Southern Colorado Mensa including Colorado Springs & Pueblo - … · 2011. 2. 1. · MENSA...

LocSec News by Sandy Halby

Vol. 28, Issue 1 February 2011

PlainsPeaking

In This Issue

What’s Up In Our Region...............…2

Welcome & Farewell........................2

Plains and Peaks Officers…...............3

Financial Report...............................3

Birthdays.........................................4

Announcements..............................4

Perk Up Your Parliament Details......4

Perk Up Your Parliament..................5

February Events...............................6

Cryptogram.....................................6

February Calendar...........................7

H ello, fellow Plains & Peaks Mensa members! What could be our big-gest event of 2011 is just

around the corner – the “Perk Up Your Parliament” Leadership Day! This event is FREE to our members and snacks and lunch will be pro-vided. There are great door prizes, a chance to schmooze with Peggy Panke-Smith in person and a promise that you’ll have fun! What more could you want in a Leadership event? We’re all leaders in some aspects of our lives – as well as volunteers. These workshops will give you some solid ideas for improving your leader-ship skills. Our “Perk Up Your Parlia-ment” Leadership Day will feature four great fast-paced and energetic workshops: a couple on leading vol-unteers, one on Whole Family and Gifted Children activities, and one on Public Relation and Media. We’ve also got one super Guest Speaker scheduled: Ms. Aimee Liotino, the Director of Volunteer Activities for Pikes Peak United Way. These workshops contain informa-tion that not only applies to Mensa groups and activities, but to other organizations or clubs you belong to – as well as businesses. You may pick up new ideas on how to deal with media if your small company needs the publicity – or if you work for a large company, maybe you’ll glean a new idea for your company’s Family Day! Whatever you do or wherever you work – there will be ideas and

tips you can use from each of these workshops. Peggy Panke-Smith, our Region 7 Vice-Chair, will be leading the “Getting People Involved” workshop; our own Plains & Peaks Mensa mem-ber Emile Cureau, who has great PR experience, will be running the Media session. Sean McCormick, our enthu-siastic Gifted Children Coordinator, will be pitching the “Whole Family/Child Friendly Activities” portion of the day. Yours truly will be conduct-ing the “M&M Get Volunteers” seg-ment. You will certainly find some-thing of value in each of these worth-while workshops. Even if you can’t attend the whole day – perhaps you can make a couple of the workshops and stay for the guest speaker. And, there really is such a thing as a free lunch for those attend this event! Be sure to register/RSVP to me by the 17th of February. We’re not just doing the “Perk Up Your Parliament” event in February. Our calendar is full of other events, too: Give Into Beer Pressure, the Ex-Comm Meeting and Dinner, Geeks Who Drink, Trivia Night at a new location, and the Penultimate Satur-day Supper – which is super special this month. We’ll be going to the Din-ner Detective show at the Embassy Suites Hotel (Thanks, Al, for setting this up!). See our calendar for dates and details! Don’t forget to visit our web-site at

www.plainsandpeaksmensa.org – it’s an award-winner – thanks to Windy Haddad, our web-mistress! Thanks, Windy, for such a great site! And – to our excellent and wonderful newslet-ter editor, Betsy: Thanks for all your hard work! Connor and Sean – like-wise – thank you! Hope to see you at a Mensa event soon – and at the “Perk Up Your Par-liament” Leadership Event!

~ Sandy

The Newsletter of Plains and Peaks Mensa, Southern Colorado

http://www.plainsandpeaks.us.mensa.org/

http://www.plainsandpeaksmensa.orghttp://www.plainsandpeaks.us.mensa.org/

H APPY NEW YEAR! WISHING YOU HAP-PINESS & OPPORTUNITIES IN 2011! Mensa elections are coming up this year and

