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Best International Game - Judging Panel for 2008 awards
The Judging Panel for the 2008 Best International Game award consists of:
Neil Fathulla (Chair)
Games have been an integral part of Neil’s life. Whether it was playing traditional games such as backgammon, chess and card games from around the world or watching family members play these games, Neil has spent an inordinate amount of time honing his skills throughout the years to still get beaten by his dad. Neil also complemented his love of traditional games with his love of sports and sport simulation games.
However he gained his love of the fun of gaming from watching family members playing cards and backgammon quite competitively but always with a sense of humour. He brings this love of fun to the game table always looking for the challenge and the laughter.
It wasn’t until University that his game playing flourished and from that time it has grown to an enjoyable hobby he shares with his friends and especially his family.
During daylight hours Neil is an Operations Manager for one of the largest utility companies in Australia.
Carol Witt
Carol Witt has been playing board games for several decades. She began at games nights with her groovy young, single friends, worked her way through to games afternoons with her toddlers and their Grandma, and now finds herself right back at games nights with young, single, 19 year olds - only this time they are her children.
Throughout it all, she has firmly believed that board games are one of the best and most underrated ways of having fun with a group of people - no matter what their ages. This conviction led her, as editor of the parenting publication "Sydney's Child" (and its many associated 'Child' papers), to write and feature articles on board games, write a regular board game review column ('Game for Anything') and to contribute board game articles to "The Good Weekend" and other publications.
Carol currently lives in a very small house that has, as its main claim to fame, walls held up by alarmingly tall, somewhat wobbly, floor-to-ceiling piles of board games. The size of her collection is too daunting to compute, but is undoubtedly, by anyone's standards, substantial.
Giles Pritchard
Giles Pritchard has always had a keen interest in gaming. As a young
teenager he used to collect, paint and play miniatures games like Warhammer
and De Bellis Multidudinus. More recently he has developed a passion
for board games, a passion that has led to writing many reviews, which
appear online on various board game websites as well as game designer
websites.
Giles is a teacher and believes that many modern board games are well suited to today's classrooms as way of scaffolding social interpersonal skills and various other curriculum areas - most notably mathematics skills. Giles has run workshops for teachers and schools on modern games, written guides on games in schools, and has had a role in various game programs in a collection of schools in the Shepparton and Bendigo areas.
Shawn Low
Shawn Low's gaming habit and addiction was sparked at the age of 6 by the seemingly unending aisle of boardgames at Toys R Us. In his teens, a dearth of good games (which coincided with his new found passion for girls) saw him abandon the hobby.
Except for a foray into Magic: The Gathering (which he stopped because his wallet was hurting too much), Shawn only rediscovered boardgaming through Kniza's Lord of the Rings boardgame in 2002.
He hasn't looked back since and enjoys games across all genres (wargames, euros, trick taking, children's, Ameritrash, he plays it all...erm, maybe not Fluxx or Killer Bunnies). He's a member of two local gaming groups (and the co-organiser of one) and has been actively involved in the industry and hobby.
Stefanie Kethers
Stefanie grew up in Germany, and board games have always been part of her life. She has fond memories of playing games like Monopoly, Canasta, Öl für uns alle, and Careers until dawn during family Christmas holidays, and remembers playing King Oil with the neighbour's son and grandfather when she was about five. At university, she got drawn into role-playing and other fantasy-themed games, such as Talisman. She also started to collect games, and her collection numbers around 600. From 1998 until 2003, Stefanie was co-manager of Luding, a large, bilingual online database that links board and card games with game reviews on the Web.
Stefanie worked in Computer Science research for about 12 years. Currently, however, she researches ways to keep her young son happy and occupied. Unfortunately, he is not quite up to board games yet!