Charter for MancFurs – version 1.1

What is MancFurs?

The furry fandom is made up of diverse people with equally diverse interests, but united by a common passion for anthropomorphic animal depictions. MancFurs is short for Manchester Furries (or Greater Manchester Furries), representing a regional area in the North of England where hundreds of furs reside. MancFurs holds a meet every month for the benefit of its residents and visitors afar; an opportunity to meet people with like minded hobbies and interests, a social event for the community.

MancFurs team

MancFurs team are 3 people who volunteer their time to organise the monthly meets. Our primary role is to secure a venue, set a date, spread the word, oversee the meet runs smoothly and ensure future meets take place again. Our aim is to create an environment where furs can socialise together under one roof and do their own thing.
The MancFurs team is not there to control people, we do not control all events in Greater Manchester and our job is not to create a convention. We facilitate meetings where the community can itself organise activities and events.
MancFurs team is focused on organising two kinds of social events:

- Meets held every 2nd Saturday of the month in Manchester
- Party events held biannually

If anyone wants to organise irregular meets within Greater Manchester, whether Stockport, Bury, Bolton, or Manchester on a different date, the MancFurs team will not interfere unless someone tries to pose as MancFurs staff. We would appreciate your cooperation though in order to help promote your event across our social media network.

An example would be the biannual MancFurs Tea Crawl, an event organised by Adcro independently of the MancFurs team. MancFurs contribution is to help promote the event through our Twitter, Facebook and FurAffinity page.

If a borough within Greater Manchester does wish to form their own regular meet it would be appreciated if they work in conjunction with MancFurs so existing resources can be leveraged, avoid our attendees needing to follow two different groups and avoid confusion.

MancFurs team structure

There will be no more heads of departments. All 3 team members (Geo, Rixie and Pizza) are of equal level and contribute towards the furmeets as a team.

Each staff member has the following powers:

- A seat on the team meetings
- A vote on any given issue
- Autonomy to hire personnel
- Autonomy to delegate tasks
- Ban hammer

All 3 team members share responsibility.

Volunteer
Comes in the form of either a meet volunteer, an online volunteer or someone who contributes in both areas. They assist with some task that needs doing.

Examples of online volunteer:

- Secretary
- Treasurer

Examples of meet volunteers:

- Logistics
- Inventory manager

Example of volunteers with an meet and online capacity:

- Entertainment manager

Core staff that make up the MancFurs team 30/06/15

Rixie Geo Panda Pizza


3 named core staff are responsible for:

- Booking venue
- Scouting for venue
- Negotiate with the venue for best deals
- Representing venue concerns at team meetings
- Lead handler of any problems that involve the venue
- Ensure furs respect the venue house rules
- Arrange the fursuit walk
- Arrange a changing room with facilities
- Create a safe environment for fursuiters
- Representing fursuiters at team meetings
- Lead handler of any problems that involve fursuiters
- Representing community concerns at team meetings
- Lead handler of any problems that involve the community
- Assist new furs with settling into the community
- Public relations
- Posting events, messages and news bulletins
- Handle social media presence
— FurAffinity
— UKFur
— Facebook
— Twitter
- Direct people to speak to the right people
- Handles the branding of MancFurs
- Public relations
- Marketing
- Internal administration


Absence
If a core staff member cannot attend a furmeet for any reason (reason does NOT have to be provided) they MUST provide a stand in. It's the staff members responsibility to ensure their stand in knows what to do at the furmeet.

Voting

Votes take place on general issues such as:

- Appointing new staff that can sit and vote on team meetings
- Altering meet rules & policies
- Changes to the Charter for MancFurs
Note: Votes are not needed in order to carry out minor corrections such as grammar and spelling.
- Purchasing of resource


Dealing with attendee problems

Meet rules are put in place for four reasons:

- Safe atmosphere for attendees
- Smooth running of the meets
- Adhering to the rules of the venue
- Adhering to the law

MancFurs recognises the limits of how much can be achieved in having attendees adhere to rules. Staff members deal with what can be dealt with reasonable certainty and leave alone that which is a lost cause. The safest issues to deal with are what is witnessed firsthand and the next is what is widely witnessed. When staff cannot confidently determine the truth of an event, the victim should be instructed to take up their complaint with the venue or the police.

Staff at the meet can make judgements on the day and issue out the following:

- A verbal talking to
- A formal warning where a record will be kept
- Meet suspension
- Ban


Terminology
Official list of terms used frequently when talking about MancFurs. The definitions serve to dispel ambiguity and also discourage use of equivalent terminology which can result in confusion and uncertainty to what they mean.

MancFurs
Shorthand for describing the geographical area of Greater Manchester that furries reside within.

MancFurs team
A group of furs who work together to organise the monthly meets and the biannual party.

MancFurs Monthly Meet
Meets held every 2nd Saturday of the month in Manchester
Note: Mini meet is a depreciated terminology.

Biannual party
A larger meet held during the summer and winter.
Note: The definition is a placeholder and it will be up to the team to chose an actual name for the event.


Volunteer
A person volunteering some of their time to carry out task on behalf of a team member. They cannot sit on team meetings unless deputised by a core team member, summoned to a meeting or given the role of chairman. They cannot issue out punishments.

Charter
The charter is a public document that aims to lay down what MancFurs is, how the meets are governed, how the team that governs is structured and how works it works.