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Two Dogs Run
Dec. 21st, 2015 11:56 pmThis weekend was the usual monthly Leeds Meet, but we decided to try and do something different and launch a collaborative effort with the Sheffield furs. Their meet usually takes place on the last Saturday of the month, which would be Boxing Day and as a consequence the bar would be closed and the trains not running, making running a meet somewhat unviable. Consequently, we approached the Sheffield group and asked them whether they would be interested in doing a huge Yorkshire weekender, with the Leeds Meet on its usual Saturday and the Sheffield Meet on the Sunday. The idea was that this would able us to cross-promote the meets and allow the Sheffield furs to visit us in Leeds and vice versa. In the end, this is what happened and I was pretty happy with the end result, with both meets being really busy and furs from both cities having a great time throughout. If I was being honest, I had hoped that more Leeds furs would go to Sheffield but we were missing quite a few regulars on the Saturday ourselves, with a surprising number of out of towners attending this time around which was great to see. I imagine this time of year is not particularly convenient but I was a little disappointed that more of the local furs couldn't make it. Hopefully once we get our new venue sorted and the New Year started, things will pick up, particularly as the December meet does tend to be a fair bit smaller.
I was running the Saturday meet largely on my own as the night before had been Wolfie's Office Christmas Party and he had returned home late, slightly the worse for wear. Consequently, I perloined both Oracle and Tonks to guide the group from the station, while I headed up to Shuffledog to check everything was okay with the venue. Indeed it was and soon we had settled in, with Stray's excellent quiz starting soon afterwards. Later in the day, Stray insisted that I took the quiz on my own and I was delighted to discover that I would have come second. It was a shame I didn't participate initially really. We bought some of the BrewDog brewbucks as prizes before we dodged the crappy weather and headed for a fursuit walk, a walk which contained fourteen fursuiters, making it one of the busiest walks in our history. It was on the walk that Wolfie finally arrived and I admit it was a little tough guiding so many suiters around the city centre on the peak Saturday for Christmas shopping, but everyone had a good time and interacted with the public, whose days were undoubtedly brightened by the arrival of all the fluff.
The meet started to disperse at around 6pm, with us staying slightly later before showing a few people around our potential new venue. We are hoping to get this sorted in the next few weeks, unfortunately, as I have said before, Christmas has come at a rather awkward time in terms of establishing a new home. The vibe we got from the eight furs we took to the new bar was positive so hopefully we can work something out. After this, we had our usaul travails finding somewhere to eat before settling on Bird and Beast, which was slightly more expensive than I would have liked but boy was it tasty. After this, our group split up, with four of us heading over to BrewDog where we bumped into Foxxtail's crew who had beaten us there. On the way, I found out that the phrase "wipe me" was an appropriate chat-up line as I was shouting this down the street to some furs, with one appalled young lady thinking I was talking to her. She gave me such an evil stare, which was a shame as this was the first time I had actually noticed her. Suffice to say, "wipe me" became the theme of the night, particularly in BrewDog where I started asking all of the staff to wipe me as they were pouring our sour beer spanking paddles, with us hoping to try the four beers they had put on the taps just the night before.
It was great seeing Foxxtail again, he is a fur I have known for a very long time but sadly someone I rarely see these days, and he was also at Sheffield, where we were headed the next day. With reasonably fresh heads having got the last bus home on the Saturday, we caught a delayed train to South Yorkshire's premier city and arrived just in time for the quiz, which was a good mix of general knowledge and fun rounds. Sadly, I couldn't get some of the geeky questions and as we only had a team of three (me, Wolfie and Kyuu), we didn't win, but we got a very respectable 44 out of 55 and came third, which I was reasonably happy with. Like with Stray's quiz the night before though, there were some questions I really should have known but didn't, causing me to kick myself for quite sometime. After the quiz, and trying the four new beers that we hadn't tried which were on the taps at the Sheffield BrewDog bar (it was fortunate they were having a North Union tap takeover that very day), I decided to suit up for the first time in three months as I had brought my fursuit for the walk. I hadn't gone fursuiting in years and with the sun shining on a bright crisp winter's day, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to suit once more. I wasn't disappointed. There were six of us on the walk and we got to visit all of Sheffield's main sights, meeting a range of cool people on the way. We got to go on the carousel, which was fantastic fun, while in the Peace Gardens my tail fell off and a kindly council lady let Wolfie sort it out in the private corridor for staff there. Unfortunately, Wolfie was a little rough and my zip broke, meaning I am going to have to replace the zip on my suit, which I was initially a little gutted about. Still, it should be easily fixed so I am hoping it will be okay. Another highlight was trying to take photographs in the reflective silver balls in the main square while on the way home we got speaking to the nice hotdog lady in the German market.
Upon returning to the bar, we hung around for an hour or two before heading off, hoping to catch a sausage on the way home. Alas the stand was now closed and as we descended towards the station, we noticed something unusual, that the whole area was shrouded in darkness. This wasn't affecting the running of the trains but it made it difficult to work out what was going on, although fortunately we did manage to board the right train. Rushy and Yolfe met us on the train, having left the bar ten minutes later than us as they didn't want sausage, and we had a nice chat on the way home about shitty fedoras and clapping. Once in Leeds, I tried to go to Ipsum Vinoteca to get my final Christmas shopping but they had already closed by the time we arrived, meaning a quick meal in Caracas Grill was our final stop before we headed back home.
