Cynthia “Cyn” Lettermann

[MnFurs Election Committee]

Tell us about yourself. 

I am originally from the Milwaukee metro area and moved here over twenty years ago. While I sometimes find the area a little bit flat-landerish from what I grew up around, the people and culture are the reasons I stay here.

The part of the culture here that I enjoy the most is the volunteering ethic. The Twin Cities leads the nation in volunteering for our favorite organizations (we know this because we report your hours to the IRS and who then tracks the statistics.). My contributions in volunteering are vast. You have seen me working for Furry Migration, past election committees, Werecamp that is now MidWinter Frolic, MNFurs Board of Directors, MNF Communications, and other Minnesota Furs events. I also volunteered through my former employer for national and international vision clinics from Chicago to Thailand, El Salvador, and Chile. I am currently on the Board of Directors for a local Lions Club where I also served as President, Vice President, Convention Delegate, and the Tornado Relief Committee Chairperson. I also served on the Board of Directors for CONvergence Events and held other positions. I continue to work with and for Biggest Little Furcon,  Anime Twin Cities, the parent organization of Anime Detour, and Anime Quad Cities, the parent of Anime Fusion. You could say service to the community is my thing.

I mentioned eye clinics earlier. I have over 20 years of experience in some form of the optical world from retail stores to manufacturing/wholesale environments. It is there where I developed the skill of listening to people. To hear the things they were not saying directly.

I worked in the college regalia world as an account executive for most of my company’s eastern seaboard accounts. My time working for conventions has given me the foundation to walk schools through timelines and milestones for planning from their gown concepts through to delivery for their commencement day.

At the time I was elected two years ago, I also started college again. It became my COVID-19 project, especially after my job moved to Kentucky and I did not follow it. I finished my Bachelor’s Degree this past August. It is an Individualized Studies degree that focuses on Public Relations and Law.

I hold an Associate Degree in Jewelry Manufacturing and Design, but spend time learning other things in formal and informal settings. I participated in a Public Relations Certificate program that covers everything from Event Planning to Social Media to Fundraising. Card, board, and Role-Playing Games are an avid interest of mine. The mythologies of Japan and Germanic Kingdoms hold my interest and this was even before the anime, Spice and Wolf, came out.

My personal belief is that there is always something more to learn, you just have to go look for it. The world is much bigger, and I want to continue to find my place in it as it changes each day.

What brought you to the furry fandom? 

I came into the Furry Fandom through friends. At the time, I was heavily involved in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Anime conventions. The Furry Fandom dovetailed nicely into my interests and brought a nice mix. Mythology, Anime, music, art, technology all fall into a furry smorgasbord where you can try something new or participate as much or as little as you want. There is almost a fearlessness that some people develop as they can create a fursona to explore avenues that they could not as themselves.

Here, I found a sense of community that supports, encourages, and develops people in the things that interest them. Everyone who comes into this fandom has their own mostly unique reason to be here. It is a safe place to find that thing that may lead away from the fandom, but having that latitude to explore and experiment can be amazing to watch in another person’s journey.

To take that one step further, as a social observer, this fandom is amazing to watch. We have four phases where people have had a shared questioning and wrestled with where they see life, fight for their beliefs, and how they fit into the resulting society. Where Science Fiction or even comic books tend to have a lot of purists that can stunt the growth of those fandoms, the Furry Fandom can continually reinvent itself more easily.

How will you continue to volunteer in the community after being elected to the board? 

In the past, when I was a Furry Migration staff my mantra was always Con or Board. I still have that viewpoint. The capacity I worked at for the convention required a high level of commitment. Now that I have been on the board for two years, I support the convention in a fiduciary or oversight model. I will assist at the convention, but I will not run a department. While we always could use more department heads, I believe there can be a conflict of interest with certain situations that can come up and require board interaction. 

I have just finished MidWinter Frolic where I was in charge of dinners. This included meal planning, organization, shopping, and coordination with others in the kitchen. MidWinter Frolic has doubled in size since the last Werecamp (the inspiration for Frolic). Making it much more involved. I will most likely continue at MidWinter Frolic for now.

I also have been building a Communications Team for the organization. We have had some successes and some not so. Ideally, we are looking for people to help out in specialized ways. My goal is to get a new MNF website and make sure we are trying to promote all our events in a timely and equal manner.

There are many events and I will continue to support them. I am talking about things as simple as picking up trash at a picnic to sell merchandise at an event.

How do you view events like Furry Migration and MidWinter Frolic impact the Minnesota Furs community today and tomorrow? 

