My, it’s been quiet here lately, hasn’t it?

Most of you probably know why. For the last eleven (!) years I have been a staff member for Midwest FurFest. After serving as chairman for the last two years, this year I moved into the position of Hotel Liaison while my husband takaza took over as chairman. Now, being Hotel Liaison is no picnic anyway, but this was our first year at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare and that introduced all kinds of new complexities – learning how to use the function space, establishing lines of communication, negotiating contracts and expenses, and a slew of other duties. Hotel Liaison is one of the few 12-months-a-year jobs with the convention (most department heads’ duties kick in maybe 4-6 months before the con) and in the final month before the convention I was easily spending 20-30 hours per week on convention-related tasks. Thus the lack of updating.

So. The convention happened. How did it go?

It. Was. Amazing. All of that planning and hard work was worth it. Everything came together extremely well, and when unforeseen hotel issues came up we were able to recover seamlessly and gracefully with no disruption visible to the convention attendees. As for the convention itself, it was a spectacular success. We set an attendance record for us (2,285) and all of the feedback I’ve seen has been almost uniformly positive. Our last year at the Westin was not a good one, and I think that adversely affected our attendance. This year really turned that around. In my experience, conventions can advertise all over, hand out flyers, sit at tables and promote the con, but what will really make you or break you is word of mouth. The word of mouth for MFF after this year is so strongly positive, I think we’re going to see a very strong year next year.

There is absolutely no way I can write a con report – it all went by too fast and there’s just too much. I do want to thank a few folks, though:

• Mirko and Gir, my Hotel Liaison staff. You guys made the con enjoyable for me, and I hope you found the experience as rewarding as I did. I know you had little direction or idea of what you were getting into before the con started, but to be fair I had no clue either 🙂 Special thanks for Gir for stepping in on relatively short notice to help out!
• Although I don’t know if she’ll ever read this, Jen Calderon, our Convention Services Manager at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare did an absolutely sterling job keeping the myriad details in order. She put up with my frequent emails, responded quickly and effectively to inquiries before the con and especially at the con, and showed truly remarkable patience and attention to detail. Every convention should be fortunate to have someone as talented as Jen to work with!
• Perro, RB, and CharlesBear, who provided invaluable support, advice, and communication before and during the convention.
• The many, many MFF staffers who were great to work with, and who made my job easier in the planning stages of the convention.
• And especially Dan, my dear husband. He was Hotel Liaison before me, and was an invaluable source of information. We spent a lot of time figuring the fine line between providing advice and micromanagement, but once I put my ego away and listened to his very sound suggestions, we were both better off for it. I will continue to be grateful for his support, his knowledge, and his love.

(If I forgot to mention you specifically, I assure you that it isn’t because I hate you, it’s more that my brains are still a little scrambled 🙂

So that’s it. I wish I could say that I’ve got a bunch of downtime ahead. I have today off, at least, but after this I go back to work for a day, then we’re hosting Thanksgiving for friends at our place. We are providing coordination assistance for Misti and Joe’s wedding on Friday, but then I’ll have the weekend to collapse. Oh, and Dan’s birthday is December 1st – locals, keep an eye out for an announcement of a fun outing for that coming up! And now that the con is over, we can start making plans for Christmas, and Wuffmeet is right after that! Oh my, I need a nap…

Anyway, I do hope to return to update this journal a bit more often now that I have a little more available time. We’ll see how that goes!