Midwest FurFest September Newsletter

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Hello again from Midwest FurFest...



It's hard to think beyond last Tuesday. We're still astonished at how
so many good people can be taken from us in an instant...and with
them, a good deal of our innocence. May they not have died in vain.
Show the flag and carry on!



Perhaps we can help cheer you up: we're still getting together in
November. We hope you can make it.

There are only a few days left to register for MFF 2001 at the reduced
$30 registration fee. After September 30, the fee rises to $40.
Please do not mail registrations in after November 1 -- we'll be happy
to register you at the door. But to register right now, go to
www.furfest.org and print off a registration form.

Also in this issue:

-- More hotel rooms available...

-- The party floor

-- Programming coming together

-- Art show and auction

-- Dealers' room almost sold out

-- Charity Auction...the donations roll in

-- DJ Foxworth's Beat Bash

-- Video room

-- Furry poetry slam

-- Gophers

-- travel information

-- mailing lists

More hotel rooms available...

After reports of a booked room block, the folks at the Sheraton
Chicago Northwest (AKA the Sheraton Arlington Park) quickly expanded
our block for MFF. There are now more two-bed rooms available, both
smoking and non-smoking. At the moment, single-bed rooms are only
available in smoking, but we hope that will change. Book now, because
the block may fill up again very soon.

The special MFF rate is $79 for up to 4-person occupancy. Suites are
also available for $179 (the regular hotel rate, and be advised that
suites cannot be used for general-admission parties). Call the
Sheraton Chicago Northwest at 847-394-2000 and reserve now. Make sure
you talk to in-house reservations, not the national reservation line.

Art show

Aureth still has plenty of panels available for this year's Art Show
and Auction. But the deadline to reserve panels is the end of
September, so now is the time to get your entries in. You can find
more information at www.furfest.org/events/artshow. Email Aureth at
artshow@furfest.org with any questions.

The party floor

Anyone who wishes to host a party should let us know as far in advance
as possible at parties@furfest.org. Any get-together that includes
public advertising at the con constitutes a party, so if you're
organizing one, we need to know...

Programming coming together

More panels being confirmed even as you read this, and by the end of
the month, you should see the fruits of all our collective labors
appear on our website. Be on the lookout for each track to grow and
flourish -- art and literature, constructed fuzziness (fursuits and
puppetry), spirituality, technology and nature. As we did last year,
we will publish an events grid with provisional times included. We
still are accepting submissions for more programming, but at this time
we cannot guarantee a spot on the grid. However, volunteers are
welcome! For information, contact programming@furfest.org.

Dealers' room almost sold out

Tables in the MFF dealers' room are almost gone, so act soon. The
first table, which includes MFF membership, is $60, and a second table
(no membership included) is $40.

Downloadable versions of the application form and dealers agreement,
as well as further information, are available at www.furfest.org.
There you'll also find a list of dealers who are already signed up for
MFF. Check it out...we have a number of new dealers as well as some
returning favorites.

Any questions about dealer policies, table accessibility and the like
should be directed to Brendan Lonehawk at dealers@furfest.org.

Charity auction...the donations roll in

(Ed. note: At this point, we remain committed to our previously
announced charity, though we are examining how we can balance their
need for assistance with the outpouring of help needed to respond to
the East Coast tragedy. Stay tuned for developments -- and in the
meantime, please give a little to the Red Cross or the United Way's
September 11th Fund.)

We're already getting a very positive response to this year's Charity
Action to benefit the Chicago-area group Animals for Awareness.
Especially promising is the amount of original artwork pledged for the
auction -- keep it up! If you'd like to donate an item, let Mirko
know at auction@furfest.org. And visit animalsforawareness.org to
learn more about all the great things our charity does.

DJ Foxworth's Beat Bash II: The Following

We're doing it again, y'all...DJ Foxworth plays a fun mix of
progressive dance/techno and stuff from the 80's and 90's Saturday
night. He'd love to hear _suggestions_ from you, the dance-goer, for
types of music to play. He's not taking requests per se, but if he has
an idea of what you want to hear, he has an idea of where to go with
it. Forward any suggestions you have to dance@furfest.org.

Video Room

Join Firewing as he shows many of your old favorites and hopefully some
new stuff in this year's MFF video room. He's looking for suggestions
and/or video "donations" from con attendees to help make the video
room quite entertaining -- contact him at video@furfest.org. We may
possibly have a DVD player available as well as a VCR.

Furry Poetry Slam

We're considering doing a furry poetry reading in an open-mic fashion.
It's all about artistic expression and sharing with others. Got
ideas? Tell Jason at dance@furfest.org.

Gophers

They're needed! Even if you can only help out for a couple of hours,
it would be greatly appreciated. All gophers who work at least one
hour will have access to a couple of hotel rooms (first-come,
first-served). In addition, we have incentives at a couple of other
levels, including reimbursement or rollover of registration fees if
you work at least ten hours.

And remember...the gopher who works the most hours over the entire
weekend will be awarded the Super Gopher Award -- an upgrade of their
2002 membership to a sponsorship. And if you contact the Gopher
Wrangler in advance at gophers@furfest.org, you get your first choice
of work times!

Travel information

Air travel is slowly returning to the previous pace, but _slow_ will
be the key word -- slow, methodical security checks and procedures.
As you make reservations for air travel to MFF, keep in mind that
you'll need to appear at your airport well before your flight from now
on. If that's a problem, Chicago is a hub for Amtrak and Greyhound
traffic (you'd need to connect to Arlington Heights by taxi and/or
Metra commuter rail), and the Sheraton has plenty of free parking.

If you subscribe to the MFF-Talk list, Tyger Cowboy (who's a travel
agent) has posted a helpful guide to the new rules, along with special
tips for fursuiters and others with large, checked baggage.

Joined the mailing lists yet?

Midwest FurFest has two mailing lists available: MFF-Announce is for
official announcements only. You should receive only a few messages
per month maximum from this list.

MFF-Talk is a discussion list, a place to ask questions or talk about
Midwest FurFest. The number of messages on this list will depend on
the subscribers. There is also a digest format available for this
list.

You can subscribe to any of these lists by emailing major@furfest.org
with any subject, and in the message put:

subscribe mff-announce or subscribe mff-talk or subscribe
mff-talk-digest

When you subscribe to either list, information will be sent to you on
how to unsubscribe, should you wish to do so later. 'Major'
(Majordomo) is an automated process, you should not send mail to
'major' other than subscribe, unsubscribe, and other commands that
will be explained in your welcome message. Any questions about 'Major'
may be directed to puma@catbox.com

ANY QUESTIONS? Perhaps our website has the answer! It's being updated
by the week, so stay tuned at:

www.furfest.org

It includes contact addresses for many MFF staffers too, as well as a
"who's going" page and pages for ride and room shares.

Midwest Furfest & MFF Newsletter are productions of Midwest Furry
Fandom, Inc 2001