Greater Phoenix Mensa

Is everyone enjoying the not-as-short shortest month of the year? We expect to see you celebrate with your friends at the Leap Year party starting at 1 PM on Saturday, February 18^th. Even if you’ve never made it out to an event before, make your first foray out to the Mandarin Super Buffet Restaurant located at 1501 W.  Bethany Home Road, Phoenix, AZ 85015. Current members will have their meals covered by GPM and remember that guests are welcome. Please send your confirmation (your name, membership number, and number of guests you are bringing) to Disa McAlister with more details available in the calendar.

The GPM logo competition is still open. If you want to win two free entries to this year’s RG and can think of a logo for the group, please send your entries to the address listed in the MAAM and/or my e-mail address. Again, we are looking for a novel grayscale logo that fits within 2”x2” or 1200 x1200 pixels. We look forward to seeing your creativity.

Near the end of last year, several members met to discuss where we are now, what we have to offer, and where we want to be. The outcome of this meeting was discussed during the last two ExCom meetings and the vision, mission, and goals were laid out. These are in the minutes and I would like to engage each member to help us remain aligned with our vision, maintain emphasis on our mission and achieve or even exceed our goals.

Vision:  Discover! Learn! Create!

Mission:  To connect and energize Mensans by providing an engaging intellectual and social environment

Goals:

1) To be one of the largest 5 regional Mensa chapters within 5 years

2) Enhance our offerings to our members so that monthly events are available within 30 minutes of their home (for at least 90% of our members)

3) Increase our active volunteers by 100% within 5 years 

To reach our goals, we created a new post of volunteer coordinator this month and Chryssoula DePuydt has graciously volunteered for the post. We also created a “new member” committee to engage and welcome both new and inactive members and would appreciate your participation. If you are interested in volunteering in any aspect, you can contact Chryssoula or any member of the ExCom directly through the contact information listed on page 2.

Greg Chandra
LocSec@phoenixmensa.org
480.254.5771

First off, happy new year from your friendly neighborhood LocSec! As this is a leap year, I hope you take the extra day as an opportunity to do something special. It is the right time for new year’s resolutions so please share your thoughts with ExCom, in person, online, or over the phone. What do you think we are doing right and what should we do differently?

We are working to provide more opportunities to you, our fellow members, in the coming year. Some items we have coming up this year include social events, monthly forums, scholarship opportunities (with deadlines coming up soon), and the Regional Gathering (RG). I would encourage each of you to come out to our annual RG over Thanksgiving, the Phoenix Phiesta XXX – More Desert Delights. The RG chair this year is Mel Anderson and contact him if you’d like to contribute to the effort. In addition to having these events, we want to provide you opportunities to share your experiences, expertise, and passions with us. For us to provide these opportunities, we would really appreciate you telling us what you like to talk about, show, do/perform, listen to, or discuss.

            Our mission locally is to connect and energize Mensans by providing an engaging intellectual and social environment. If you want to increase your time with your peers and don’t have events nearby, we would love to help you set up local events. As shown in the dot plots in the November issue, we have members all over the state and another member might be a neighbor the next street over. From my observations, a majority of our events tend to take place in a geographically constricted area and while we want to keep those events, I would really relish the opportunity to help you connect with other members of your local community. Let me or Kebba Buckley Button know if you would like this and can meet up for lunch, dinner, or discussion even once a month. If we can set something up on a recurring basis, we can provide the community experience to local members and recent transplants for each area. I know from personal experience that moving to a new place is tough and finding somewhere to fit in makes all the difference.

            Finally, I would like to expand our membership through the coming years. If you know someone that might be interested and capable or even has prior evidence to qualify for Mensa, have them contact our testing chair, Russell Silverberg, or our membership chair, Paul Beaulieu. If you are a member that is involved in testing, working with the gifted, or know someone else who is, we would like to provide you the opportunity to share our information with future members. Hope to make it a great year and to quote Kanye West, “Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us stronger... Our work here is never over.”

Greg Chandra
LocSec@phoenixmensa.org
480.254.5771

By the time the MAAM reaches you, we will be fast approaching the new year. I decided to reflect a little bit and look at the MAAMs from the previous year and change in honor of this and found a lot of positives alongside quite some turnover. I hope to have more of the positives and less of the turnovers. Our membership as of October is 969 and that is out of roughly 4 million Phoenicians. Let us get more involved in the community and reach others who would benefit from Mensa. I think we can go from the 14^th largest local group to the 6^th and we only need a 25% increase. The path towards this has to be both the quantity and the quality of activities.

                Another step towards this goal is that Disa McAlister has volunteered and been elected to the post of Gifted Youth Coordinator. She is looking for parents’ and youth’s input for events. Scholarship applications are open and students can submit them to Jennifer Hallden and the scholarship committee for consideration. She will be looking for volunteers to assist as well. We are also looking for people interested in being a proctor and the details on that role can be found on the website’s Member’s Only area under “How to become a proctor.” Finally, for volunteers, we have a marketing chair position open for someone looking to spend some time promoting the organization in local media.

                Another plan to increase our engagement with you is that we are looking for area coordinators for places like Prescott, the West Valley, and more. There are a few members in Yuma that may have never met each other and it would be great if we were able to get some activities started there. Any effort you can put in is more than we have now so please step up. Let Kebba Buckley Button or a member of ExCom know that you are interested.