All in all then the first Two Dogs Run was a success and both meets agreed to collaborate more in future. We are hoping to run a major Yorkshire-wide event at some point next year and something similar in December once again has also been mooted. It was refreshing that another meet wanted to work with us as opposed to compete with us (as has happened with a few other Northernfurs locations recently) and I hope this is a trend that continues. Big thanks go to Shao, Bailey and all of the Sheffield staff for going along with the idea and for helping make the weekend a massive success.
I was running the Saturday meet largely on my own as the night before had been Wolfie's Office Christmas Party and he had returned home late, slightly the worse for wear. Consequently, I perloined both Oracle and Tonks to guide the group from the station, while I headed up to Shuffledog to check everything was okay with the venue. Indeed it was and soon we had settled in, with Stray's excellent quiz starting soon afterwards. Later in the day, Stray insisted that I took the quiz on my own and I was delighted to discover that I would have come second. It was a shame I didn't participate initially really. We bought some of the BrewDog brewbucks as prizes before we dodged the crappy weather and headed for a fursuit walk, a walk which contained fourteen fursuiters, making it one of the busiest walks in our history. It was on the walk that Wolfie finally arrived and I admit it was a little tough guiding so many suiters around the city centre on the peak Saturday for Christmas shopping, but everyone had a good time and interacted with the public, whose days were undoubtedly brightened by the arrival of all the fluff.
The meet started to disperse at around 6pm, with us staying slightly later before showing a few people around our potential new venue. We are hoping to get this sorted in the next few weeks, unfortunately, as I have said before, Christmas has come at a rather awkward time in terms of establishing a new home. The vibe we got from the eight furs we took to the new bar was positive so hopefully we can work something out. After this, we had our usaul travails finding somewhere to eat before settling on Bird and Beast, which was slightly more expensive than I would have liked but boy was it tasty. After this, our group split up, with four of us heading over to BrewDog where we bumped into Foxxtail's crew who had beaten us there. On the way, I found out that the phrase "wipe me" was an appropriate chat-up line as I was shouting this down the street to some furs, with one appalled young lady thinking I was talking to her. She gave me such an evil stare, which was a shame as this was the first time I had actually noticed her. Suffice to say, "wipe me" became the theme of the night, particularly in BrewDog where I started asking all of the staff to wipe me as they were pouring our sour beer spanking paddles, with us hoping to try the four beers they had put on the taps just the night before.
It was great seeing Foxxtail again, he is a fur I have known for a very long time but sadly someone I rarely see these days, and he was also at Sheffield, where we were headed the next day. With reasonably fresh heads having got the last bus home on the Saturday, we caught a delayed train to South Yorkshire's premier city and arrived just in time for the quiz, which was a good mix of general knowledge and fun rounds. Sadly, I couldn't get some of the geeky questions and as we only had a team of three (me, Wolfie and Kyuu), we didn't win, but we got a very respectable 44 out of 55 and came third, which I was reasonably happy with. Like with Stray's quiz the night before though, there were some questions I really should have known but didn't, causing me to kick myself for quite sometime. After the quiz, and trying the four new beers that we hadn't tried which were on the taps at the Sheffield BrewDog bar (it was fortunate they were having a North Union tap takeover that very day), I decided to suit up for the first time in three months as I had brought my fursuit for the walk. I hadn't gone fursuiting in years and with the sun shining on a bright crisp winter's day, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to suit once more. I wasn't disappointed. There were six of us on the walk and we got to visit all of Sheffield's main sights, meeting a range of cool people on the way. We got to go on the carousel, which was fantastic fun, while in the Peace Gardens my tail fell off and a kindly council lady let Wolfie sort it out in the private corridor for staff there. Unfortunately, Wolfie was a little rough and my zip broke, meaning I am going to have to replace the zip on my suit, which I was initially a little gutted about. Still, it should be easily fixed so I am hoping it will be okay. Another highlight was trying to take photographs in the reflective silver balls in the main square while on the way home we got speaking to the nice hotdog lady in the German market.
Upon returning to the bar, we hung around for an hour or two before heading off, hoping to catch a sausage on the way home. Alas the stand was now closed and as we descended towards the station, we noticed something unusual, that the whole area was shrouded in darkness. This wasn't affecting the running of the trains but it made it difficult to work out what was going on, although fortunately we did manage to board the right train. Rushy and Yolfe met us on the train, having left the bar ten minutes later than us as they didn't want sausage, and we had a nice chat on the way home about shitty fedoras and clapping. Once in Leeds, I tried to go to Ipsum Vinoteca to get my final Christmas shopping but they had already closed by the time we arrived, meaning a quick meal in Caracas Grill was our final stop before we headed back home.
All in all then the first Two Dogs Run was a success and both meets agreed to collaborate more in future. We are hoping to run a major Yorkshire-wide event at some point next year and something similar in December once again has also been mooted. It was refreshing that another meet wanted to work with us as opposed to compete with us (as has happened with a few other Northernfurs locations recently) and I hope this is a trend that continues. Big thanks go to Shao, Bailey and all of the Sheffield staff for going along with the idea and for helping make the weekend a massive success.
