Flights are all booked, now for the fun part!

So I've got all my travel sorted for the two trips! What a mission.

To the US, I'm going Auckland to Sydney, Sydney to LA then LA to Dallas.

To Slovakia I'm going Auckland to Bangkok, Bangkok to Vienna and then by bus or train from Vienna to Bratislava.

This really will be an adventure! I'm looking forward to seeing a few new places and heaps of new people.

So now for the part that I'm hoping will be much more fun than sorting out travel!

I'm looking at putting together a presentation about what we've done here in New Zealand, why and how this has worked, and how someone else could put this together in their country if they wanted to.

I think the first thing Mensa New Zealand did that kickstarted the Young Members community, was to give other young members of Mensa a point of contact. Without another voice on the end of the call, there's no point for other young members to pick up the phone and get in touch.

So in 2009, I wanted to meet a few more young members of Mensa, and so I volunteered to take over the Young Member's Coordinator position and have someone on the end of the email address Mensa already had set up for the purpose. That gave other young members a contact point within the organisation, should they want to get in touch.

I think what was different about the person who took over that contact position, is that they were a young person themselves. At 21, the age of the contact person made this have a different feel than if it were someone older who was the contact for young people.

I think just setting up a young contact point for other young people, was a good genesis for a close, enthusiastic group of young members. This was something I feel allowed the group to grow and develop in the way it has.