Midwest FurFest July Newsletter

Greetings to all! Can you believe that Midwest FurFest 2002 is only 4 months away?! Our ConCom is well aware of this, and if you look closely, I think you can probably see our hair going grey right in front of your very eyes!
Even though 4 months may seem like an eternity to most of you, those
of us on staff are busy trying to pull together the pieces needed to
present to you the best MFF ever. Here are the latest items of
interest:

Online Registration
Hotel Reservations
Gopher Requests
Charity Auction Information
Con Suite Taking Shape
The Return of 2: The Ranting Gryphon
Dance Dance Revolution Redux
Drug Policy
Mailing Lists
Contacts

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ONLINE REGISTRATION
Yes, you read that correctly. In the very near future, you will
be able to register online for MFF2002. We are working night and
day (work with me here!) to put together a registration system
that will use PayPal to allow you to register online. We want to
make sure that we've got all the bugs worked out before we open
it up to you, though, so look for it in the next few weeks. Keep
your eyes on the official website ( http://www.furfest.org/ ) for
more information.

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HOTEL RESERVATIONS
The hotel is currently taking reservations. Make yours now, avoid
the rush, gurantee yourself a room in our luxurious hotel! Hotel
information is listed below:

Hyatt Regency Woodfield
1800 E. Golf Road
Schaumburg, IL 60173
USA
Tel: (847) 605-1234

Room rate is $85 a night (mention that you are with FurFest). If
you have any problems whatsoever, please report them to our Hotel
Liaison.

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GOPHER REQUESTS
The con can't happen without the help of multitudes of volunteers.
So we're putting out the call early for those of you who are
willing to donate some time to help us out. If there's a
particular area you'd like to help with, let us know, and we'll
do our best to accommodate you. And remember, gophers get
rewards! Anyone who works at least 2 hours gets access to the
gopher hole, with first-come-first-served sleeping space and
facilities. Other benefits and rewards will also be available
for those working more hours, and anyone who works at least 10
hours over the course of the weekend has the option of having
their registration fees reimbursed or rolled over to the next
year. See below for contact information.

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CHARITY AUCTION
Once again, our charity auction will be benefitting Animals for
Awareness, a local no-kill facility dedicated to helping exotic
animals in need. Please
consider donating something to the charity. Artists-- draw
pictures. Other creative types, donate a sample of your work.
Stuffed animals, books, comics, recipes, computer games, posters,
toys, and, yes, even services (please remember that this is a
Family Friendy con, though!) are acceptable. Please contact our
charity auction coordinator if you have any questions or
suggestions!

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CON SUITE TAKING SHAPE
Midwest Furfest has one of the best con suites in furry fandom.
Don't believe me? Ask our attendees! We're in the process of
pulling together menus and shopping lists for this year's con
suite, so if there's something specific that you'd like to see
made available, please us know. If there was something served
in the past that you thought simply rocked, then be sure to let
us know that, too. If you have unusual allergies, mention that,
as well. We can't make any guarantees, but we'll do our best to
be accommodating.

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THE RETURN OF THE RANTING GRYPHON
Midwest Furfest 2001 saw the debut of one of the hottest acts to
hit the fandom-- 2, the Ranting Gryphon. Since his debut at
MFF2001, he has performed at other cons to an increasing number of
fans. We at Midwest Furfest are proud to announce that 2 will be
returning to the lineup for MFF2002 (2 in 2002!). We promise to
put him in a larger room this year!

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DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION REDUX
It's hip. It's rad. It's cool. It's tiring! But it's all the
rage... and it'll be at Midwest Furfest! Those of you at
Anthrocon *must* have noticed the crowds of people gathering to
bounce around to the tunes of dance music wafting from the
consoles of a couple of game systems. AC put together a
tournament for those interested in competition at DDR. It was
such a success that Midwest Furfest is shamelessly stealing...
er... borrowing the idea! We've got the same group of people
coming in to run the competition, so put on your dancin' shoes
and get hoppin'!

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DRUG POLICY
After recent events at Anthrocon, we would like to emphasize our
long-standing policy on this matter. Anything illegal outside the
convention is still illegal inside the convention. If you are
caught possessing, using, or dealing any sort of illegal drugs,
your badge will be pulled. THERE WILL BE NO WARNINGS! Also, as a
reminder, alcohol consumption is prohibited in conspace; take it
to your room.

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MAILING LISTS
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

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CONTACT INFORMATION:
Art Show artshow@furfest.org
Charity Auction auction@furfest.org
Dealer Room dealers@furfest.org
Gophers gophers@furfest.org
Hotel Liaison hotel@furfest.org
General Info info@furfest.org
Newsletter mffnews@furfest.org
Operations ops@furfest.org
Parties parties@furfest.org
Programming programming@furfest.org
Registration registration@furfest.org
Webmaster webmaster@furfest.org

Other contacts are also listed on our website.

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

http://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 2002