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Gwon

“…Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane, Don’t know when I’ll be back again…” - John Denver

Convention season is in full swing for 2011.  Most of you may not notice because a lot of the bigger conventions are still to come, but for Cryptozoic, we have a ton of people out of the office for most of the month of March.  From the US office, Ben Drago and Javier Casillas were in Paris this past week.  A full convention staff worth of employees is at PAX East this weekend in Boston.  The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Trade Show is next week in Las Vegas.  During the weekend of March 18-20, Cryptozoic will also be at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) in the Windy City.

Luckily, we are not sending everyone to everything. As the Volunteer and Community Manager, I drew the straw for GAMA and C2E2. First up is GAMA in Las Vegas.  The trade show is for manufacturers, distributors, and hobby store retailers.  This is one of the first chances that manufacturers can show hobby retailers new and exciting products that are debuting this year.  I can’t tell you what products we will be showing there, what I can tell you is that if I were a betting man, I would bet you would see something new from Cryptozoic. Unfortunately this trade show is not open to the public; if you are interested in being in the know, you should speak to your hobby retailer and find out if they are going to GAMA. If you are a retailer and you would like to chat about the Cryptozoic Judge Program, the Champion of the Black Flame Program, or anything at all really, you can find me on booth #109.

Right from Vegas (before GAMA is over), I will be heading to C2E2 in Chicago.  There we have a booth where you can pick up some product or learn how to play some games. We are also running tournaments in the game area. Beginner Events all three days and a Spectral Safari at noon on Sunday are on the schedule.  If you are at C2E2, be sure to drop by the Cryptozoic booth and say hi. After C2E2, I will be in the Chicago area visiting hobby stores.  Do you know of a hobby store that I should pay a visit to?  Drop me an email (mike.Girard@cryptozoic.com) and I will see what I can do about coming and visiting.  I’m particularly interested in stores that are interested in getting Battlegrounds and other Organized Play programs up and running. 

Hopefully I’ll get to see some of you while I’m out and about for the next 12 days or so.

Champion of the Month

It’s that time of the month again-- no not time to pay the rent.  It’s time to award Champion of the Month!  For February 2011 (mid-Feb to mid-Mar is listed as the month prior to announcement for those that might be confused), we have a Champion who has really stood out both publicly and internally.  She has helped her community to grow by setting up a new store, advertising events in her area, and even laying the ground work for a WoWTCG Cup event to be held in her area.  Setting up those events is no easy task.  It requires a lot of coordination and reaching out to Champions in the area for which qualifiers will be run.  Just a little taste of what our internal guys (Hi Ry!) have to do in order to schedule qualifiers throughout the US.  She has also showed that she can be flexible when it comes to fulfilling duties as needed at big events.

Internally, she has set up and maintained a number of documents and processes that have helped our team out immensely.  Being reliable and accurate has really gone a long way to helping us be more productive on a day to day basis. 

I’m talking about none other than Julia Smith, CZEV #56 out of Austin, Texas.  Julia is part of the Austin volunteer corps that has helped to grow the player base overall in the great state of Texas.  You can find her and the rest of the Austin crew on Facebook at the Austin WoW page. If you are in the Durotar Realm, you can also keep up with all the happenings in that Realm by going to the Durotar page.  For all of her hard work, Julia will receive an uncut sheet and some additional CZE goodies.  Congratulations Julia, keep up the good work and remember…The stars at night, are big and bright…