Metro Vancouver Kink Newsletter

June 2008

 

Intro

It's summer, finally, when your leather stops being too cold for outdoor wear and starts being too warm. We have a lot of great events planned for the next few months, including our monthly workshop and play party, leading up to the Vancouver Pride Weekend in August.

This is also the first issue of our regular monthly newsletter, with announcements and editorial material. If you are interested in contributing to this newsletter, please email us at contact@metrovancouverkink.com. We're always interested in new ideas and volunteer contributions.

 

June Events

 

MVK presents Vancouver Dungeon!

SCHOOL'S OUT! Calling all naughty schoolgirls and boys, prom kings and queens, jocks, nerds, and faculty!
Workshop/play party on June 7th, 2008. Featuring a Red Light Room and a cuddle puddle!

Location: Capri Hall (wheelchair accessible)
3925 Fraser Street (@ East 23rd), Vancouver, BC. Map: link.

 

Doors: 7:00PM

Workshop: 7:30PM - 9:00PM (See below for description.)
Dungeon play party: 9:00PM - 1:00AM

 

Admission: $10 workshop, $20 play party, $25 both.

Vancouver Dungeon Steering Committee vouchers accepted.

 

"Predicament Bondage with Elwood Reid"
Want to keep your bottom on their toes? Elwood Reid will be demonstrating the principles and techniques of the devious and exciting world of predicament bondage. Combining simple BDSM tricks with a sadistic mind and the bottom's own will, you'll learn how to keep a bottom very, very still - or else.

Elwood Reid is a certified advanced body piercer, a certified body brander, scarification artist, and flesh hook specialist trained by Fakir Musafar.

Carpooling:
For Facebook users, install the Facebook Carpooling application from http://www.zimride.com/ . You will be able to arrange rides with other attendees, once you have the event in your list.  (link)

Transit:
#8 and #25 buses will bring you there. After the regular buses stop, N8 still runs!
Please check www.translink.bc.ca for details

The last scheduled buses:

Fraser & East 23rd
8 Northbound: 1:12AM
8 Southbound: 2:04AM
 

East King Edward & Fraser

25 Westbound: 12.37AM
25 Eastbound: 12:39AM

 

Munches

The BDSM community has traditionally held casual dinner gatherings for people interested in BDSM to socialize in a low-key manner. Come out and meet the community. All open-minded people welcome.

 

Vancouver West Munch:

Location: Boston Pizza, 190-1333 West Broadway, Vancouver, BC.

Time: 6:30PM - 8:30PM, June 4th and the first Wednesday of each month.

 

Vancouver East Munch:

Location: The End Cafe, 2360 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC.

Time: 6:30PM - 8:30PM, June 18th and the third Wednesday of every month.

 

Meetings

MVK's board meetings are open to the public. Our next meeting is 6:30PM-8:30PM on Tuesday, June 3, in the meeting room at the Firehall Library, 1455 West 10th (@ Granville), Vancouver, BC

 

Future Events

Our regular schedule of workshops and play parties on the first Saturday of each month will continue throughout the summer, including July 5th and August 2nd. MVK will also be participating in the Vancouver Pride Parade on August 3rd. Keep an eye out for our marchers! If you'd like to be involved in the Pride Parade, please e-mail MVK at contact@metrovancouverkink.com.

 

Volunteers

Help from community members is absolutely needed to run our events and keep the organization thriving! Please visit our volunteer opportunities [insert link] page to see how you can contribute, or e-mail volunteer@metrovancouverkink.com! We need help before, after, during and away from events. We are also seeking volunteer drivers, with or without vehicles which can tow a 2500lb trailer.

 

MVK wish list

We are looking for the following items to continue improving our events:

• Dollies for moving furniture
• Enclosed box trailer, <6.5' tall
• Rubber mats or tiles
• Archway scaffolding 

If you have leads on acquiring any of these items for cheap or free, please let us know. We can be reached, as always, at contact@metrovancouverkink.com.

 

 

Editorial

All play and no work makes...

 

A play party is limited to a few hours in a single building or even a single room, but in that time things are different. There’s a new set of social rules, different manners of dress and interaction, different acceptable behavior.  You can debate over whether it allows people to be their true selves, or whether it allows them to shift into different selves, but people do transform, a cyclic process of the psychological metamorphosis that is as necessary to human beings as a beating heart. This heightened awareness and increased opportunity for self-expression creates a utopian space.

 

The hitch with all utopias is that they generally don’t work in the long run. Much as we’d dream of a life in which every day is Christmas and every night is New Years Eve (or Hallowe’en if you’re kinky), such a way of being would be infeasible and undesirable. The best we can do is create little pocket utopias, limited in time and space.

 

Another limiting factor on utopia is the logistics, in that somebody’s got to keep things running. Before, after and during the apparently spontaneous glitz and glamour of Rio’s carnival, for example, there’s a large and complex organization making sure everything works. Literally beneath the surface of Disneyland and Disneyworld are vast tunnel complexes where the logistics work is done and performers (“cast members”) dress up get into character. Burning Man has the Black Rock Rangers. At even the humblest party, somebody’s got to make sure there’s enough drinks, chips and dip. It takes a lot of work to create the right conditions for play. If you’ve ever volunteered for a play party or any other such event, you know what I mean.

           

Humans need both. Too much play breeds chaos, or you start mixing up the Kool-Aid. Too much work is stifling, leeching all the color and flavor out of life. Even worse is to stuck working while everyone around you is playing, a situation that can lead to resentment and exhaustion. At the Leather Leadership conference, several of the presenters warn of the dangers of burnout, suggesting that official positions of kink organizations should have limited terms and that officers need to learn to delegate and spread the work around.

 

 That requires a lot of work, both from board members and from volunteers, but it is also important to remember why we do this, at all. That is part of MVK’s mandate: to provide that utopia, for six hours at a time.

 

Masthead

Editor: Peter Tupper, president. Contributions by other MVK Board Members. Published monthly by Metro Vancouver Kink Society.

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