Meet The Candidate Aerak

[MnFurs Election Committee]

he following is Aerak’s responses to a set of questions given to all candidates by the Minnesota Furs Election Committee. These are the unedited responses given to the committee. The only changes made by the committee was to format them for consistency between the posts.

Tell us about yourself

I’ve been a part of this community for… oh gods… how long? About fifteen years. I’ve been on the MNFurs board of directors since it’s foundation. I’ve served one year as Vice President and three years as President. I’m a fursuiter, a full time fursuit maker, and when I’m chilling with friends I really love playing tabletop RPGs.

What brought you to the furry fandom?

At the time I was really into anime, and I found furry while searching for fan art.

How will you continue to volunteer in the community after being elected to the board?
I’d continue to oversee events and talk with people about their passions and what they want to get out of MNFurs. Basically I believe that board members should be friendly and approachable. I also help with Furry Migration and would continue my involvement there.

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

Furry Migration and Werecamp are a part of our year round programming. They are important for MNFurs in that lots of people enjoy them and they help to enrich the community. But as I said, they are just a couple of the many events that MNFurs provides throughout the year. These two events in particular help to provide safe and fun social experiences, but they also involve the education aspect of our nonprofit status.

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

Last year one of the people with our convention who’s a certified EMT was giving a class on it. I wasn’t able to make it at the time. I’d really like to get that kind of medical training, because you never know what will happen around you, especially helping with all the events I do. I’d like to be more prepared in case there’s ever a medical emergency.

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

So in terms of other furry communities, the best and most visible way to make a statement, be seen, as well as reach out, is through our convention. Furry Migration is a part of the FCLR – The furry convention leadership round table which is a collection of conventions that share knowledge and ideas. For other fandoms, we are lucky in that we have quite a few anime and scifi organizations locally. We already have a good relationship with Anime Twin Cities, which is the nonprofit that runs Anime Detour. We also help out Anime Fusion and have a partnership with Geek Partnership Society. I believe the best way to further our relationship with these organizations is with our Youth Program which has exploded since we began providing youth specific events over one year ago. Many other organizations are taking note, and we are working out plans for collaboration in the future.

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

I’d like more diversity with events. The big changes since the board came about have been the convention and the Oval. I mean, the Oval for instance used to be a dream – be able to afford a place big enough for the entire community to be under one roof. So that’s being taken for granted now, but it wasn’t always that way. Aside from those things, most of the events we do are things we’ve been doing since before we incorporated. So I’d like to get some more “different” types of events. Like maybe doing a quarterly dance. Or, since we have youth specific events, do a couple adult specific ones – like a pub crawl or something.

Speaking of Youth Events, that’s the area that I am most focused on, because it’s an investment in the future and it’s something that no other furry organization is doing. I think back to my highschool experience and how big a difference it would have made for me to be a part of something like that. And being able to see the kids become more confident and make life long friends with others their age… well… it’s pretty cool.

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

Education is a pretty big topic. I feel like as a board member, you are helping to educate other groups of people outside of furry on the topic of furry and combat misinformation. But in terms of promoting education within our community, a lot of that happens at a convention level with panels and staffing. Speaking of staffing – we need more of it! We need more people to help out and become staff, because not only do you get to help a cause you believe in, you also learn new skills that will help you in all the other parts of your life. So I’m definitely going to push volunteerism a lot more strongly. We also have our partner organization, GPS, which provides various classes on a variety of topics, such as public speaking and board training, just to name a few. We just have to talk more with our community to find out if any such opportunities might interest them.

Photo was requested of the candidate by the election committee but no photo was provided

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