Palm-Mensa

Palm Beach County Mensa Newsletter
May, 2005

PDF version for printing

Contents

Coming Attractions Next Newsletter Notes from the Underground -- Barry Karas Elections Member News Mind Games RVC column -- Elissa Rudolph Trivia Happenings at the Palm Beach County Library System Nutritious eating BTW... Pictures from the March First Friday event

Coming Attractions!!

Laissez le bon temps roulez! The Annual Gathering 2005 will take over New Orleans July 6-10. Adult registration is $90. Young Mensan registration is free for ages 4 and under, $30 for ages 4-12 and $50 for ages 13-20.

And what do you get for your money? Fun for both sides of your brain! Access to all the food, music and culture New Orleans is known for, plus the inimitable experience of spending a long weekend with more than a thousand of your favorite Mensans:

• Take high tea at the Longue Vue house and gardens.
• Tour the Stennis Space Center and the Southern Regional Research Center.
• Step back in time at two of the plantations on the River Road.
• Play golf to raise money for the Mensa Education & Research Foundation.
• Ride a Segway.
• See the largest hypnotic production show in the world.
• Hear the secrets of "the Canal Street Madam," the Countess Pontalba and the voodoo queens.
• Learn about baseball, fencing and tae kwon do; about reality, adult stem cells, digital forensics, ancient Egyptian measurement of the planet...

...And more activities are being added all the time. Don't forget about the full schedule of Leadership Development Workshops designed to make the jobs of Local Group officers easier. Workshops will focus on banking changes since 9/11, Web design, mailing newsletters and member privacy issues - and that's just for starters.

Check it all out for yourself at www.ag.us.mensa.org, and while you're there, register online. We'll see you in the Big Easy!

 

Next Newsletter

Information due: May 15

Send newsletter items, e-mail address changes, updates and announcements to mensa@ritchason.net

 

Notes from the Underground
by Barry Karas

FAVOR. Our Editor/Webmaster is "running blind" about many of our functions. If our committee chairpersons could give him a few sentences about what their committees do and also notify him of all upcoming target dates/deadlines (both internal and external), he would greatly appreciate it. He would then publish the information. Don't forget: that the printed newsletter is sent to qualified prospects as well as our members, and our web site (except for the Members Only area) can be viewed by everybody. (A person from Macedonia contacted me a few years ago in order to correct my spelling on our first web page.)

WEIGHTY MATTERS. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrated a good news/bad news scenario about holiday weight gain.

• The bad: The weight you gain during the holiday season may endure for the rest of your life.

• The good: Most folks *think* that they gain five to 10 pounds during the season; they *actually* gain only about one pound. (However, you may never lose that one-pound.)

• The very good: If you attend any of our parties you will not gain any weight because the food and drink are deemed to be non-caloric and non-fat by the Supreme Court.

PARTICIPATION. A recent issue of *Interloc* had an article about members who didn't participate (or very rarely participated) in events. The problem may not be one of apathy but one of interest: the scheduled events may not interest many members. For example, some members may *choose* to not participate in dinners and/or happy hours that the members perceive as social, party-type events; these members may enjoy participating in more intellectual events. In light of the article, I propose if you have an idea for an event that you may want to sponsor, you could contact me, and I might be able to help you out with information about hosting (it doesn't have to be "fancy") and/or promotion (including providing "feelers"). Examples include travel (maybe with a slide show?), international trade, and taxation. Please contact me with your ideas.

HUMILITY? Yesterday, it was announced that humans have only about 30,000 genes instead of 100,000 as previously thought. This is only twice as many genes as the common fruit fly or worm has. (To save us from being totally humiliated, it was revealed that the protein in our genes is much more complex than the protein in the genes of fruit flies or worms.)

 

Elections

The Election Committee has announced the following as candidates for the upcoming American Mensa Committee election. Those running unopposed have been declared elected.

Chair
Russ Bakke
Sander Rubin

1^st Vice Chair
Dan Burg
Jim Werdell

2^nd Vice Chair
Elissa Rudolph
Scott Rainey
Tony Jackowski

Secretary
Judy Vasiliauskas - elected

Treasurer
Charlie Bruce- elected

Region 1
Marghretta McBean
Walter Wakefield

Region 2
Marc Lederman - elected

Region 3
Alan Baltis - elected

Region 4
Cyndi Kuyper - elected

Region 5
Mike Seigler
Lewis Gosnell

Region 6
Stan Alluisi
Ray O'Connor

Region 7
Kevin Myles - elected

Region 8
John Recht - elected

Region 9
Joanna Soper
Henry Miller
Karen Bauernschmidt

Region 10
Maggie Truelove - elected

 

Member News

Palm Beach County Mensa ended February with 378 members. We gained 2 brand new, renewing or moving into our area. Welcome or welcome back to: Brian Wright and Cassandra Hodgdon. Come on out to an event or organize one yourself. We'd like to meet you! Check out the First Friday event, with pictures in this newsletter!

