We followed up the LEAP breakfast with the first presentation by LEAP chair Isabella, who introduced the program and all of the participants. We each gave a n introduction to our presentation.
After lunch, Jessie was the first to present her project on engaging isolated members. Jessie's work with TableAus, the Australian national Magazine put her in a good position for understanding how national Mensas could use their resources to connect these members.
Jessie discussed how there were many different ways members could be isolated , and being a child member or Young Member was one of them. She talked about the importance of engaging these members and had a lot of great ideas I hope to bring home to Mensa New Zealand. I will post a link to Jessie's presentation when it is available.
After lunch I started to get ready for my presentation. I had learned a lot from the amazing members of GenY, the Special Interest Group for people of the same generation as our Young Members and wanted to adapt my presentation to cater for the right audience. I wanted to make sure that the information we were giving about what we were doing here in New Zealand was the kind of stuff that would help American Mensa. It was great meeting Robert, Ben and Billie (and a massive thanks to you guys) who were really open to sharing information and discussing GenY and how it works within American Mensa.
This was all going well, until somehow in my PowerPoint presentation, the videos refused to work. We downloaded the Young Members video and found the YouTube video I needed. Seemed like everything would be fine!
I got to my presentation in the Pecan Room at the Norris Conference Centre across from the Worthington.
It seemed my technology dramas were not over, with neither sound not Internet working in the room. When I finally got underway, I started reading from my speech, but then found it was going to be much easier to just speak from my experience following my PowerPoint slides. I feel I talk about this all so much it was almost second nature by now.
Everyone enjoyed the Young Members Video. You can see this at http://youtu.be/qQ4ScEYBdNg
The great Kiwi sense of humour translated well and really connected with the audience, so a massive thank you to all who were involved in that!!
I will post a link to my powerpoints (and the speech I didn't use!!) here when I get back to New Zealand! I will post a link to my presentation as soon as it is available.
Everyone who was at my presentation was really engaged and asked lots of amazing questions. It made me feel as though my presentation reached out to the audience and have them some ideas. Because of this I have already engaged with many Mensa members involved with GenY and I really hope we can start and continue a great relationship between Young Members and GenY.
After my presentation we went to a reception held by America Mensa.
This was a great chance to meet some more of the people involved in Mensa and discuss a few more ideas. After this I headed back to the specific hotel suite booked for the members of the GenY SIG and spent the rest of the evening hanging out there. It was incredible to meet so many amazing people in one go!!
I was glad to finish my day on an epic high. It was such a lot of work (and a long way to go) but I genuinely feel there was a lot of benefit in my presentation for the members of American Mensa and internationally.
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