From the RVC:
By now you may have heard that American Mensa ended the membership year on March 31st with an all-time record membership of more than 57,800. Considering the state of the economy, that is little short of amazing. Our national office staff deserves our thanks and hearty congratulations for their efforts. However, the end of the membership year also saw the usual percentage of members not renew their membership for another year. If your local group has not participated in the annual lapsed member campaigns in the past, I encourage you to contact your local officers now and urge them to take part this year. American Mensa will pay your group cold hard cash to contact your lapsed members and ask them to rejoin. The national organization will be doing that too, but it's not nearly as effective coming from them. Many former members, when asked to rejoin, have said, "Why should I? No one from my local group cares whether I am a member or not." So why not get a committee together and mail some postcards or send some e-mails to those lapsed members? Make them feel wanted, and they just might be inspired to get active and help provide new leadership for your group.
Also, if you haven't voted in the American Mensa election yet, please take a few minutes to do so. Although there's no contest here in Region 6 this year, there are a number of candidates for other national offices who would like your support. The election materials won't be in the Mensa Bulletin this year; they have been mailed to everyone separately. The materials for the International election, however, are in the Bulletin as usual.
Finally, don't forget SynRG, the Gulf Coast Mensa Regional Gathering, in Houston over Memorial Day weekend. Registration information can be found on the national website, www.us.mensa.org. If you've never been to a Regional Gathering, you can't imagine what a wonderful experience it can be to spend an entire weekend with dozens of Mensans. And if you really want a mind-blowing experience, there's still time to register for the Annual Gathering in Pittsburgh the first week of July. Nearly 2,000 Ms are expected to attend, and that means non-stop excitement. More about that next month.
Roger Durham