I dropped by the relevant page while preparing this story and noticed it was quite a bit shorter than it used to be. Then again, I don't know how active con staff were outside of any involvement with their own events.
Perhaps it might help to have an advisory board rather than expanding your membership? You could invite, say, past winners or well-known figures in areas like fursuiting or podcasting without too much worry about conflicts of interest because they don't have direct power. Of course, at the end of the day, someone has to actually do the work to implement those ideas, at which point they should probably have a seat at the table. If you already have a good idea of what you want, but aren't quite sure about how to implement it, that might not be a good answer.
Flayrah is of course a fine venue, but I can appreciate the desire for something a little more focused, and perhaps more private. In the past, LiveJournal was a thing (alas, several reasons meant people left even before this year's events), and there was a mailing list - and I'm guessing you still have something like that for the committee, but if you want to engage a group today, perhaps a more modern option like Telegram, Discord, or a self-hosted Matrix or a Discourse server would be suitable?
I dropped by the relevant page while preparing this story and noticed it was quite a bit shorter than it used to be. Then again, I don't know how active con staff were outside of any involvement with their own events.
Perhaps it might help to have an advisory board rather than expanding your membership? You could invite, say, past winners or well-known figures in areas like fursuiting or podcasting without too much worry about conflicts of interest because they don't have direct power. Of course, at the end of the day, someone has to actually do the work to implement those ideas, at which point they should probably have a seat at the table. If you already have a good idea of what you want, but aren't quite sure about how to implement it, that might not be a good answer.
Flayrah is of course a fine venue, but I can appreciate the desire for something a little more focused, and perhaps more private. In the past, LiveJournal was a thing (alas, several reasons meant people left even before this year's events), and there was a mailing list - and I'm guessing you still have something like that for the committee, but if you want to engage a group today, perhaps a more modern option like Telegram, Discord, or a self-hosted Matrix or a Discourse server would be suitable?