Covid has impacted on many charities this year, and has had a drastic impact on the ability of many to carry out their normal fundraising activities. Our Charity from 2019 (Gentleshaw), is appealing for your help. See below a message from them, and a PayPal donation link. THANK YOU!

"Gentleshaw is reaching out to our furry friends once more. Thanks to the over helming support from attendees of ConFuzzled 2019, not only have we been able to make huge improvements to our residents lives, but we have also, so far, survived all that 2020 has thrown at us. The funds from last years convention got us though Lockdown#1, without those funds, the sanctuary would not have survived.

As we approach our most costly season, without the funds normally raised through summer, we are still using the funds you guys raised. However, what we hadn’t planned on, was our animal feed room failing us and having to be entirely replaced. This essential building is going to cost £7000 to replace, We simply don't have that spare. We’ve exhausted all other avenues, but with everyone asking for funds this year, it is a huge struggle, can you help?

What will it cost you? £15
What will you get? Not a lot, a little thank you for helping us fund somewhere to store our bananas! and a warm fuzzy feeling from helping a little charity. What will we get? A new, essential food room. The feed room stores all of the diets for your furry favourites, Alfie Skunk and Saxon wolfdog. We even have a new fab freezer, bought with funds from the Con, that stores all of the meat for our birds of prey, including Brock the Harris hawk."

https://www.paypal.com/instantcommerce/checkout/662CSQW2EQ592

As part of our commitment to improve ConFuzzled for all our attendees, we're going to be forming an ideas forum. ConFuzzled has always been a 'by furs, for furs' event - and we want to make sure the convention stays relevant to the community. As such, we want the ideas forum to capture information on how the convention can deliver the best experience for you and drive those ideas forward. As part of the process of starting up the ideas forum, we're today hiring for the role of the Ideas Forum Lead, who will act as chair of the forum.

The job description is below, but you can skip right to the application form here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/CFZ_IFL

Ideas Forum Lead
Brief

As part of ConFuzzled UK Ltd’s drive to remain in touch with the moods and desires of our attendees this job role has been created to lead ConFuzzled UK Ltd’s new market research team.

About the team
The team consists of one Red Badge job role who will act as the Chair of committee meetings and be the official liaison between the steering committee and the Directors.
All other committee members are volunteers drawn from the voting members, staff, crew and attendees of ConFuzzled.

Commitments
This job role has the following responsibilities

Form and lead steering committee for convention market research purposes following an agreed format and process
Stay in email contact throughout the year
Committed to having a diverse range of views represented on the steering committee supported by the Directors and communication team to help make sure all possible views are heard by the committee/forum.

Core responsibilities
Formation and leadership of market research focussed steering committee
Compiling results of market research, surveys, ideas in a quarterly report to be delivered to the directors
Present quarterly results of market research to the Directors of ConFuzzled UK Ltd.

Essential characteristics
A successful applicant will:

Be able to communicate professionally with attendees, crew, and staff at all seniority levels
Be organised and thorough, and able to keep meticulous records that can be read and understood by others
Have an understanding of how ConFuzzled the convention operates with a focus on the events, attendees and offerings the convention delivers each year.
Has an understanding of how to run a survey and interpret the data.

Registration had previously been postponed until January, so we know you'll be awaiting an update. There's still a lot to review given the current circumstances. An announcement will come, most likely this month. Stay tuned, and we'll let you know more.

ConFuzzled 2021 Announcement:

As all of you will be aware, we are living through one of the most unprecedented events in a generation. With Lockdowns of varying sorts soon to reach their 1st anniversary none of us can escape the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic. These restrictions in place in the UK and many of the nations of the world are difficult, but necessary, to ensure everyone's wellbeing. We have seen to our own detriment what happens when these restrictions are lifted too early or not respected.

Last year, for the first time ever, we had to take the decision to cancel ConFuzzled. We felt then it was the right thing to do, and very sadly our decision has been proved right.

Although there is light at the end of the tunnel with regards to the vaccination programme, the situation today remains the same. Whilst these vaccination rollouts offer us hope, it will take time before the full positive impact will be felt. We believe it would not be safe to run a physical convention within the UK at this time and that it will remain unsafe to do so by May this year.

It is therefore with a heavy heart we must inform you that we have taken the very sad, but we believe correct decision, to cancel the physical convention of ConFuzzled 2021.

The next ConFuzzled in person will be in May 2022.

We understand that this will be, for many, upsetting if not unexpected news. However the health and safety of our attendees, our team, and the venue teams, is our top priority. This decision, whilst difficult, is the responsible one to take.

What happens next?
As we have not yet opened registration for 2021, we can immediately move to setting up a virtual ConFuzzled 2021 experience for our attendees during the May bank holiday. More details of this will emerge over the coming weeks, but we hope you will be able to join us in spirit, even if not in person.