I’m in the running for another exciting term as your Re-gional Vice Chair here in our award-winning Heartland Region 7. Here’s what some of our members have said: “Keep up the good work”, “You are great. Thanks for the help, truly.” “You are AMAZING – as always!” “Thank you so much for your help”. Well, shucks. Anyway, your vote will be much appreciated! WELCOME NEW OFFICERS! SALLY KERPCHER, Wyoming Mensa’s new Local Secre-tary DENNIS TANNER, Wyoming Mensa’s new Proctor Co-ordinator LARRY BRANDT, Central Iowa’s new Scholarship Chair CATHRYN FISHER, Mid-America Mensa’s Gifted Child Program Coordinator MARTHA HYDER, Boulder/Front Range Mensa’s Schol-arship Chair MID-AMERICA MENSA VISIT

Really looking forward to visiting with Mid-American Mensa in mid-January. Should be a warm time with good people! MARK YOUR CALENDAR! PLAINS & PEAKS MENSA is planning a FREE leader-ship event for Saturday, February 26, 2011 from 8:30 to 5 at the East Library, 5500 N Union, Colorado Springs CO. Sandy Halby, Loc Sec won this $1000 event for the group

What’s Up In Our Region by Peggy Pannke-Smith

Regional Vice Chair

Heartland Region 7

WELCOME:

Wade C Birdwell, who moved here from Georgia. Hello, Wade!

Welcome & Farewell

by submitting the winning entry in the “Name the Event” contest. Her Region 7 winning entry is “Perk Up Your Parliament” (a parliament is a group of OWLS). Very clever! This fun and FREE event will include 4 or 5 top-notch workshops, icebreaker games and prizes, FREE lunch & dinner, FREE admission and FREE programs! I’ll be presenting one of the workshops. Mark your calendar today! Contact Sandy at [email protected] or (719) 528-5483 for details. See you there! RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP AND GET A BONUS MONTH FREE! Renew your Mensa membership this month and your membership will be extended through March 31, 2012 as a bonus! Other ways to save big time include becoming a Lifetime members or renewing for 3 or 5 years. Visit www.us.mensa.org and renew online! GAMING COLLOQUIUM! February 18-20 in Austin Texas. Electronic Gaming and its Impact on Society. Top-notch speakers and programs. $169 registration for Mensa members ($249 for others) includes 3 meals and all programs. All details at www.colloquium.us.mensa.org LOOKING FOR A JOB? LOOKING FOR AN EM-PLOYEE? MENSA CAN HELP! Mensa members can access CareerLink at www.careerlink.us.mensa.org. This FREE Mensa service helps job seekers access hundreds of corporate job post-ings, post an anonymous resume, be notified by email of new opportunities that match your search criteria, career coaching, free “Ask the Expert” service, and access a free library of content offering career advice. Employers can quickly post job openings, manage recruiting, take advan-tage of advanced resume searching capabilities, reach tar-geted and qualified candidates and browse resumes for FREE.

Please check out Region 7 happenings

on our award-winning Region 7 website:

http://www.region7.us.mensa.org/

PlainsPeaking

mailto:[email protected]://www.us.mensa.orghttp://www.colloquium.us.mensa.orghttp://www.careerlink.us.mensa.orghttp://www.region7.us.mensa.org/

Vol. 28, Issue 1

Plains and Peaks Mensa Officers

Sandy Halby (LocSec/President)

6066 Del Rey Dr, COS 80918

719-528-5483

[email protected]

Jennifer Browning (2nd Vice Pres. for Membership)

2034 Devon St, COS 80909

719-591-0189

[email protected]

Connor Baker (Treasurer)

PO Box 514

Florissant, CO 80816

(719) 646-2660

[email protected]

Sean McCormick (Gifted Children’s Coordinator)

4220 Ruby Dr

Colorado Springs, CO 80918-5058

(719) 264-694

[email protected]

Betsy Ogan (PlainsPeaking Editor)

1061 Hummingbird Ct, COS 80921

719-481-1199

[email protected]

Windy Haddad (Webmaster)

1465 Stella Dr. COS 80921

719-201-4743

[email protected]

Al Ackerson (Past President)

3627 Hayman Court, COS 80910

719-635-4910

[email protected]

We are in good financial condition with cash reserves of

$7,674 and a revenue/expense surplus of $286 for the pe-

riod.

I remain concerned, however, about the newsletter ex-

pense. Note it is almost triple our program expense.

