Its winter, and with that comes the cold and flu season. This can lead to lower volume of attendance at some of the events we feature here on our calendar.
However, towards late January, the nation has had a new kind of virus in our midst — COVID19. As February turned to March, we began hearing of a number of different events starting to cancel or postpone. Even the furry community has been reacting to these concerns, and by this week, event cancellations have been coming in from fur meet organizers. Sad to say, but social distancing is one of the ways to slow down the spread of COVID-19.
Stego and I had been silently making plans for FurBQ, and we did manage to make a reservation sometime in late fall. While this usually leads to a subsequent update here on this blog … we are gonna hang tight with those announcements. It is possible that more events may also cancel, and we will continue to update this website, our Meetup calendar, and of course blip it out to our social media channels.
Already, some of the events that are affected by these health concerns seem slated to postpone until October. This could mean more furry (and related) events going on in our state around the time proceeding our scheduled reservation. We are looking at July 1st as a date to make the final call on whether FurBQ can happen this year.
All of the cancellations of big events, fan conventions and parties does affect many event staff and vendors, who may lose money or employment because of these closures. For anyone on social media, you may have seen hashtags like #ECCOnline and #homecon, and entire threads dedicated to allow affected artists to plug their store or online commission forms.
This plays into an idea that I have been rolling around in my head, just related to helping promote furry artists and fursuit makers from Southern California. In short, the idea would be to provide a listing of local artists, with links to their respective shops, art sites, and other places where you can view artwork and get in touch with them. However, I feel like this is something Id like to build up with other website designers and WordPress peeps. Id like to have more of SoCalFurs.com’s improvements shaped by people outside of myself, getting more of a mix for influence. With me starting my new 40 hour a week job, I definitely could use the help.
So, if you are down with this idea please get in touch. If need be, maybe we can set up an online space for round table discussions, and get this idea off the ground ….. alongside fixing this website’s outdated theme 😉 For all the issues that I have observed and experienced**, I continually see the kind of community fostered here in Southern California. (Some of us) may be socially distancing ourselves while we deal with some Real Life Serious Stuff, but I know our community will be here and come back stronger than ever.
** I admit, my relation to community (in general, as a concept…not just furry) has been a bit strained this last year or so due to some needed Self-Care and improvement. On a personal level, I have had to get past some trust issues caused by things observed in my community, my experience as convention staff, and a bit from from being burned by previous SoCal Furs staff (and staff-adjacent) people.