While I usually use this column to report on the actions of the American Mensa Committee (AMC), we’re in a slow period right now, as our last meeting was in April and our next will be at the Annual Gathering (AG) in July. But of course this doesn’t mean nothing is happening.
Mind Games was held towards the end of April, with 64 games chosen to be evaluated by a large group of Mensa judges, and five games were awarded the Mensa Select seal, which will continue to put our name out to the a demographic group (gamers) who would have a higher than average interest in Mensa. Although I didn’t go to Mind Games this year, I did pick up one of the winners (Azul, from Next Move Games) the day they were announced. The other winners were Constellations (Xtronaut Enterprises), Ex Libris (Renegade Game Studio), Photosynthesis (Blue Orange Games), and Raiders of the North Sea (Renegade Game Studio).
107 teams participated in CultureQuest this year, with 200 questions ranging from the arcane to the arcade, but everyone I’ve heard from had a lot of fun. Winners will be announced at the AG in July. Will Tragic Kingdom from Central Florida maintain their streak of first place finishes? Stay tuned…
May is the time of year when we focus on lapsed members. While Region 10 had 1,125 lapsed members at the end of the 2016-2017 year, we only had 802 lapsed members at the end of March 2018, and as of this writing, we’re down to 612 lapsed members, which isn’t unusual. Membership Officer Henri Buccine-Schraeder and Director of Membership Timothy Brooks will be distributing the annual Lapsed Member survey this month to get feedback on what factors lead to lapses, with the side benefit of reminding some members who procrastinated to send in their renewals. And local groups are also encouraged to reach out to their own lapsed members in order to add a personal touch, and get a little additional funding for the effort.
Mensa Connect is also progressing, with all the national committees using them in order to do their business. The techies at the National Office are in the process of working with some groups on testing the functionality for local group communities, and they should be rolled out to all the local groups soon as a home grown social network that won’t require members to be on Facebook to participate.
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This will be my last chance to put in a plug for the AG coming up in July in Indianapolis, as well as the Annual Business and AMC meetings which will be held there. Unfortunately, the agenda for the meeting is not available in time for this column, so I recommend checking online during June at https://www.us.mensa.org/read/board-meeting-reports/ to see the agenda when it is ready, as well as minutes of our past meetings.
I also encourage anyone who is interested in ongoing Mensa news to subscribe to the e-newsletter Mensa Wired (https://www.us.mensa.org/read/enewsletters/mensa-wired/) , where you can get information much faster than through my monthly columns.
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