Forward, Four
(Local Edition)
By Matt Crawford, RVC4
Earth still moves around the sun, and now our half is tilted away from that mighty orb. NOAA says we’ll probably have typical winter temperatures but above-average snowfall in our region. Time to check the shovels, plows, and snow-blowers. I just got back from a trip to Southern California with my children to visit their grandmother, and the weather there was excellent for late August, notwithstanding that the calendar said late December. We visited the tar pits and by the time this hits print I should be unstuck from my own tar pit and ready to come a-visiting—if that above-average precipitation doesn’t get in the way.
I went looking for notable upcoming events in our region. There’s AGOG, Chicago’s all-gaming RG February 14–16. Further afield, Los Angeles’ StaRGazing and Central Alabama’s science fiction RG Mensa=Con (also known as CAM-CON) are on that same weekend. This hardly seems an optimal use of the time dimension.
While searching for local group events of broad interest, I cam across something else, so let me give a shout-out to Carl Jackson of St. Louis Area Mensa, a member for 51 years last month, and to Mary Anderson of Central Indiana and Richard Jacobs of Minnesota for 60 years! Apologies to anyone of similar attainment that I missed. I went hunting for more gold and diamond anniversary members but found anomalies in the database—members with join dates in 1900. We’ll get that sorted out.
A monthly column is not a timely way for me to cross-promote local group events, that much is clear from my meager efforts. I have therefore requested a Region 4 web site be created by the IT staff and I now call for a small number of volunteers to help me build and maintain a minimal site to help us in the region find events of interest in other local groups. When the site is created I’ll make another call for regional webmasters on Mensa Connect. I’d the site to be ready before the weather turns favorable to intra-regional day tripping. A design goal would be to require little or no extra effort from each local group. People work hard enough already!
How’s everyone doing with their newsletter budget? Ninety-six cents would hardly cover postage to all your members, but if enough take electronic delivery (and thereby a full-color copy?) you may have some spare change. Some groups find interesting ways of using that extra money to enhance members’ experience. One covers appetizers at dinner gatherings. Another encourages its members’ trips to RGs. Please share any new ideas with your local group leadership, and share successful practices with other groups, or with me.
Speaking of people working hard, AML affairs have been quite distracting lately and I’ve written an alternative column for those who want to read about them. I leave it to your editors to choose which edition to print, local or national—if either! You can go to https://crawdad.neocities.org/RVC4/ for the other.