                Finally, we discussed the creation of our own Logo at the November ExCom and decided to create a contest. We will take submissions from membership, followed by voting by our membership, and the winner will win two Regional Gathering (RG) entries. The deadline will be coming up soon so submit them as early as you can. The rules are published in this issue and will be up on the website. For entry details and official requirements, log into the National website, then under "LEAD", select "Logos", and there are details and a link to get the "Name and Logo Workbook." I look forward to seeing what you create.

Greg Chandra
LocSec@phoenixmensa.org
480.254.5771

I recently completed my first marathon and will have run another one by the time this is published. A few days after the race, I spoke with someone that had climbed Mt. McKinley and found that we shared a common experience. While mountain climbing and running marathons may seem unrelated, these are fundamentally tests of individual strength, willpower, and teamwork. Teamwork could strike people as unusual because while we can imagine mountaineers roped together, running is clearly an individual sport. I am one of those runners with uncommon sense who doesn’t train and chooses to test his willpower on the course so I am even more isolated than those who train.* During the race, I started friendships with several other first time marathoners and conversing with them made the miles go by quicker and somewhat easier. We saw several runners down during the course and each was surrounded by a group of four or five fellow runners helping them out. This is one of the fundamental things you learn about the sport, while finishing as fast as you can is the goal, helping others do the same makes it even more rewarding.

This very lesson is what I wanted to impart on my fellow Mensans. We are individually strong and while we can do great things alone, working together can help us accomplish even more and be rewarding to us as individuals. Over the month of September, we’ve had volunteers step up and help our organization do even more for you. I would like to thank Paul Beaulieu for stepping up as our new membership chair; David Pivin and Carla Tillman for bringing us into the current decade as webmasters; and all the current volunteers for keeping us going. If you would like to join us in this adventure, contact me or another member of ExCom and we’ll see how your strengths can help us and we can help you.

Finally, we have the results from the Bylaws election. If you wanted proof that your vote matters, it passed by a single vote. This means that the new bylaws are in effect and Article V, item 4, allows us to create provisions for remote attendance. If you are interested in participating or attending the monthly meeting but are not able to be there, let me know ahead of time and we can get something set up. Have a great November and I look forward to reading more of your contributions in the MAAM.

* The sentiment applies equally to those who train with others.

Greg Chandra
LocSec@phoenixmensa.org
480.254.5771

By the time you receive this issue, our Greater Phoenix Mensa bylaw election period will have closed and the 2012 federal election campaigns will be in full swing. While we will not know the results of the bylaws election until after this is published, the end of this election does not mean the end of your opportunity to get involved with our organization. I would personally like to thank everyone who decided to take an interest in these affairs and extend an invitation to all members to get a little more from your membership.

Your fellow Mensans are volunteering to bring you things from the MAAM to the events and everything in between. Have fun, be creative, meet interesting people, and jump on in. We have opportunities ranging from Webmaster to marketing and membership chairs and everything in between. Would you like to share an interest, story, or photo? Submit them to the editor. Feel like you don’t have much time to contribute? You can volunteer to proctor testing for Mensa or get involved in planning next year’s Regional Gathering. Have kids in Mensa? Help us provide engaging events for them as the Gifted Youth Coordinator. If you feel like you’d like to contribute but don’t see where you fit in, contact me or another member of the ExCom and we’ll work with you and your interests to see what we can do. More information on many of the positions is available on http://www.us.mensa.org/lead/handbooks.

Another item that has changed in this latest issue is that many of you received this Much Ado About Mensa electronically. With the paper copy, we can look for it if we misplaced it and with the electronic copy, we can do much the same (even if you happen to throw it away digitally). We can find the electronic copy after logging in through http://phoenix.us.mensa.org. I hope the new medium helps bridge the gap between the 15^th century and the 21^st century and connects more of our members.

In closing, I would like to encourage each person to get involved with your organization and enjoy the cooler weather that I hope we’re experiencing.

Greg Chandra
LocSec@phoenixmensa.org
480.254.5771

I am sure everyone greatly missed the LocSec column in the August issue of the MAAM. As a member of Mensa for less than 2 years, I am deeply honored to be elected LocSec of Greater Phoenix Mensa. I want to thank all of the outgoing volunteers, officers, and ExCom members for their service. I look forward to working with new and continuing volunteers during my term.

In my new role, I want to have more members get involved in the organization given the numerous opportunities that are available. I realize that the logistics of a city/region as large as Phoenix can prove challenging but with available tools and resources, need not be a hindrance. Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are perfect examples of this.

Jessica Burstrem has recently resigned her role as Gifted Youth Coordinator as she’s moving to Tucson and we thank her for her service. In addition to filling this role, GPM is looking for volunteers to take on roles as Webmaster, Assistance LocSec, and more. Bring your ideas and yourselves to the ExCom meeting and we’ll see what we can do to make each year better than the last.

You will also find voting on the bylaws update is set to close September 30th and we look forward to your participation.

Finally, my predecessor, Ben Boyle, was a better and more prolific writer than I so bear with me as I grow into the role. I look forward to guidance and information from all our membership.

Greg Chandra
LocSec@phoenixmensa.org
480.254.5771

This is my final column as Local Secretary of Greater Phoenix Mensa. I would like to thank all the members who have supported me during the past two years.  Without your support, this group does not exist. 

In this edition on MAAM, you will find a copy of the proprosed bylaws we would like to you consider.

We are having some problems with the Hotel where we recently held our RG, the Phoenix Airport Hilton.  They appeared to overcharge us by $5900. The contract stipulated that we would have a certain number of rooms purchased by people requesting the RG rate and according to Hilton's records, we did not meet our commitment.  We have no way of intedependently verifying this.

If anyone has any ideas about how to proceed on this, please let me know.