Meet the Board

Astra Ether has been in the fandom since the early 2000s on the east coast of Canada. He only moved west a few years ago where he rapidly started volunteering and helping the cons in gradually more involved positions as he saw administrative needs. Starting in the staff health monitoring team, to Lead HR and now Convention Project Management, he has offered himself to join the board and the board decided to place him in the position of president in 2025.

Outside of Volunteering, Astra is a 3d printer, a gamer, a role-player and a bicycle enthusiasm.

Havok became interested in the furry fandom in the early 2000s through an appreciation for the art of the fandom. He began volunteering for conventions in 2013 with Northwest Fanfest, and was the President of the West Coast Fan Society, the parent organization for Northwest Fanfest in 2014. In 2017 he became involved with Vancoufur as the Logistics Lead, and has been Operations Executive and was nominated and elected to the board in 2020. He was selected as Vice Chair for Vancoufur 2021, but when the 2021 chair resigned, he stepped up to become the Chair. Havok would describe himself as a pragmatic and practical person that handles conflict and difficult situations with calm and humor. He has an extensive grounding in security, operations and logistics from doing it professionally for nearly 10 years.

Outside of volunteering and the fandom he is an avid tabletop roleplayer, and coffee fanatic. He also is heavily into scifi, movies, and paintball.

Bio coming soon

Bio coming soon

Sha’Kaar has been a resident of the west coast of BC his whole life, having grown up in Powell River, he found the online furry world and enjoyed much of the art he started to find. In 2002, shortly after moving to Vancouver in 2001, he discovered the furry fandom and was instantly hooked, and started to attend furmeets and various events.

Due to being away from the community for several years, 2008 to 2014, for personal reasons, he didn’t attend his first convention until 2016. From that day until today he has been hooked on the furry lifestyle. Accepting being a furry has been one of the best choices of his life. Not only did it allow him to understand himself better, but it allowed him to meet his spouse, whom he met at a Vancoufur Convention.

When he started to volunteer for VF, he started with helping in the hotel/venue department, and with a diploma in hospitality management, he felt it was a great fit. Since then he has worked hard as a VF staff to bring the best experience he could to the con with his hotel training and since becoming Vice Chair for 2021 & 2022, bringing his organizational skills to help the con as well. Now, he has picked up the mantle of Chair for 2023 as well as becoming the Community Rep for all the local furs. So not only does he strive to put on an amazing convention in 2023, but he wants to make sure the words and wishes of the community are heard and understood by the board.

MrMechatronics is your bog-standard convention volunteer. Since rejoining the local convention scene in 2022 he’s lent a hand to every event he’s attended and recently made the jump to the BCAEA Board to find new ways to try to be helpful.

For hobbies, MrMechatronics is a regular PC and tabletop gamer. He normally has one or two weekly Dungeons and Dragons games going and enjoys switching between being a player and Dungeon Master regularly.

Malissa has been a part of the furry fandom since 2005, when she discovered it in high school. After graduating, she set out to attend as many fur cons as possible, eager to meet new people and explore her newfound passion. She quickly found herself immersed in the world of anthropomorphic animals and art, and has been an active member of the furry community ever since.

14 years ago, it was much easier for people to attend the far fewer conventions across North America. This is what Malissa did as she began her journey with Rainfurrest and continued to visit almost every other convention in the continent at the time. With a desire to make a difference, she decided to start volunteering for conventions the following year. She wanted to use her skills and experiences to help and contribute positively to her community.

When she’s not partaking in the fandom, Malissa is a Foreman Electrician. She loves to do a variety of activities that keep her busy and entertained. From playing board games and knitting to chainmailing and painting miniatures, she loves it all! She also enjoys camping and any outdoor activities that allow her to explore the world around her.

Having grown up in the lower mainland since 2012, Jamesbear has been a resident of British Columbia for half his life. Around 2018, he joined the Furry community and began attending VancouFur. Initially, he volunteered during TomorrowLand and assisted with registration line management and cashier duties until Evfurquest.

He subsequently became the Registration Lead for Beyond Furmageddon in 2023 and helped set a new VancouFur registration record of 1528 attendees. Jamesbear enjoyed his time at the convention and relished the opportunity to meet new people while working at the registration desk.

In 2023, Jamesbear took the initiative to become the Community Representative for the BCAEA Board as he enjoys helping the community communicate with the general public. He is a graduate of Vancouver Film School with a background in 3D animation and VFX, and also works as a VFX teaching assistant at the institution.

In his leisure time, Jamesbear enjoys playing simulation and single-player adventure games, as well as photography and video editing. His passion for conventions and volunteering at them remains unwavering.

Bio coming soon