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Intermittently, we will receive a complaint about receiving an issue of CapM in what I like to refer to as crazy-late; this isn't just several days into the issue month because we got it to the printer slightly behind schedule, or the weather was uncooperative, or your postal carrier was just over-burdened for several days straight and things were just a bit wonky. No, this is receiving the issue of CapM several weeks late. When this happens, it is pretty much guaranteed that your local post office is at fault. To cover all your bases, please make sure to contact the ExComm first to notify us of the problem – after all, we'll let you know if it's the rare time that such excessive tardiness is our fault or if it's the post office. And if it's the latter, we'll tell you whether we have heard similar complaints, especially from others in your vicinity. If we think it's the post office's fault, then you will need to contact your local post office directly to attempt to resolve the issue. Prior experience in other chapters has shown that the post office is more responsive to the individual recipients of the mail moreso than the officers of a small organization that doesn't have any clout to influence their actions.
As you can see on the inside front cover, and as was mentioned in the minutes a few months ago, MWM has a new phone number, otherwise referred to as MensaPhone: 202-OK-MENSA (202-656-3672). MensaPhone is intended for several purposes:
1) Members can leave a voicemail for the ExComm: whether it is a question, complaint, issue to be addressed at an ExComm meeting, head's up about an event of interest, or the cancellation of a scheduled event after the CapM went to press;
2) Non-members can leave a voicemail and make inquiries about certain events, upcoming testing dates, membership criteria, or even requests for interview with their respective media outlet; and
3) The ExComm can notify the membership of last-minute changes of venue or cancellations. While this would have been a great option to have employed during our two major blizzards last winter, it was used effectively for the sudden change of venue for the September New Members Open House less than a week before the date of the party. If you need to cancel your event or if the venue needs to change, notify the ExComm via the MensaPhone (in addition to whatever e-mail you send out), and someone will update the outgoing message as soon as possible. While routine verification of whether an event is still being held should be done by the individual would-be attendee contacting the PoC listed in the calendar, when exceptional circumstances arise, such as blizzards, odds are you'll get lots of notifications all at once via this outgoing message. It's a great service, and best of all, it's free for all concerned!
In late August/early September, I created my own blog regarding both national and local Mensa items of interest. For those who are interested in contributing, go to boxmasterscorner.blogspot.com – and make sure to write to me with any pertinent Mensa-specific topics you would like to see addressed there. It's off to a gradual start so far.
National elections are coming up, and the petition period is still open for anyone who wants to run for any of the positions on the American Mensa Committee, the national board of directors. I encourage anyone with an interest in helping direct Mensa on the national level to consider submitting the necessary paperwork. Go to www.us.mensa.org/election for all the necessary information about submitting a petition candidacy (read through the Election Rules carefully) as well as for signing a candidate's online petition.
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