From the LocSec
By
October 2008
It is always sad to lose a member of our Mensa family. It's especially rough when the person is young and as nice as Tim Link. Tim's deep voice was always a pleasure to hear. Tim died early in the morning of September 18 in Munich, Germany, where he and his Mensan wife Stephanie lived; he was 31. Early indications are that he was infected by an aggressive form of bacterial meningitis, and that death followed his first symptoms by less than a day. He and Stephanie met through Cincinnati Area Mensa, fell in love, married, and moved to Germany last year to take advantage of career opportunities. Tim joined CAM in May 2003, and served on Excomm during the 2006-07 year. I'm sure everyone in CAM joins me in offering our deepest sympathies to Stephanie and to Tim's family.
"Why isn't my birthday listed in the Mencinnatian?" Since multiple people have asked me this question, I'll answer it here: We need your permission to print your birthday. American Mensa has a variety of privacy/information release options for each member, and we can list only birthdays for those members who have authorized release of personal data questionnaire answers for our directory. While we don't list the PDQ answers in the roster we print (hopefully, coming next month) or post on the website, that same data release controls our ability to list your birthday in the Mencinnatian. You can change your data releases on the form that comes in your renewal package, or make changes at the "profile update" on the AML website; the check box that affects whether we can print your birthday is the 7th of the 10 boxes in the big yellow box near the bottom. (Updating on the website does require your log in information; if you need help, call the National Office at 800-66-MENSA.)
Elsewhere in this issue, you will find your ballot for electing CAM's 2008-09 Executive Committee ("Excomm"). The people we elect will determine CAM's course over the next year. Let me urge every CAM member to find out about the candidates, and cast not just a ballot, but an intelligent ballot. Don't rely just on the candidate's statements-they can be quite self-serving; ask people you know who are active in the group about who works hard for the group, and to whose judgment you may wish to entrust our group. We have twelve good people running for the seven available positions this year, so tough choices will have to be made.
(And, here's some fun data on the twelve candidates: One joined Mensa in the '60s [before 4 of the candidates were born], five joined in the '80s, and six joined in the '00s. Seven candidates have multi-year memberships, and one is a life member. The candidates range in age from 36 to 71-and five were born in March. Eight candidates live in Hamilton County, one in Clermont County, and three live in three Kentucky counties. The real variety of personalities is, of course, much greater than such statistics can show!)