The Room block for ConFurence 2002 (April 26 to April 28, 2002) at the Hilton Burbank Airport has been extended!

However, when extending our room block, the hotel used a different Group Code for making reservations, which is causing some confusion. The old Group Code of "COF" will cause the online reservation system to say that no rooms are available, because our new Extended Room Block is listed now with the 3-letter Group Code of "COG".

We apologize to anyone who had difficulty this weekend booking their room through the Hilton.com online reservation system. Try again with the Group Code "COG" and you shouldn't have any problems.

Selling room nights at the hotel is the only way that our meeting space is paid for, and to Thank those of you who are staying at the hotel, we are offering a Discount on At-door registrations, rolling the price back to $35 if you have a room at the Hilton.

Have your hotel reservation confirmation number handy when you arrive at the convention to show that you have reserved a room, and our registration staff will give you the discount when you purchase your membership.

Somebody is going to die at ConFurence 2002!

Fitting in with this year's theme "Furry Noir" there will be a live-action Role Playing Game (LARP) occurring in the hallways at ConFurence, starting with a murder on Friday.

Posted by Darrel Exline to alt.fan.furry: "The pre-registration deadline [for Confurence] is fast-approaching and this is also the deadline for voting on the Ursa Major awards."

The ConFurence Group is *this* close to having the long-awaited Dealers' info packets and Artists' information forms ready to mail out, along with the latest Progress Report to let you know how our next convention, ConFurence 2002 is coming along.

We have been busily updating our address database and stuffing envelopes for the last two weeks, and are just about ready to drop them all in the mail (probably on Saturday 1/12).

Darrel L. Exline, director of The ConFurence Group is opening up his new house (aka: The Polar Den) for monthly meetings and get togethers for any furries who wish to come and have fun.


The first of these monthly So-Cal Furry Socials will be on Saturday, October 13 from 12Noon to 6pm, immediately followed by the ConFurence discussion/planning meeting starting at 6pm.  Anyone interested in helping with ConFurence 2002 is welcome to stay for the meeting.

The Polar Den is located in Lemon Grove, California, about 6 miles east of Downtown San Diego, along Route 94.  The address, detailed driving directions, and maps are online at polarden.org/directions.htm

The ConFurence Group, headed by Darrel L. Exline, has created a public Yahoo Group to host messages, calendaring, chat, etc. of all topics related to conventions organized by or sponsored by The ConFurence Group. Visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ConFurence to join.

Having just moved into my new home (a 2-story, 4 bedroom house in Lemon Grove, a few minutes East of downtown San Diego) and busily spending all my spare time unpacking and moving in, I am going to combine the August ConFurence meeting with my housewarming party.

Along with the ConFurence's name-change from ConFurence 13 to ConFurence 2002, last year's special Awards for Best Anthropomorphic Motion Pictures and TV Series of the 20th Century are transforming into a new series of annual Awards: the Anthropomorphic Literature & Arts of the Year Awards. (We debated giving them a cute nickname similar to the Oscars, Emmys or Hugos, but it was felt that such a nickname should arise from popular use among the fans rather than being imposed by the administrators.)

Confurence 12. I decided I might as well write up my impressions of it.Overall, I wasn't too disappointed at the con. It could've been better, but it was enjoyable.Specifics first, then more general observations.

Darrel L. Exline announced on alt.fan.furry that the ConFurence Group will be joining the con com of ZoniCon. The full announcment appears below:

Darrell Exline posted the following on alt.fan.furry: "Well, we're still working out the logistical details, but The ConFurence Group can now say that we have THREE (yes, *three*!) furry conventions to brag about.

Adding to our existing "ConFurence" each April (Southern California) and
"CritterConDiego" in July (San Diego), The ConFurence Group is proud to announce that it is now also an organizational part of "ZonieCon" (Tucson, Arizona) in October.

This is something I've been discussing with some of the staff members of
ZonieCon since last October's convention (ZonieCon 3) and I believe that it is a good fit within the goal of The ConFurence Group. Our exact position within ZonieCon's staff is still being nailed down, but is likely to be limited to handling pre-registration, structuring the business model, and helping to organize the convention running process.

The ConFurence Group's mission statement has always been "To promote
anthropomorphic fandom related events" and helping to host ZoniCon certainly fits the bill.

Watch our website at http://confurence.net for more de-tails as they develop"