Can you postpone the event to later in the year?
Regrettably, whilst we know many of you would like this to be an option, we feel it is in the best interest of the attendees and the team to plan ahead for 2022. We are unsure at this time if the situation will improve sufficiently this year in order to put on a physical convention at any point and we wish to provide clarity to our attendees and minimise the potential worry of “is there a convention or isn't there?”

Whilst this year has been an incredibly difficult journey and we have faced uncertainty in these trying times, we can now confidently plan ahead, and move forward towards the future. It is our fierce determination to bring the convention back, bigger and better than ever, in 2022!

I have more questions, who can I talk to?
We understand that you may have many questions that have not been answered right now.

Our team is fully voluntary and like yourselves, they have had their daily routines and jobs thrown into chaos by the lockdown. Having the event cancelled like this is not something we ever thought we would have to do once, let alone twice.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to our fantastic communications team who will endeavour to answer (we can be contacted via twitter, or by emailing communications@confuzzled.org.uk)

In closing, we want to express as always our love and appreciation to you all for your support of ConFuzzled and the team. We all find ourselves in these unique circumstances together, however we will weather this storm as a community. Thank you for your understanding, and we wish you all good health and safety.

Kind Regards,

Crimson, Fioxy, Russet
ConFuzzled UK Ltd Board of Directors

Announcing our official theme for Virtual ConFuzzled 2021: Game On! We're bringing back our theme from 2018! vCFZ: Friday 28th May - Sunday 30th May! :D

We're open for event submissions for Virtual ConFuzzled 2021!

To jump right to events submission, head here: https://events.confuzzled.org.uk/virtual-confuzzled-2021/cfp

The ConFuzzled event schedule is largely community-driven, with most events being run by regular attendees doing something they love. So, if you've been feeling there's something missing from our schedule, then now is your chance to help make it happen!

Submit an event proposal via the form and our team will review it for inclusion in Virtual ConFuzzled this year! If you have questions, please contact events@confuzzled.org.uk. Event submissions close 10th April 2021.

Want to run a tabletop RPG at Virtual ConFuzzled 2021? We've got a form for that! Go here to fill-out your game details: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/36ZRCKJ

Want to take part in our VRChat gameshow for Virtual ConFuzzled? If so, now is your chance to apply! The event will be pre-recorded, submit your application for the show here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/G2LNB9W (closes in 1 week)

Applications for the Virtual Dealers Den are now open! Sell your wares at our virtual convention! https://2021.confuzzled.org.uk/the-dealers-den-for-virtual-confuzzled-2021/

If you still haven't filled out the form to run a tabletop RPG at virtual ConFuzzled 2021, there's some time left but we're closing soon. You can find the form here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/36ZRCKJ

Applications for the virtual dealers den are now OPEN!
https://2021.confuzzled.org.uk/the-dealers-den-for-virtual-confuzzled-2021/

We'll soon be closing for event submissions for Virtual ConFuzzled 2021. If you want to submit an event proposal, please fill out the form here: https://events.confuzzled.org.uk/virtual-confuzzled-2021/cfp - questions? Contact events@confuzzled.org.uk

We'll be closing our applications for the VRChat gameshow (pre-record) for virtual ConFuzzled tomorrow - there's still time to sneak an application in! https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/G2LNB9W

We're looking for your feedback on whether we should stick with the 'World Reborn' theme when in-person ConFuzzled can return. Let us know here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/HXYYSYY

For Virtual ConFuzzled, we've got some special guests! For our first announcement, we're pleased to say we'll be welcoming the makers of BillieBustUp (https://twitter.com/BillieBustUp) !

Second guest announcement for Virtual ConFuzzled: Professor Elemental (https://twitter.com/prof_elemental) will be dropping by!

An update from us on the investigation we've done so far re Professor Elemental. https://2021.confuzzled.org.uk/2021/04/30/professor-elemental-update/ - note that we'll soon be opening up an outreach exercise to gather more of your feedback.

As promised, we're opening up a feedback form to let you directly send us your views and opinions re Professor Elemental. Here, you'll find some information for context, a response from Professor Elemental, and anonymous feedback boxes. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/H93ZLRN The boxes for leaving contact details are entirely optional, and if you do not leave this information, your feedback will be entirely anonymous. We will be closing the form on Monday at 11PM (UK Time) - but taking a snapshot on Saturday at 11PM. The short timeframes are because we want to look at the next steps soon, and make a final review of your feedback.

We are tonight announcing that ConFuzzled and Professor Elemental are parting ways - and he will have no further involvement with the convention. For our full announcement, please see our web-post here: https://2021.confuzzled.org.uk/2021/04/30/ending-professor-elementals-involvement-in-vcfz/ We would like to apologise for the distress caused in past days. Our survey form will remain open for any further feedback you would like to share, and you can also contact outreach@confuzzled.org.uk