By the time you read this, we will – hopefully – have our first on-site ExComm meeting in the spring, our first opportunity to meet face to face since 2019, and the first get-together of the current ExComm. While writing this there is still a little anxious voice in my head worrying that this announcement might be overtaken by reality once again, probably the next COVID-19 variant or other complications that might force us to cancel again or prevent us from having the required quorum to make decisions. But fingers crossed for all events and meetings scheduled for 2022.
I wanted to say thank you to all the teams who volunteer(ed) to organise local, national and international, both virtual and on-site events during the last two challenging years! A very special thanks to those teams who had (or still have) to cancel their events – sometimes even more than once, sometimes at the very last minute. I guess most of us know the feeling when your boss cancels a project in which you have invested quite a lot of time and passion. I really hope you can attend and enjoy some of the upcoming gatherings this year!
Last week at work, I sent a virtual goodbye to the third colleague leaving my team before we had a chance to meet in person. Working in international teams we are no strangers to virtual cooperation but it really makes a difference when you meet at least once or twice a year. After several attempts to arrange an ExComm meeting and two virtual IBD meetings I am really looking forward to being in the same room together to discuss and implement our plans for 2022 and beyond.
Take a look at our Business Plan (bit.ly/MIPlan22) to get an overview of the projects we’ll be working on! As our international membership polls have shown expectations to be more than a social club, fulfil the goals of our constitution and make a difference, I am very excited to launch our own charity this year, complementing existing charitable work by national Mensas with projects to identify and foster intelligence among mainly young people in parts of the world where opportunities may be scarce. If you want to stay up to date with the progress of our various projects, register on www.mensa.org to subscribe to our monthly international newsletter. Join our Workplace community (bit.ly/MIworkplace) to follow IBD discussions, join groups that catch your interest and meet other members online.