Palm-Mensa

1. Review, accept meeting minutes from December, 1999 board meeting.

a. Final resolution of printer purchase that was approved at board meeting in December, 1999.

2. Print membership roster in newsletter? Elissa Rudolph has volunteered to determine, in cooperation with the AMC, what is and is not permissible to print from the AMC committee formed to study this subject.

3. Invitation to AMC to hold December, 2001 meeting in West Palm Beach with Palm Beach County Mensa as host. Elissa Rudolph will present plan and detail what is expected of this chapter. Should be just minimal cost hospitality items for Friday night.

4. Duplication of critical officer functions, including LocSec, Treasurer (for funds availability) and Newsletter Editor/Webmaster.

5. Determine PBCM's involvement in various programs AML programs such as CAP, GOTYA, MERF Scholarship, CultureQuest®, etc. Possible cooperative arrangement with the Broward and/or Miami groups for a Leadership Development Workshop to be held late next summer or fall. Elissa has volunteered to speak with the leaders of both of these groups about this.

6. PBCM Elections for spring of 2001.

7. Establish committee to review and revise PBCM By-Laws.

The meeting began at approximately 7:20 PM, chaired by Barry Karas and was held at Glen Moulder's home in West Palm Beach. Attending were LocSec Barry Karas, Editor Glen Moulder, South County Coordinator Elissa Rudolph, and members Bob Dolson, Roy Canon and Ann Kasper.

Glen passed out copies of the minutes of the December meeting. The minutes were reviewed, motioned for acceptance by Bob Dolson and seconded by Ann Kasper.

Glen passed out copies of the agenda for today's meeting and Elissa distributed copies of the current group By-Laws for reference as needed during discussions.

Current business items (per the agenda) were:

1. The acquisition of a laser printer approved in the December meeting has not yet been purchased due to a series of miscommunications. Glen will now recheck the specifications of the formerly recommended model and determine the best set of features and price for purchase of one of these units.

2. We discussed printing our membership roster for inclusion in the newsletter or mailing to our members. It was decided we will generate a local members roster and that it will be mailed, first class to all individuals who notify us of their desire to receive it. We will handle this by first determining what information members will permit to be published and what they wish to remain unpublished. We will expand the newsletter, beginning with the September issue, from 11" x 14" format to 11" x 17" format. This will permit us to add one more panel (front and back to the newsletter). On this panel, in the September issue, we will publish a list of data fields from the member's record that we intend to print on the roster. The fields are TITLE, FIRST NAME, MIDDLE INITIAL, LAST NAME, STREET ADDRESS, CITY, STATE, ZIPCODE, PHONE NUMBER and E-MAIL ADDRESS. Next to each of these fields will be a check box in a column labeled NO. If the member does not wish to have his/her information in a particular field printed, he/she must check the NO box next to the field and return the form to a board member. Also on this panel will be a question with a check box, "Please send the newsletter to me via postal mail". If the member does not check this box, we will assume that he/she will view the roster on the secure Members Only web page portion of our web site. The added panel in the newsletter will become a permanent feature that will permit us to publish more material and get responses back from members as needed.

3. Elissa, as the new national office volunteer Membership Chairperson, has been working with the American Mensa Committee (AMC) on the possibility of the committee holding its quarterly meeting of December, 2001 in our area. This meeting would bring about two dozen members of the AMC into town from all over the country and would be held at the Hilton in West Palm Beach adjacent to Palm Beach International Airport. The committee is willing to do so, but required an official invitation from our LocSec. Elissa drafted a letter for Barry's approval and he reviewed and signed it for immediate delivery to the national office. As soon as the national office receives this and notifies us of their acceptance, we will begin planning activities associated with the meeting. Some activities are:

a. We'll establish a hospitality committee to staff the hotel's hospitality room for refreshments for AMC members and the opportunity for local members to meet AMC members.

b. We'll establish a committee for local members to engage in activities directly with AMC members, such as airport pickups/dropoffs and perhaps short tours to local points of interest.

4. We discussed duplication of officer functions for times when group officers are unable to fulfill their duties. In particular, we will begin searching for and grooming an Assistant LocSec and Assistant Editor. In addition, Barry will work with the Treasurer, John Swick to obtain signature authority for the group's checking account.

5. Our group is understaffed and some of the officers are performing many duties. New positions were mentioned for possible establishment by the group to ensure that we can actively and effectively participate in programs at the national Mensa level. They are:

MERF Scholarship Chairperson - The current chair, Anita Kirchen has indicated that she no longer wants the fulfill the position. We must find a new chairperson and possible candidates mentioned were Carole Seuling and Art Charney.

CultureQuest® Chairperson for our group "Beach Bums"

GOTYA coordinator

CAP coordinator

PRP coordinator

Elissa and Glen will work together on generating job descriptions for these positions and begin actively looking for members who may be interested in filling them.

Elissa has also discussed with the AMC the possibility of hosting a Leadership Development Workshop somewhere in South Florida in April, 2001. She is working on this with Maggie Rubin of the Broward group and will report on developments to group officers via e-mail and at the next board meeting.

6. Attending members reviewed the By-Laws and discussed the establishment of an Elections Committee in February, 2001. This committee, consisting of two to four members, would be responsible for holding the election of officers that will be conducted in April, 2001. No further action was taken or discussed.

7. Review of By-Laws. It was determined that the current By-Laws were revised in the past few years and that no further changes are deemed necessary.

Other items discussed were:

1. Changing the name of our group from Palm Beach County Mensa to Palm Beach Area Mensa, since our territory actually includes Martin, St. Lucie and Okeechobee counties in addition to Palm Beach County. Barry will coordinate with the national office to get this done.

2. Changing the name of our newsletter. Palm-Mensa is the current name and it doesn't reflect any witticism or image of our group as do the names of newsletters published by other groups. There are no suggestions currently, but we will perhaps poll members in a future issue of the newsletter.

3. Different types of calendar events. Roy Canon recommended a real Happy Hour without food and possibly a book-swap meeting. Glen mentioned weekend coffees at local commercial establishments. Again, we may poll members in future newsletters for preferences and possibly hosting.

4. The next board meeting will be held on the same day as our annual Holiday Party. The party is currently scheduled for SAT 09 DEC 2000 at 7 PM. The board, and any other interested members will meet at the party location at 5 PM and conclude business by the beginning of the party.

The meeting lasted a little over 2 hours and was closed at approximately 9:30 PM.