.
Talk to the people at those stores. Once you’ve found who has been functioning as the judge, try to contact them. Find out what they’re doing, what they’re having problems with, and what they find works best for their stores.
Keep talking. We’re not especially spread out here, but we’re far enough apart that we don’t see each other on a daily basis. We counter this by using chat/messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Slack, or even basic text-messaging on our phones.
One of the more difficult parts about our growth was finding enough opportunities for judges to observe and mentor face-to-face. With the old-school Pro Tour Qualifier system, we usually had enough players to get 3 or 4 judges staffed and interacting with one of the L2s, but with the shift to PPTQs, this has been a little harder. The L2s have had to shift to a more one-on-one approach for events, as margins for the stores are much tighter with smaller events. Instead of using these events as our primary means of mentorship, we’ve changed to using small meet-ups outside of events for education and mentorship. We’ve hosted a few mini-conferences targeted at our L1s and candidates, and these have been well-received. We try to target our presentations to things that L1s are likely to need or have requested specifically, like layers of continuous effects, how to deal with problem players, and the basics of how to conduct an investigation.
In large part, Louisiana has grown and stayed a strong judge community because we talk. A lot. In the 4.5 years I’ve been a judge, I’ve written upwards of 100,000 messages to judges, stores, and players involved in our area. Keeping lines of communication open is key when you’re trying to grow your community. So talk to your stores, talk to the people at those stores, and keep talking.
Conclusion
I’m really happy that Eric focused this piece on the importance of communication. One of the tools everyone has–but not everyone avails themselves of–is the ability to keep lines of communication open. Even if you don’t talk to each other all the time, having the lines open to reach out when needed is crucial to the success of any community. More than that, when you keep talking, friendships and camaraderie form. This is the heart of community building. Having people who can serve as sounding boards for new ideas, sanity checks, or just plain someone to talk to about something, can be tremendously useful. In my mind, when I think about this topic, I hear Dory from the Pixar movie Finding Nemo in my head (with a slight change to her words, of course).
Just keep talking, just keep talking, just keep talking…
The Elvish Farmer 