Personal Contributions to Tangible Benefits for Members

In what ways do you think you can personally contribute to increasing tangible benefits for Mensa members?

I’m not going to hand out bread and organize circuses for members (well, I help with HalloweeM, but  that's not what you're asking).

What I can do as a Board member is gather empirical data and multiple opinions in order to create policy and processes that support volunteers and staff who do provide tangible benefits to members.

For example, I worked the National Office Internet Services team to review and choose software, argued convincingly with the budget-makers that the expense should be a priority, and developed and honed the TOS and moderation philosophy that enables these forums, persnickety as its denizens are, to function relatively smoothly with very few incidents that necessitate sanctions. I didn’t personally write the code to make this Community go, but I did do the leadership tasks to make it viable.

Another example is Local Group funding. I led the taskforce that figured out how much groups really needed, presented the case (pages and pages of charts and graphs) to the AMC, and convinced a majority to increase the funding levels. I did not personally send extra money to Groups, but I did do the background research and persuasive arguing to make it happen.

First Vice Chair is typically a “special projects” position, so I would expect to do even more of this sort of contribution.