What’s even more troubling is the newsletter expense is

incurred on behalf of only about 25 of our 175 members. I

have no doubt that our newsletter editor is very frugal; it

is simply a very expensive unit cost to produce printed

materials in such small quantities. This expense is

crowding out our opportunity to deliver more programs

to our members and our community.

Please, if at all possible, convert to the electronic

newsletter by contacting the editor, Betsy Ogan, at

[email protected].

Respectfully,

Connor Baker, Treasurer Plains and Peaks Mensa Editor’s Note: Each month I copy and mail about 50 newsletters. The postage alone is currently $264 per year. A mailed newsletter costs about $1.60 per person per month. If only ten members switched to the electronic version (which BTW comes in color and has links to e-mail ad-dresses, web sites, and more), our club would save almost $200 per year! Twenty members=$400 per year! Betsy Ogan Editor, PlainsPeaking

Income Statement

10/03/31 to 10/09/30

AML Transfer $ 965

Plus Interest $ 23

Less Program Expenses $ (180)

Less Newsletter Expenses $ (519)

Excess of Revenue over expenses $ 289

Financial Report

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

Joshua Moss February 1 Jennifer D Browning February 4 Mike Halby February 5 Eric S Johnson February 8 Allan Ackerson February 19 David Haukom February 20 Jaron P Maxson February 25 Frank W Shelton February 26 Joseph Arbuckle February 28 Jennifer Manship February 28

NOTE: If you don’t see your birthday posted here, it’s probably because that information (and perhaps more) is marked “non-releasable” on our rosters. If you’d like to check on your personal information release status, please contact American Mensa (1-800-66-MENSA) or go to www.us.mensa.org and under Member resources, select the PDQ section.

Birthdays

Page 4

Announcements

P LAINS & PEAKS MENSA EVENTS: While all the events listed on our calendar are open to all our Mensa members and their guests, we do re-quest that our members respect the event host’s

wishes, such as no smoking, no alcohol, adults only, park only in the street, etc. PLAINSPEAKING NEWSLETTER: Get published! If you’d like to contribute a column or original article to our newsletter, please contact Betsy Ogan, our newsletter edi-tor. MENSA PRODUCTS: Fox Imaging is the official store of American Mensa products and the source for Mensa-branded apparel and other products including Mensa Se-lect® games, books, pins and more. Contact Dave or Lynne at Fox Imaging at 800/397-4156 or view their catalog online at www.foximaging.com FEBRUARY 26TH, 2011: PERK UP YOUR PARLIA-MENT! Did you know that a group of owls is called a par-liament? Our “parliament” won up to $1000 to spend on a leadership workshop to “perk” us up! This event is open and free to all our Plains & Peaks members. See the flyer and announcement in this newsletter!

P lains & Peaks Mensa is hosting the “Perk Up Your Parliament” Leadership Event on Saturday, February 26th, 2011. This day-long event, open and free to all Mensa members, will feature

workshops related to leadership. We’ve also invited a dy-namic guest speaker to our event. We are all leaders. Every one of us. Every single day. Whether asking a colleague at work to help with a project or making the decision with your spouse to purchase a new television or even trying to get your kids to pick up toys – all of these activities involve leadership. How you influence those around you, how you cooperate with your spouse to arrive at joint decisions, and how you can get more out of employees all involve leadership skills. The better the skills – the better the leadership – and the more influence and satisfaction you gain. Improved leadership skills also lead to getting to know yourself and those you are in contact with better – whether at work or home or in other organizations. This “Perk Up Your Parliament” Leadership Event will give you tips and guides lines for enhancing some of your leadership skills. While these programs are presented from a “Mensa” view-point, many of the ideas presented will be applicable to other organizations you belong to and even your busi-nesses. Many of us belong to other clubs besides Mensa – and leading and working with volunteers is common. We’ll have a couple of workshops on volunteers. If you own a business or work for a small business – you may be the public relations person and dealing with the media can be tricky. There’s a workshop on dealing with the media. Getting to know the families of employees and planning family events may bring work units closer and personalize relationships, leading to more congenial work environ-ments. We’ve got a workshop that may give you some new ideas for company family activities. Whatever your leadership skills – you’ll surely pick up an idea or two (or more) that directly apply to your life at our “Perk Up Your Parliament” Leadership Event! Plan on joining your fellow Mensans at this FREE event. Please note that lunch as well as break time snacks are also FREE. Register for the “Perk Up Your Parliament” Leadership Event by the 17th of February by contacting Sandy Halby, 719-528-5483 or e-mail [email protected].

