From tygrcwby at hotmail.com Thu May 12 11:02:45 2005 From: tygrcwby at hotmail.com (Tyger) Date: Thu May 12 11:02:52 2005 Subject: [mfm_performance] Skunky Skuttlebutt - Mephit Furmeet Spring Newsletter Message-ID: SKUNKY SCUTTLEBUTT - You ain't seen nothing yet! Mephit FurMeet 2005 Newsletter http://www.mephitfurmeet.org NOTE: MFM is not responsible for the content on external websites. Want to contact a MFM staff member? The web page has the completely directory! In this issue: Announcing MFM 2005 and our Guest of Honor Celebrating Life Hotel Information Registration Updates Need Meeting Space? Tiger Haven Cookbook Part 2. Tiger Haven Charity Auction LAN Gaming Video Room T-Shirt Contest Dealers Den Program Book Mailing Lists and Message Boards Programming MFM Masquerade Dance/Karaoke Travel Information --=={ 9 Lives, baby! }==-- Entering its ninth year, MFM 2005 will take place over Labor Day weekend, from September 2nd through 4th. Our guest of honor this year will be John "The Gneech" Robey, creator of the webcomics "Suburban Jungle," and the now-retired "NeverNever." --=={ Celebrating Life }==-- Each and everyone of us has a lot to be thankful for in our lives. We have friends, mentors, partners, spouses, animal companions that we see every day or that have gone on to better places. This year at MFM we will, though our Spirituality Track have something special to remember those that are important to us. While not something that everyone has to participate in, this will give those that want to, a chance to remember the happy times. A chance to say thank you for those special imfluences in our lives. More details to come soon on this. For opening ceremonies, we'll once again have a video trip through past MFMs, which will incorporate the "Celebrating Life" theme. What we want to know is what comes to your mind when you hear this phrase. Email Tyger at mfmdirector@hotmail.com with your special thoughts --=={ Hotel Information }==-- We will once again be at the Holiday Inn Select Memphis Airport (http://www.hiselect.com/mphs-int'lapt). The room costs will be the same as last year: $89 plus tax per night for regular rooms, and special rates for suites. (sold out but waitlist started for suites) We will once again have exclusivity of the hotel for our weekend! Beginning on MFM Friday we will be the only group in the hotel! Pricing for the buffets in the Memphis Belle Restaurant remain the same: $6.95 breakfast buffet all weekend, $7.95 lunch buffet all weekend, $10.95 dinner buffet on Friday/Sunday (all prices do not include applicable taxes or gratuities). Coffee/Iced Tea/Fountain Drinks are included in the pricing. So with this announcement, the MFM hotel room block is now open for reservations! You can make your reservations by emailing hotel @ mephitfurmeet.net or mfmdirector @ hotmail.com or calling Tyger Cowboy at 800-653-6524. Please only book through these means as the hotel won't accept direct reservations for the MFM rate --=={ Register for MFM }==-- Registration for MFM 2005 is now underway! You can register online at our website. Please note that this is the only way to pay via credit card for your registration. Register before July 31, 2005, and you can attend for $35. That's $5 off the at-the-door price. SUPPORTING: Includes a t-shirt mailed to you. Does NOT include a membership for you to attend the convention but does allow you to pay a reduced price of $20 at the door for a total admission of $35.) $15 ATTENDING: Includes a free t-shirt and admission to the ice cream social. Until Aug 1st, 2005, cost is $35. $40 thereafter and at the door. SPONSORSHIP: Includes a limited edition print by our GOH, and a special thank you gift. Cost is $60. SUPERSPONSORSHIP Includes everything above AND your print is framed, you get a cocktail party with the GOH, Rog Minotaur, AND a special Supersponsor shirt. Cost is $100. You can register at http://www.mephitfurmeet.net/register.php and pay via credit card through PayPal, or you can download a registration form at http://www.mephitfurmeet.net/regform.txt and mail your registration in. Please remember, all attendees MUST present photo identification (driver's license, passport, college or military I.D.) when registering/checking in at the event. There will be ABSOLUTELY NO EXCEPTIONS MADE. Also anyone under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian or have a notorized letter giving them permission to be at MFM (email mfmdirector@hotmail.com with any questions) Registration will be open until 2 P.M. on Saturday and 12 P.M. on Sunday this year. If you arrive after this time, please track down a staff member and we will get you registered. One day memberships will be available at the door for $20 per day. This will not include a T-Shirt. We will not be taking pre-registrations for these. --=={ Share Your Interests With Others }==-- MFM recognizes the diversity in interests among its attendees. In an effort to provide folks with special interests with a place to meet and greet, MFM will allow groups to make use of its unused space, free of cost, to its attendees. For more information, please contact Tyger Cowboy. This will be provided on a 'first come, first served' basis. --=={ Tiger Haven Cookbook }==-- MFM 2004's Cookbook, "Put a Tiger at your Table" was such a success; we're doing a second edition! "Big Cat Cuisine" is tentatively scheduled to be available at MFM 2005. If you are interested in contributing artwork or recipes, please contact Tahamaki. --=={ Tiger Haven Charity Auction }==-- MFM is pleased to be the largest single group contributor for our benefit organization Tiger Haven http://www.tigerhaven.org and we will be continuing our efforts to help a very worthy cause. We are currently looking for donations and also auction assistants...please contact our Auction Coordinator - Hikaru at hikaru@ic-stories.com --=={ LAN Gaming Information }==-- Once again this year, MFM will be featuring LAN gaming. Bring your machine and participate in a free-for-all-furry-fragfest! The LAN will have (at least) limited Megabit support this year. We'll also have some new games. Currently this includes the obvious Half-Life 2 and related mods like C-S Source, and we'll be playing Armada 2! There will certainly be lots of Q3, TFC and C-S. We'll probably also be playing Quake 2 Co-op(with werewolves ect.) and Natural Selection. Expect to see other games as well. Requests are welcome. We are also planning a couple exhibition matches you won't want to miss. More details on these in the near future. --=={ Video Room }==-- Your loyal Furs from the Video Room are working on putting together a surprise. We'll be posting a 'poll' on the homepage where YOU can look over the videos currently available for the Video Room and vote on the ones you want most to have shown at MFM this year. Or, if you have a video that you don't see posted, you can offer to bring it with you. Hopefully this will allow us to post the video schedule WITH the program rather then do it on a day-by-day basis as in the past. Keep your eyes peeled for the official announcement then let us know your desires. --=={ T-Shirt Contest }==-- The rules for 2005's T-Shirt Contest are: 1) What's up for grabs? There are three chances for your artwork to be selected for MFM's T-Shirts. **Attendees Choice - The winner of the Attendees Choice will have their artwork featured on the front of the MFM T-Shirts. This is chosen by you, the attendees (natch). **Director's Choice - The winner of the Director's Choice will be featured on the back of the MFM T-Shirt **Staff Choice - This will be chosen by the staff and be featured on their staff shirts (This year, we're doing Bowling Shirts) Each winner will receive a free attending membership. 2) Who is eligible to enter? Everyone! To be fair to all artists, we are putting in a requirement this year that the winner of the previous year's Attendees Choice will not be eligible for this year's Attendees Choice. They will still be allowed to enter, and may be considered for either the Director's Choice or Staff Choice. 3) What do I submit? The overall rating for the piece should be a "G" to "PG" rating - if you wouldn't wear it in your elderly grandmother's house, don't put it on your entry! The piece must feature a skunk as the main subject or subjects. It should also bear either "Mephit FurMeet" or "MFM" as well as the year or corresponding anniversary number (i.e.: 2005 or 9). Two versions of the entry will need to be uploaded - one for display/voting, and a second, higher-resolution piece for use should that entry win or be selected for other use by a member of staff. Display Piece: No more than 800 x 600, black and white. This display piece should not contain a signature to show who created this (We will go into more detail on this later). Artists need not worry about misuse of their artwork, as this piece will be watermarked by the staff as being an MFM T-Shirt Entry prior to being placed on the website for display. The "Display Piece" should be submitted as a .JPG or .GIF. Final Piece: This will be the actual artwork used by our printing company to make the t-shirts, or the staff should your piece be used in any other function. This finished work SHOULD contain a signature which will appear on the t-shirt. The recommended dimensions are at least 10 inches high at 300 dots per inch or higher. The "Final Piece" should be submitted in Adobe Illustrator (.ai) format, although TIFF or EPS will also be acceptable. This is by request of our printer that it be sent as Illustrator format. When the artwork has been received, you will be notified within 72 hours that it was received. If you did not receive a notification within 72 hours, please do not resend your email, but instead a follow up to see if it was received and the administrator of the contest just plain forgot *grin*. 4) Display of artwork Once again, we will be running a 'blind' contest. We will only display the title of the piece, not who the creator is. By doing this, we hope to make the contest fairer by making everyone choose the submission based upon the piece itself, not the artist. Voting will be the same as in previous years - commencing for one week, after which votes determined to be ineligible will be discarded and the design which gets the majority of valid votes will be the winner. After voting has finished and the director's choice has been selected, the t-shirt entry page will be updated with the names of the artist who submitted each entry. 5) When do you need it? Cutoff Date for Submitting Entries is 11:59 PM Central time on Saturday, July 16, 2005. 6) Other things. Each artist may enter up to three pieces for inclusion in the contest. The administrator of the contest shall abstain from voting. The rules for voting will remain the same as in past years, where for a vote to be valid, the corresponding email address must be subscribed to one of Mephit FurMeet's mailing lists. IP Addresses will be logged, and MFM reserves the right to disqualify multiple votes from the same IP. 7) Some stuff you need to know (Better read it, it affects you!) By submitting an entry to the Mephit FurMeet T-Shirt contest, you are granting Mephit FurMeet and its parent corporation, Mid South and Tennessee Anthropomorphic Arts Association (MST3A) an irrevocable, non-exclusive license to use the entry for promotional purposes. The original creators of the work are permitted to use the work in their own portfolios and promotions. Mephit FurMeet and MST3A reserve the right to review all entries and not allow any entry that it deems inappropriate (i.e.: drug/alcohol references, violent or sexual content, or possible trademark/copyright violations). MFM shall in no way be