 

Mind Games

The newest games were rated and played by 164 Ms at Mind Games. The winners:

DaVinci's Challenge - Briarpatch www.briarpatch.com

Ingenius - Fantasy Flight Games www.fantasyflightgames.com

Loot - Gamewright www.gamewright.com

Niagara - Rio Grande Games www.riograndegames.com

Zendo - Looney Labs www.looneylabs.com

 

RVC Column
By Elissa Rudolph

I'm baaaccckk! Humongous thanks to Maggie Truelove, Assistant RVC, soon to be the authentic RVC for Region 10. She went to the March AMC meeting to report on our region's doings and saw just how those meetings are conducted. And she still wants more. Way to go, Maggie!

The last few months I have been concentrating on finishing up my graduate degree, a master of arts in liberal studies with an emphasis on--what else?--Florida studies. In fact, my thesis will be turned into a program for the World Gathering in 2006. I've done research on the

Highwaymen landscape artists and their children, some of whom are painting in the style of their parents. If you would like more information about this unique Floridian phenomenon, try my website, www.elissa.com, where I am posting my research.

Did you attend MindGames in Tampa? If you did, you probably had a fabulous time--what a great outlet for Mensa problem-solvers.

If you are a proctor, you have a certification to renew. Do it now so that testing can continue in your area.

See you soon in Ft. Lauderdale or New Orleans!

Coming Events:

FloRanGe '05-Suite Mayhem, Broward Mensa's RG over Memorial Day weekend, May 27-30, Tampa Bay Mensa's traditional spot on the calendar. Since that group did MindGames, Broward Mensa is hosting the 3-day RG in Fort Lauderdale. Can't miss a chance to party! Contact Robin Rhea, 954.575.1639, robinrhea@bellsouth.net for information.

MensAGumbo, July 6 - 10, in wonderful New Orleans. Laissez les bons ton roulet!

Elissa Rudolph
RVC10@us.mensa.org
5054 Lakefront Blvd., Apt. D
Delray Beach, FL 33484
561-496-0124

 

Trivia

Believe it or not, there is a competition that tests knowledge of trivia (National Trivia Network). Many restaurants/bars across the country participate including several here in Palm Beach County.

There are all kinds of questions...many dealing with the obscure. The questions may be obscure, the answers may be obscure, or both may be obscure. Then again the questions/answers may be easy... at least for Mensans.

The NTN trivia is on seven days per week all day. The "hard core" play on Tuesdays at 8:30 PM but any evening is fine.

Contact Barry Karas: telephone: (561) 964-4360; e-mail: bkaras@adelphia.net ; postal: 1811 Meadows Cir W Boynton Beach, FL 33432-9227.

 

Happenings at the Palm Beach County Library System

You're helping to pay the bills. Now make good use of the many great events throughout the county. The 'Net, as handy as it is, can never replace libraries and librarians.

http://www.pbclibrary.org/May05Happenings.pdf

 

Nutritious eating

Most of the 1,462 recorded species of insects are edible by humans. Many insects are poisonous and should not be eaten. While non-poisonous insects are quite nutritious, it is doubtful insects will ever appear on the FDA's Nutrition Pyramid. For instance, 100 grams of cricket contains only 121 calories, less than half the number of calories for the same amount of beef. The cricket 'meat' contains only 5.5 grams of fat, compared to 21.2g for the beef. The beef contains 23.5g of protein, but the cricket has only 12.9g. The 100g of cricket 'meat' also contain 5.1g of carbohydrates, 75.8 mg calcium, 185.3 mg phosphorous, 9.5 mg iron, thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin.

 

BTW...

The WD in WD-40 stands for Water Displacer, 40th attempt.

 

Pictures from the March First Friday event

The next First Friday event is May 6, 7:00 pm at Payathai, NW corner of Congress Ave and Lantana Road, Lantana. RSVP Barry Karas 561-964-4360 or bkaras@adelphia.com

Andy Ritchason
mensa@ritchason.net
23053 Old Inlet Bridge Dr
Boca Raton. FL

 

Note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and DO NOT reflect opinions of Palm Beach County Mensa, its officers, or of American Mensa, Ltd., which holds NO opinions.

© 2000-2007 Palm Beach County Mensa. The Mensa logo is a registered trademark of Mensa International Limited and American Mensa Limited, all rights reserved. Mensa does not hold any opinion or have, or express, any political or religious views.