Perk Up Your Parliament Details

PlainsPeaking

http://www.us.mensa.orghttp://www.foximaging.com/mailto:[email protected]

Vol. 28, Issue 1

PLAINS & PEAKS MENSA

presents

“PERK UP YOUR PARLIAMENT*” Leadership Day

FREE TO ALL MENSA MEMBERS (Coffee, Juice, Snacks and Lunch Provided)

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26TH

East Community Room, East Library and Information Center (ELIC),

5550 North Union Blvd, Colorado Springs, CO

LEADERSHIP WORKSHOPS:

Getting People Involved Whole Family/Child Friendly Activities

Getting PR for Mensa M&Ms™ Get Volunteers

AND

GUEST SPEAKERS

Prominent leaders from the Plains & Peaks area community.

While these programs are presented from a “Mensa” viewpoint,, many of the ideas

presented will be applicable to other organizations you belong to and even your businesses!

Please RSVP by Thursday, February 17th

to Sandy Halby, LocSec, Plains & Peaks Mensa

Phone: 719-528-5483 or e-mail: [email protected]

*(A group of owls is called a parliament – but you probably knew that!)

mailto:[email protected]

ity, sales, and services charges ($28.21 for kids). If we get more than 10 people, we’d save $5 a head. Al needs firm reservations for this one by 14 February. RSVP to Al at [email protected], or call 719-635-4910. Sunday, February 20th, 8:00 pm: RSVP for Geeks Who Drink on Wednesday. If you’d like to join our Mensa team, let Sandy know at 719-528-5483 or email [email protected]. Wednesday, February 23rd, 8:00 pm: Geeks Who Drink. Let’s test our trivia skills at the Geeks Who Drink event at McCabe’s Tavern, 520 S. Tejon. If you’d like to join our Mensa team, let Sandy know at 719-528-5483 or email [email protected]. “Geeks Who Drink” is a quiz competition that has 8 rounds of 8 questions. Teams consist of up to six members and each team submits one answer for each of the questions, in writing, to the quizmaster at the end of each round. The quizzes may be audio questions, sound bites from movies/TV, current events, visual (pictures of famous cartoon characters), etc. If you’d like to know more, go to www.geekswhodrink.com SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26TH, 2011: PERK UP YOUR PAR-LIAMENT LEADERSHIP EVENT! Did you know that a group of owls is called a parliament? Our “parliament” won up to $1000 to spend on a leadership workshop to “perk” us up! This event is open and free to all our Plains & Peaks members and will be held at the Pikes Peak area East Library and Information Center at 5550 North Union Blvd, Colorado Springs. Morning coffee and rolls as well as sandwich lunch will be catered. Please see announcement and flyer in this newsletter for details. Contact Sandy at 528-5483 for e-mail [email protected] to register for this event. Thursday, March 3rd, 6:30 pm: ExComm Meeting and Din-ner. Join us for a short (very short) business meeting and then dinner at the Lemongrass Bistro, 6840 N. Academy Blvd. For the preview of their menu, visit www.restauranteur.com/lemongrassbistro As always, all Mensa members and their guests are invited to this event.