responsible for entries that are lost in transit, either via email or postal service. If we do not receive an entry before an established cutoff date, the entry will not be included in the contest. --=={ Dealer's Den }==-- Dealers' tables are available at the following rates: $25 for full table / $45 for double table The cost of Dealer's Tables do not include Membership. For more information, please contact Cutter McCoy. Don't delay, tables will fill up quickly. --=={ Program Book }==-- Want to contribute a story or artwork to our Program Book? Get in touch with Sheve via email at conbook( @ )mephitfurmeet.net Want to Advertise in the program book? Great! Here's the lowdown on costs: Inside the book: $40 for a full page $25 for a half page $15 for a quarter page Cover Ads (Full page only): $50 inside covers $75 outside rear cover Advertisements should be in black & white or grayscale. Ads can be either emailed or sent by postal service. Payment for advertisements should be remitted to our main address (provided at the end of this message) Ad space will be done on a first-come, first-served basis. To check availability, consult with Sheve. --=={ Mailing Lists }==-- General chat for those interested in or attending MFM 2005 can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mfm-chat We also have direct mailing lists for news and related posts regarding MFM. This information can be found on our website. Also on our website is a new and improved message board system where you can post your thoughts. --=={ Programming }==-- Want to share your knowledge? If you would like to take on the task of heading up a panel, email the name and a brief description of your panel to our programming director, Delphinios. Contact Information can be found at our website. Here are the updates from MFM's Track Leaders: Spirituality: Legacy and I are very excited about this year's panel line-up. Last year we had great success with "Therianthropy Through the Ages" and the kitsune panel. We will be retooling "Therianthropy Through the Ages" to focus on a particular culture (still to be determined) and looking at therianthropy within the culture from a historical point of view before tying it into modern spiritual views. This year's mythical animal panel is "Dragons". The focus will be historical background with personal experiences added by the panelists. Also returning this year is the meditation panel. We learned a lot about what did and did not work last year and will be dividing this panel into two one hour sessions. The first session will be discussion of meditation techniques and the second half will be an actual meditation putting those techniques into practice. We're hoping for a more comfortable atmosphere in which to do it this year so that folk can stretch out or lie down as needed. Suggestions for other panels are still needed. Please submit them to either myself or Legacy for consideration. Fursuiting: On track for this year are the Fursuit Social, an informal meet and greet panel. All Fursuiters are encouraged to attend and find out more about the weekend's fursuit activities. We will also have information on Fursuit construction and performance, as well as the Fursuit Parade. Last year, we had 70 Fursuiters in the parade. How many will we have this year? Also don't forget the Fursuit Games! This is an event that shouldn't be missed! Fun for participants and spectators alike! --=={ MFM Masquerade }==-- As always, no MFM would be complete without the Masquerade! This year we have a special challenge to our performers to come up with a "50's theme" act. Let's see just how creative and warped their minds are. --=={ Dance/Karaoke Information }==-- This year's dance will be a prom theme. Bring a date and dance the night away. We will also be doing Furry karaoke again this year. --=={ Fly, Drive, Stay }==-- UNIGLOBE Professional Travel, as the "Official MFM Travel Agency", has secured for the Mephit FurMeet the following discounts, we will also be happy to book travel for any of the attendees. Hotel: The Official Mephit Fur Meet Hotel is the Holiday Inn Select Memphis Airport. http://www.hiselectmemphisairport.com . The hotel is pleased to offer a rate of $89 per night single/double/triple/quad occupancy for the period of September 2nd - September 7th Like years previous, to insure the accuracy of reservations, all reservations must be made through UNIGLOBE Professional Travel. To make reservations, contact Tyger Cowboy at 314-962-3330 (St. Louis local), 800-653-6524 or furtravel( @ )hotmail.com . All reservations must be made through the office to get the MFM discount. The hotel offers a free airport shuttle and is going to offer the reasonably priced buffets to the MFM attendees like we had last year. Any questions about the hotel or accommodations, he would be more than happy to answer! Car: National Rental Car Systems will provide MFM attendees a minimum discount of 5% for any rentals used for MFM. To book this discount they should use the discount number of 5435776. National does not charge an additional driver fee for spouses/domestic partners. Air: Northwest Airlines and Continental Airlines are the official airlines of Mephit FurMeet. To book your reservations, (internet bookings are not eligible for the discount) call Norwest Airlines directly, UNIGLOBE Professional Travel at 800-653-6524 or email at furtravel( @ ) hotmail.com and you will receive a 5% discount off the lowest applicable discount fare, including first class, or a 10% discount off full fare unrestricted coach fares, purchased 7 days in advance. We will be posting the special MFM code in the next few days (Northwest had an oops) An additional 5% discount will apply when tickets are purchased at least 60 days in advance of your travel date. Make sure you mention MFM and give Norwest your code when you book your reservation.