AMC Meeting: Friday Morning

(My personal notes- not official minutes!)

As Elissa was beginning the meeting and asking for roll call, Dave Cahn interrupted, insisting on having a place at the table and the right to contribute to the discussions. Burg addressed the traditions and bylaw interpretations. Russ and Jean were asked to contribute their memories of the ombudsman's role at meetings. It is clear that the Ombuds has never sat at the table unless specifically asked to contribute on certain issues. Art goes back further and said the ombuds has never participated in the way that Dave is asking.

I can't believe we're starting this meeting with this argument and power posturing. Why was this not addressed in advance?

Elissa listened to it all and said that Dave should sit in the back and be an observer. Dave acquiesced and made some veiled ominous comments about how things will have to change.

I have the sound of antlers clashing ringing in my ears.

Roll call. Only Lori is missing.

Agenda changes... fixing wording on motion about borrowing and replaying from Life Dues fund and a couple other tine lettering tweaks on another motion.

Adding a couple motions about mini minutes in the Bulletin and about choosing an auditing firm.

Guy wants to craft and make a motion regarding Cahn's request to have a place at the table.

Mega Issue: Testing--Presentation by Dr. Lawlis.
• Psych testing is down worldwide, since its a luxury in a bad economy. Online non-scientific tests give some of the satisfaction.
• Talked about the requirements for proctors and how we cant' really reduce them because of our obligations to the testing companies and to maintain the integrity of our testing program.
• We stopped giving out scores in 2001 because of changes in state laws. HIPAA changes may require more changes. We are trying to figure out a way to give test-takes their results without "interpreting" them. This may be a big change and require some re-education of proctors and local groups. On the other hand, it may make more prospects want to take the test. Prolly we'll develop a letter to give to test-takers that gives their raw scores and instructions for them to "interpret" that raw score themselves.

Marc's review of his Supervised Testing Committee:
Testing promotions- give LG too little notice if they want to set up testing plans or PR. The committee thinks we should just have a set fee and no promotions. RVCs need to be more involved with LGs that are not testing. One test session per quarter is reasonable for most groups. There is no national testing program coordinator appointed by the AMC; there should be. Free test sites are harder and harder to find-- if we identify members who are teachers, ministers, etc, they might be able to provide free testing sites for their groups. Get rid of the confusion between Proctor Coordinator and Testing Coordinator-- just use "Testing Coordinator" for everything.


Mega Issue--Events and AGs
Pam talked. There have been a lot of changes since she started. Huge changes in hotel industry trends. No longer just heads in bed. Revenue is king and the revenue manager is the gate keeper. The days when the relationship with the sales person was key... are gone. F&B plays a larger part in the mix. Internet, restaurant use, AV rental, parking... all used as revenue streams. Hotels share reports with each other.

Our AG attendance is growing, That is an anomaly compared to other associations. We take up more space and have more diversity in our programming. Attendees' expectations are growing. Many members do not understand how volunteer-intensive an AG is.

Staff time: not increasing much, actually, partly because of automation (1683 hours in 05-06; 1151 in 09-10; 1365 in 10-11). Staff handles some or all finances, advance registration, logistics, hotel negotiation, marketing and PR.

Trends in hotel rooms: booking pace and hotel pick-ups. Ours is screwy because we have trained our members to register early.. and then they cancel their reservations. Contracts change. Attrition penalties are higher. Online room-resellers under cut our rates. Hotels sell under our rates, too... and members do book outside of our block when they can.

Liabilities: children, animals, sports, alcohol, security, turning a blind eye to infractions. All of this increases the cost of insurance we have to have to make hotels willing to have us.

Things in Mensa change faster than our host contracts: children's programming, SIG events, more meetings and LDWs. The specs we had when the bid was accepted are not the specs we actually need. We put unrealistic and unknown expectations on the host groups.

This year we got zinged with attrition penalties. Too many members booked and then canceled their rooms. Way too many... cancelled at the last minute or cancelled and moved to the cheaper hotel. And so this year's AG lost $5,858 ( it was ~$14,500, but we negotiated the penalty down). Last minute registration and cancellation... screws up hospitality plans and makes it less cost-efficient.

We have policy shifts from AG to AG: should host group have flexibility to decide who gets comped rooms? Is travel reimbursed for consortium members to attend pre-AG meetings? If a group buys equipment for the AG, who does that equipment belong to? Should the AMC approve the final budget? Do standard AMC budget policies apply?

AG models changing: Local Group, SIGs, consortiums, national

Pros:
Local feel to the event is important
lots of volunteers= more attendees and lower cost
increased attendance makes more want to attend
local members feel engaged
speakers appear for free because members are the ones asking them
LG gets some financial reward

Cons:
• selection system hasn't been updated
• LG has to commit 4 years in advance
• host contract too far out
• tendency to plan for an RG only bigger
• tendency to reinvent the wheel
• members are highly critical and demanding
• lack of experience dealing with hotels/contracts
• primary concern is current year instead of reputation of Mensa
• volunteers are harder and harder to get, especially in some areas like security and hospitality
• changes this year may not be able to replicated
• attendees don't know it's mostly volunteer
•volunteers burnout over 5 years
• lack of good data passed along
• huge amounts of volunteer time for key roles
• AMC is involved after probes are happening
• too many factors impact the finances
• policies are inconsistent
• reluctant to report negatives
• we still budget for break-even... giving us no margin for errors.

Recommendation: appoint a TF to develop a new AG model that exploits the good and eliminates or diminishes the cons.









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