F riday, February 4th, 5:00 pm: Give Into Beer Pres-sure. Join us for the February “Give Into Beer Pres-sure,” at Phantom Canyon, 2 E. Pikes Peak. We’ll hoist a few, commiserate about our tough week at work and

generally have a good time! (Note – we’ll be visiting different establishments each month for this event – so if you’ve heard of a good brew-pub or happy hour bar in the local area, please let Vera know. Vera can be reached at 864-430-0126 or [email protected].) Sunday, February 6th, 6:30 pm: ExComm Meeting and Din-ner. Join us for a short (very short) business meeting and then dinner at Guiseppe’s Depot, 10S. Sierra Madre. For the preview of their menu, visit www.giuseppesdepot.com. As always, all Mensa members and their guests are invited to this event. Sunday, February 13th, 4:30 pm: Kimball’s Peak Three Movie! Join some of your fellow Mensans at Kimball’s, which is a down-town (Pikes Peak and Tejon) first run movie theater showing “the very best of current independent and foreign films.” The plan is to meet at 4:30, have a drink in Kimball’s full service bar, select a movie to attend together, and then afterwards, have an-other drink and/or dinner and discuss the movie. We’ll be taking a chance on what Kimball’s is showing on this date - but you never know! Could be the best movie you’ve ever seen!! Monday, February 14th, 8:00 pm: Reservations due for Penul-timate Saturday Supper. Call Al at 719-635-4910 or email [email protected] for reservations at the Dinner Detective dinner theater on the 19th. Tuesday, February 15th, 6:00 pm: Trivia at Old Chicago’s! We’re playing NTN Buzztime Old Chicago’s, 7115 Commerce Center Drive (I-25 and Woodman). Good eats, good prices, and plenty of TVs to look at and control boxes to play with. Look for a Mensa “M” flag at a table in the bar and join us for a fast paced Trivia round! Thursday, February 17th, 8:00 pm: Registration deadline for the “Perk Up Your Parliament” Leadership Event on Febru-ary 26th. OPEN AND FREE TO ALL PLAINS & PEAKS MENSA MEMBERS. Contact Sandy at 719-528-5483 for e-mail [email protected] to register for this event. Saturday, February 19th, 6:15 pm: Penultimate Saturday Sup-per. Let’s try the Dinner Detective at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 7290 Commerce Center Drive! The Dinner Detective is improvi-sational dinner theater in which the actors in a murder mystery are hidden among the customers and no one is certain who is part of the show and who is not. Besides the play, the evening includes your choice of salad, and grilled top sirloin, chicken marsala, baked tilapia, or rigatoni primavera entrees, with vari-ous side dishes (or for kids, chicken tenders and fries), and New York cheesecake with strawberry accent sauce. So, with all of that on tap, why wouldn’t Mensans flock to the presentation? Well, there’s the cost: It’s $53.65 a head, but that includes gratu-

February Events

Page 6

"Xtsqoysyovp og pvy trgevpgoamr uvt

ervemr usmmopx op mvqr."

~Smarty Ropgyrop

Cryptogram

PlainsPeaking

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.geekswhodrink.com/mailto:[email protected]://www.restauranteur.com/lemongrassbistrohttp://www.restauranteur.com/lemongrassbistromailto:[email protected]://www.giuseppesdepot.commailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

Vol. 28, Issue 1

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. It’s a new year, and the Gifted Children Program is ready to take off.

Due to a busy February, our first Gifted Children event of the year will be sometime in March, details in next month’s newsletter. This year, we will be working with the BLM on some trails in some ecologically, geologically, and archeologi-cally rich areas of Colorado. I am also working with the Air Force Academy to get us involved in a summer aero-nautics camp program, which includes building and flying our own gliders. I thought we might take some tours this year, of the important places that help keep a region like ours running: power plants, water treatment facilities, landfills (bring a clothespin for your nose!), hospitals, etc. Scheduling these kinds of tours can be tricky, so if anyone is interested, please contact me soon, and we will all work together with the facilities to make it all work.

Gifted Children’s Program by Sean McCormick If anyone is inclined towards competition, maybe we can hold a chess tournament, or a math/spelling bee (either of these could be opened to the general public). We could even get involved as a team in the “First” competitions (robotics for older kids, lego robotics for younger). As always, if you have any ideas or preferences for our Gifted Children Program activities…please get in touch with Sean McCormick. I am always open to ideas, and any kind of communication from interested members. For more information about the Plains & Peaks Mensa Gifted Children Program or gifted youth in general, or to join the mailing list, you can contact Sean McCormick, the Gifted Children Coordinator, either by email at [email protected] or on my cell phone at (719) 651-8358. I am also now on Twitter! @plainspeaksgcc.

