How to start a group

[Atomicat]

So here's the problem....  I just did the usual scan of the new faces (and hello to you all, welcome!) and there's the usual smattering of folk from BC, Alberta, Sask, Ontario.... and none from Manitoba?  As per usual!  So when was the last time someone wandered in here from my home province?

The scene here is dead dead dead and it's killed by the wee little clique' that's front and center out here.  I haven't been to any of the meets for ages and ages, but when I did drop in it was per usual... totally ignored, shut out, non-person, ostracized.  I suspect this is what happens to anyone who's new and doesn't meet certain people's criteria, whatever those might be.  I've also long suspected that there is a large group of people who just don't poke their heads up and this was confirmed this spring when I met a few of them.

One of them who shall remain nameless summed it up this way... (to paraphrase) "They're kids!  No, not young, just immature as hell.  I went to one of their parties and it reminded me of high-school.  They ripped through a bunch of booze as quick as they could, ran around screaming and yelling, and passed out by 1:00."

Yep!  Pretty much spot-on I'd say.  I describe it as anime and video-games, and not much else.  So what's to do?  I'd like to start up another mailing list, group, whatever, but I don't want to start the infamous furry drama or spark any feuding.  So how do I reach those who are hiding in the woodwork so to speak?  Where would I even start and how?  I'd like to start from scratch of course, any ideas?

Atomicat

[Benjamin]

Hmm... Yeah, I can see how that'd make you feel rather ostracised.
Vancouver has a couple of different e-mail lists in their community there, so this is nothing new. From what I had seen of the situation some years ago, they were a bit split between furs who had differing interests within the local fanbase.
I'm not sure what you could do without potentially rocking the boat. Doing your own version of someone else's community project can easily be viewed as being a conflict of interest of sorts. Maybe just do something that generally covers the entirety of Manitoba?
It's a bit of a sticky situation, really.
 
Benjamin

[Atomicat]

I'm not too concerned about rocking the boat as I'm sure the members, new and old, wouldn't be satisfied with the current situation.  I'm more interested in just how I'd go about even starting something!  It's the process that I'm completely ignorant of.  I know you'd have no problems with listing an alternate contact site/list/whatever here but what do I have to do on my end?  I've got a domain and space to host whatever I'd need, but what do I need?  Just how would I go about doing this?  Post a classified in the Free Press?  *grin*

'tomix

[Benjamin]

A lot of the e-mail lists that furs use are done through Yahoo! Groups, it seems. If you want to serve your own, that'd require setting up the appropriate programs on your web server... and it depends as to whether or not your host would permit or host that for you.
Maybe you'd want to do a Manitoba furry forum? If your host lets you use PHP with a MySQL database, you can fairly easily set up a forum much like what we've got here at furry.ca.
 
Benjamin

[Atomicat]

I think my problem is going to be where to post the clarion call for members.  Perhaps in the Canadian Furs LiveJournal community or something, or just well, blanket everywhere and see what happens.  I just ran into two furs in Manitoba via Pounced that didn't even know there was a group in existence.  Ah well, not exactly high priority.  It just bugs the piss out of me that there's all these folk hiding in the woodwork as I say, without any place to go.

'tomix

[Benjamin]

Indeed, there's not a lot of places for some furs to go, it'd seem. Still, the communities are welcome to post their event announcements in the meets and get-togethers forum here so there's a decent place to share 'em. The Sudbury furs tend to post the meets here as it's rather easily accessible for us all... and we're not such a large group that we have much need for a dedicated e-mail list.
It'd be cool to see more meets from all across our nation marked in the calendar on this forum...
 
Benjamin

[Dan Skunk]

Not too much you can do to avoid that kind of conflicting drama.

Like, if the furs there are determined to be tailholes, you're not going to convince them to change. If you make your own site to replace theirs, they'll all call you the tailhole. If you don't make your own site, you choose between being like them and liking what they want and not liking the people they don't like or, doing nothing like you're doing now.

A fur group that's only interested in anime and video games sounds pretty sad to me. Why don't they go join an anime fan group?

Out here around Toronto we have a clique like that ruining things for others. Here it's all about alcohol and drugs and making fun of the uncool furs, and nothing really furry at all. Ironically, the uncool furs seem to be the one's more interested in furry stuff.

I figure if you have a good idea, why not go ahead and start something. If that clique wants to snap at you over it, oh well, it's not like you're loosing anything if they hate you.

As for finding other furry and getting a group together, google can be your friend.

I've found the best way to get to people is getting IM's and e-mails and contacting them directly. Making posts works too, but people miss those.

For the old Toronto Furry web site, I started hitting google with things like "furaffinity ontario" and would go through some furry message boards members list finding furs located in Ontario. After a few months, I had expanded it to an Ontario wide site with over 400 furries listed on it.

http://www.furnation.com/toronto/members/

Oh, and I always contact people before putting their information up. Both to make sure it's actually valid *and* they are comfortable being listed.

In spite of things, we've have managed to get a really nice furmeet going, thanks to Ki Wind giving us the space in his building's party room: http://www.furnation.com/toronto/furmeet/

Last time we had artists and fursuiters and dealers and stuff. Yeah, we still had some games and alcohol too, but that's all fine, we had lots of furry stuff and lots of time to fill up with things to entertain everyone. Everyone had fun and got along really well and it was the most fun I had at a furmeet.