Forward, Four
By Matt Crawford, RVC4
During October we’re all looking forward to something, be it the hues, the holidays, or HalloweeM. I don’t think it’s my role to promote one group’s event, but it is the only thing that shows as a Region 4 event on the national calendar. Consider it modestly promoted, then. Further in the future is Mind Games. I always see a lot of people from our region there, no matter where it’s held. For next year, April 2025 in Portland OR, the first week of registration will be open to all members, rather than only to those who attended in the previous year. Nonmember guests can register starting in the second week, and their numbers will be limited. This is a new scheme. Trying new things is, on average, good. Giving feedback afterward is also, on average, good.
We also have a number of virtual events on the calendar, with no region associated. Virtual events have really stuck around since those days when they were our mainstay. Virtual engagement is high. I read that the last Theodore talk drew around 450 registrants, which nearly equals the attendance the first big virtual RG in 2020.
Virtual engagement with the AMC meetings is a bit lower. I understand that they aren’t as entertaining as “Resisting Misinformation,” the August Theodore talk. But it does any board good to know people are watching, otherwise we might get comfortable rearranging the ASIEs and drinking the complimentary coffee. I’ve heard secondhand that the remote attendance is trending slowly upward and that is gratifying. In a situation evocative of President Kennedy’s first1 birthday party in office, your RVCs in particular welcome your presence—and your feedback.
You can find an informal poll about some of your priorities as members on both our Facebook and our Mensa Connect areas, It has some connection to the foregoing.
As I noted last month, it’s very hard to be AMC-topical in a column that’s due a month before publication. I’ll mention one item that will be settled before this sees print and one that will be still in the future.
When the previous AMC raised the annual dues, it also increased the monthly per-member stipend to local groups. At the same time, it removed the amount of that stipend from the ASIEs and it now only appears in a cell in the back pages of the budget worksheets. I’ve moved to restore the amount to visibility in the ASIEs
And there’s a notion floated to change our triennial elections to electronic only, reducing the cost of elections by pretty nearly 50%. For some time now, it has been impossible to join American Mensa without an email address, to say nothing of conducting the rest of one’s life. There might be a member somewhere with no internet access at all, but how would we hear of, or from, such a person? Anyway, such an action would be passed or rejected using the current rules for elections.
1 No, she sang at his second one.