FEBRUARY 2011

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 30 31 1 2 3 4

5:00 PM Give In To Beer

Pressure @ Phantom Canyon

5

6 6:30 pm

ExComm @ Guiseppe’s Depot

7 8 9 10

11

12

13 4:30 pm

Kimball’s Peak Three Movie

14 8:00 pm

RSVP due for Penultimate

Saturday Supper

15 6:00 pm Trivia @

Old Chicago’s

16 17 8:00 PM

RSVP due for “Perk Up Your

Parliament”

18 19 6:15 pm

Penultimate Saturday Sup-

per@ Dinner Detective

20 8:00 pm

RSVP due for Geeks Who Drink

21 22 23 8:00 pm

Geeks Who Drink @

McCabe’s Tavern

24

25

26 PERK UP YOUR PARLIAMENT

EVENT!

27 28

29

mailto:[email protected]

Mensa® is an international organization made up of people who have scored in the top 2% on standardized IQ tests. Mensa is non-profit and has no political or religious affiliations. The purpose of Mensa is to serve as a means of communication for its members and to foster in-telligence. PlainsPeaking is the official publication of Plains & Peaks Mensa (#808). Mensa itself has no opinions; any opinions expressed in PlainsPeaking, if not otherwise designated, are those of the individual contributor or of the editor. The appearance of any paid advertise-ment, should such an unlikely event occur, in PlainsPeaking does NOT imply any endorsement of products, services, or anything else men-tioned in said ad by either Plains & Peaks Mensa, PlainsPeaking, Ameri-can Mensa, Ltd., or Mensa International. Mensa® is registered at the U.S. Patent Office as the collective mark of an international member-ship organization. PlainsPeaking is published monthly by Plains and Peaks Mensa Editor, 1061 Hummingbird Ct, Colorado Springs, CO 80921-5696. All material within is copyright©2010 by Plains & Peaks Mensa, except where oth-erwise indicated. Masthead photo copyrighted 2009 by Betsy Ogan. Subscriptions are $6.00 (12 monthly issues) for non-Mensans and for Mensans who are not members of the P&P local group. Single issues are available on a first-come, first-served basis at no charge (but please include SASE). Editorial Policy: We (deliriously) welcome your letters, articles, poems, artwork, and puzzles. Items submitted to PlainsPeaking should be the

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED TO:

PlainsPeaking

AMERICAN MENSA, LTD.

1229 CORPORATE DRIVE WEST

ARLINGTON, TX 76006-6103

ORIGINAL work of the author, and should be emailed if possible. If previously published, please include where and when. MS Word , RTF, and plain text formats are especially encouraged for articles, JPG or GIF for artwork. Equations should be typeset with MS Equation Editor. Typewritten work signed by the author and submitted by surface mail is also welcome. Handwritten items may be accepted, but we cannot guarantee accuracy in publication. The editor’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Please check with the editor about other accept-able media and formats. Artwork will be reproduced as black and white or grayscale (drawings or photographs). The Editor reserves the right to refuse to publish submitted material and to edit as necessary. Note to Contributors: By contributing material to Plains and Peaks Mensa, you are giving permission for your material to be published in both the newsletter and the web-based newsletter archives. You MAY withhold your name, email address, or any other address from the web-based version; simply request this from the Editor. Other Mensa publications may reprint PlainsPeaking material if the author/artist and PlainsPeaking are credited and the material is not individually copyrighted. Letters (and letter-like emails) to the Editor will be con-sidered for publication unless the author specifically requests other-wise. Note to Reprinting Editors: a courtesy copy indicating the material reprinted would be greatly appreciated. To: PlainsPeaking Editor, 1061 Hummingbird Ct, Colorado Springs, CO 80921-5696

Southern Colorado Mensa including Colorado Springs & Pueblo - … · 2011. 2. 1. · MENSA...

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