From the LocSec
By
February 2008
The management of Cincinnati Area Mensa ("CAM") is entrusted to our Executive Committee ("Excomm"), our board of seven volunteer members. As Local Secretary ("LocSec"), I'm supposedly first among equals; ultimately, I have just one vote, and it takes four votes to pass anything. We have a good Excomm, and I'm proud to be working with the other six members: Bob Charlton, Heidi Macneal, Bryan Mott, Virginia Plottel, CE Reutter, and Peggy Stapleton. Any one of us will gladly welcome any thoughts any group member has on how this group should operate - after all, the group belongs to all the members! We, the members of Excomm, are merely your trustees.
The group operates on volunteer labor. Take a look at the list of volunteers elsewhere in the Mencinnatian; these are the people who make Mensa a reality in the Cincinnati area. Each winter, Excomm reviews all appointments, but you'll notice the list changes gradually year-round as the lives of our volunteers change and as we start and finish various projects. If you're interested in volunteering for CAM, please contact me - we will gladly find something for you to do. Or if you're interested in organizing an activity of your choosing, please contact Calendar Coordinator Tiffany Everett, for assistance in scheduling and promoting what you'd like to do. (We welcome virtually all activities members want to organize! One of the purposes of Mensa is to provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment for members - in other words, to facilitate members getting together. If you think it would be fun/interesting/rewarding to do something with other Mensans, we want you to use the group to make it happen.)
And we do have a wide variety of activities. From Games Days/Nights, to book discussion groups, to hiking groups, to trivia teams, to groups that simply get together and chat, we have it in our calendar - and we welcome more. Nationally and regionally, we have many weekend get-togethers, such as Regional Gatherings ("RGs"), Mensa Mind Games, and Colloquia. If you're interested in an RG, one is coming up in Dayton the first weekend in April ("Whatever Happened to the Jetsons?"), and Steve Fletcher is organizing the RG we will host December 5-7 in Sharonville ("Winter Wonderland"). The 2008 Colloquium will be held September 12-14 in Salt Lake City; the subject is genealogy. Mensa Mind Games, an intense weekend of judging new games, will be in Phoenix in April this year; in 2009, Cincinnati Area Mensa will host the event April 24-26 at the Drawbridge Inn in Ft. Mitchell.
Of course, to take advantage of Mensa activities, SIGs, newsletters, and magazines, you have to keep your membership current. About 75% of our memberships are scheduled to expire at the end of March; please don't forget to renew! At $1 per week, Mensa dues are a bargain; with discounts for multi-year and life memberships, you can do even better. And we'd like to keep each of you around for a long time!
--Rick Magnus
CAM LocSec