Both Furry Migration and MidWinter Frolic are part of our legacy. Furry Migration showed that we are a group that could grow from semi-annual picnics to a full-fledged Furry convention in Minnesota. It celebrates and educates our community for all ages. As we have different chairpersons, the convention adapts and changes its flavor.

MidWinter Frolic proves that a winter event can happen. It is a small cozy event for adults to unplug from most everything over a few days. In 2022, even during COVID, we brought together folks from as far away as  Ohio and Washington to our little Minnesota get-together. This makes for a larger community, but at a slower pace than you would have at a convention. 

Overall, both of these events are about community. It grows, changes, and adapts. This must happen for Minnesota Furs to continue.

What are your strengths that you will bring to the board? 

If I am elected to the board for a second term, I can bring stability from my experiences over the last two years. I have been on other boards before, but in this case, we had to shut down our events for COVID and now we are bringing them back. We are not done here as COVID keeps throwing us curveballs. 

I also can apply my college degree to help the organization. I understand both the Public Relations and Law sides as they affect the organization. We are in interesting times for the Furry Fandom. Watching for traps and legal entanglements are important as segments of society are trying to politicize our fandom against us. I will try my best to keep us out of such things.

What do you feel are areas where you want to further develop yourself? Why? 

I want to work on community engagement. We have been socially stunted by COVID. We do not know how to interact with people very well right now. For the organization to move forward we need our community to come together. I know that I am not the greatest at this generally, but now I have additional social anxiety at times. I think we all do now to some degree. We are a community that is hurting from our imposed isolation. Being better at engagement will mean that the workload will be shared with people stepping up and we all will be healthier for it.  

How can Minnesota Furs reach out to other communities local and national in furry and other fandoms? 

Minnesota Furs has several thought leaders who can reach out through their connections to promote awareness in multiple fandoms. The current climate of hate is dangerous to us all. We have a Furry Con Leaders Round Table where conventions get help with problems. Here we must support and encourage others to speak out about what is being said about Furries, LGBTQ+, and the lies in schools. We can share and coordinate information to go out simultaneously in our communities. 

Locally, we can do the same thing with the local conventions and Geek Partnership Society (GPS). We have crossover and some of the same information could be shared here. Our room parties can be safe places and have resources for convention-goers. We can support GPS by having a booth back at Pride… so many things can happen.

What are two things that you would like to see accomplished/improved during your tenure? 

I will borrow a line that we have been hearing for the last year, I want to see Minnesota Furs “Build back better.” We as a community shut down so hard for COVID-19, that we lost our sense of a fully rounded community. Our digital Furs made out better than others, but without some of our in-person activities, I feel like we have not gotten back to where we were. And, we may not be until there is a better handle on COVID immunization, but we can always try other things.

I would like to see new people coming up through the organization. We need to promote opportunities and training. If we do not have others starting to come in behind us, there will not be anyone to turn Minnesota Furs over to. As leaders, we have to get better at asking for help and watching for those upcoming stars.

Second, I want to see us redirect our focus back on education. We have opportunities to teach people skills, whether they are volunteers or interns. Historically, we have parameters set for scholarship applications that we need to relook at. We can also educate the public by promoting some of our events as being open to anyone to find out more about Furry.

One goal of MNFurs is to promote education. How do you intend on helping promote education? 

As we are coming out of this COVID thing, I want to encourage and influence others in representing our community without masks or suits. Do not think I am against fursuiting. It is however easily visible outside of our fandom and exploited for others’ gains. 

We are in dangerous times and we need to take our voices and faces into the world. Furry fandom is not just about people in suits, we are about finding ways to express our inner selves whether it is part of the LGBTQ+ acronym or REALLY liking cats. While we educate in our circle, it is important to control the message going out into the world of who and why we are to fight against things like book banning and lies about school bathrooms. 

Minnesota Furs can become a second life and a second job. How do you plan to keep yourself active in other things and other communities? What are your hobbies and can those be separate from Minnesota Furs? 

I do go to other conventions and, oh wait, I  somehow volunteer at them all. Generally, conventions have some sort of direct or indirect Furry crossover for me. At Anime Detour and Anime Fusion, I usually staff them directly and MNF or Furry Migration will also have a presence. I go to Gamicon each February in Iowa where I generally run a game, but I started attending here through Furry connections. I have volunteered at MidWest Furfest, but it is now just too big. I still go to Biggest Little FurCon and staff there for fun. 

So, you could say that my hobby is traveling to conventions. It is not much separation from Minnesota Furs at times, but it is still a community. When there are these kinds of connections, keeping them separate would be a negative in my book.

I have to say that in my introverted times, I do a lot of crafting as a hobby. I make things like jewelry to needlecraft among other random things. It gives me time to think through plans or other projects. Crafting is a kind of active meditation for me.

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