Ready to Run
REMEMBER THE GIDDY feeling of running races or sprints on a track or playground at school: crouched down, heart beating, feet spread just right with toes curled, looking around at the competition, wondering who will reach the finish line first? That’s how I’m feeling about the prospect of getting together with my family and friends at upcoming Mensa gatherings. We are all waiting for the starting gun to fire so we can get running. I know I’m ready, and I bet you are too. As I look over my columns from the past year — the dreaded, hopefully never to be repeated year — I spoke quite a bit about how technology helped us keep in touch. How grateful I am that so many members provided and attended events virtually. I am still appreciative for those times and those members. Even as we look forward to our in-person events, we should keep and use some of the tools we made the most of this past year. I discovered that quite a few members that had never attended an in-person event would attend the virtual events. Having the capability of gathering online is another tool in our toolbox to excite and engage our members. But now I’m ready for in-person, real-life interactions. Fortunately, we have just the event coming up that can help in the best way: the World Gathering, basically an Annual Gathering on steroids. While we still aren’t sure of the exact processes and requirements for our members’ health and safety, I know that AG Chair Taz Criss will put on an amazing event. Please stay posted. And I look forward to writing about our other events and sharing them with you as we move through the year. Also, because we have not been able to get together, we haven’t been able to provide Proctored Testing. So, even though our retention rate (members renewing before they expire) is the highest in 25 years, our total membership is down because we have been unable to bring in new members with testing. The new Private Testing program is helping, as 60 percent more vouchers have been sold than was estimated, and we have new members already joining through this program. This means new friends, new mates, and more members for all of us. My vision is that we will continue to see changes like these in Mensa that will help us prosper and grow. What would you like to see in your Mensa? As always, I am listening.