Crisis Solved!

People often wonder why there are so few "young" members in leadership positions (and oh, I do love that in Mensa, at least, mid-40s is still considered "young!").

I think that much of the reason is just age and stage of life. Members in their 30s and 40s are working and raising families, and simply can't give the big, consistent chunks of time and freedom to travel required for some of these positions-- like being on the AMC, for example.

The next AMC meeting is this weekend, As it happens, my husband has to travel for work this same weekend. And of course, the school arranged to have a teacher institute on Friday, making the childcare problem even more difficult. So we forked out a few hundred to fly my mother up from South Carolina to stay with the kids while I go to Dallas. We're not thrilled about the extra expense, but Mensa is my hobby, and all hobbies cost money. This is not a complaint.

But...

20 minutes ago, my mom called to say she's injured and not likely to be able to come this weekend to watch the kids. My plane ticket, and Matt's are already bought. We have no other family in the area who can watch the kids. I was going to start pricing two tickets so I can drag the kids along with me to Texas, but my $#^&! Internet is still being really wonky and I can't get through to Orbitz.

And then I called Beth Anne. With great enthusiasm, she jumped at the chance to drive to my place Friday, pick up the kids, and keep them all weekend long. Wow! So all is well, and I just have to board the dog for the weekend. Hooray! Thanks, Beth Anne! I totally owe you a few shots at Pretentious Drinking.

So back to Mensa.. as I see it, if we want "younger" members more involved, we need to embrace the attitude of "it takes a village."

GenX Communications

I rarely out myself as a GenXer. My Local Group really hasn’t had any generational conflict. We’ve always had ExComm members of different generations. The whole GenX tension passed Chicago by.

But for some reason, I’m musing on the topic today.

I have seen, over and over, in LG newsletters , RVC columns, LDWs programs, InterLoc, etc, a consistent plea from Older-than-GenX leaders for younger members to step up, get involved, and take over. And I just have to comment on this:

We ARE involved.

We have been for decades.

And some of us do things differently: Less paper. More instant communication. Highly specialized mini-communities. Spontaneous gatherings. More inclination to hire someone else to do grunt work. Greater acceptance of a litigious society with less privacy.

Mensans can’t ask for new blood and fresh ideas and then complain when those new volunteers take the organization in new and fresh directions. If the well-seasoned members want Mensa to be like it was in the good old days of the 70s and 80s, then they should drive... the organization into the same state the Shakers ended up in.

But if Mensa wants younger members to take over, some members need to let go and quit all the snarky back seat driving—gripe less about the new fangled technology younger member use. We’re Mensans—we were smart enough to figure out how to program our VCRs and read emails. We’re still smart enough to learn how to use blogs, Twitter, IMs, Web-based forums, text messages, technorati, or even the AML Web site (and yes, I know the navigation is non-intuitive-- working on it).

This is how we communicate now. Come join us.