In the weeks since Suomen Magic-tuomarit ry was founded, we’ve been slowly putting together the pieces that are needed for a full launch, and it’s time to give a public update – in English, since the topic may be of interest to judges in other countries.
Membership and fees
Our membership fee for the first year will be 20 EUR for regular members, 10 EUR for supporting members, and 100 EUR for supporting organizations. We believe this membership fee is reasonable for the benefits we offer, and we are small enough that it should cover our operational costs. The membership fee will be decided by the annual general meeting.
“Regular members” are judge members. It is possible to be a regular member without being certified, as long as you are actively involved in judging and events (so this option might make sense for scorekeepers, for example).
“Supporting members” are people who are interested in supporting our mission, but who are not involved in judging. They do not have voting rights, but they can attend the general meeting. This category might include retired judges, players, or others who simply want to support what we’re doing. “Supporting organizations” might include stores or tournament organizers.
Levels and testing
Finnish tournaments are relatively small – we are, after all, a nation of 6 million people spread over a large geographic area. Tournaments of several hundred players simply do not exist here, and we don’t need many judges who can handle large events with large judge teams.
Finland mainly needs Level 1 judges for casual in-store events, Level 2 judges for small competitive events, and Level 3 judges to lead at bigger competitive events and to mentor other judges. We have taken Judge Foundry’s definitions of these levels as a starting point, and made some adjustments for the Finnish market. Our Level 2 and Level 3 are going to be less focused on big multi-day events, and we want to include the Nordic convention scene. For Level 3, we do want to require some international experience because we believe it’s valuable, but we don’t think a Finnish Level 3 is going to need experience with all aspects of multi-day events if their main interest is the local scene. For example, Finnish events almost never offer on-demand-events on a large scale.
But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have judges who are interested in large events and international judging. We want Finnish judges to have a path to the highest levels of judging, where they will work with judges from other organizations. This is why we intend to follow Judge Foundry’s example and include Levels 4 and 5 in our system. The actual requirements for these levels probably need to be adjusted to the European tournament scene, where we have less big events. We hope to discuss these requirements with other European judge organizations later, as testing/interviewing for these levels will also require help from other organizations.
For testing in general, we intend to go back to the pre-Judge Academy system of in-person paper exams. Online exams may be arranged for extremely remote candidates who cannot test in person. Exam content will most likely be licensed from another organization; we have a preliminary agreement about this.
Launch when?
At the moment, we are hoping to launch sometime in January or early February. The main obstacle is setting up a bank account; we want to choose the most reasonable option for our small organization. Once that is done, we will set up a membership application form with instructions to pay the fee. Membership applications will then need to be approved by the board.
Current Judge Academy judges will join Suomen Magic-tuomarit ry at their current level. Former Judge Academy members and pre-Judge Academy judges will need an activity check to confirm that they’re still performing at their previous level, or they may choose to join as uncertified members.
While Suomen Magic-tuomarit ry is intended for Finnish residents, and uses Finnish as its official language, we will consider applications from Estonia and the other Baltic countries, which are likely too small to have their own organization. At this time we will not consider applications from countries that already have their own organization, or are in the process of setting up one.
Full details of our level system and membership application process will be published later. In the meantime, if you wish to contact us, you can e-mail our chairperson Johanna at [email protected].
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