Well... An interesting start!

When I got on my plane in Auckland on Monday morning, I definitely didn't know what would unfold. Had a nice day out in Sydney, saw the typical Sydney sights like the Harbour Bridge and the Opera house, then had fish and chips in the sun. If that's what Aussies call winter, I could definitely handle that!

Tuesday morning I went to check into my flight to LA, got there a little bit early so thought I would have a coffee and check my emails. Lo and behold it said my flight was delayed by 6 hours! I was going to miss my connection to Dallas.

I emailed my travel agent, the amazing Andrea at Karori flight centre, then went to the Virgin Australia desk to see what was happening. They didn't know, and went and had a staff meeting.

Flight cancelled. Oh no! Panic ensued, didn't know whether or not I would be able to get to LA. Staff didn't know and weren't able to say whether we could get on a flight the next day. We had to call the Virgin customer service line who at first had no idea what was happening and didn't know the flight had been cancelled.

Fortunately, Andrea was amazing (I will definitely be using her again!) and she got me on a Delta flight this morning and got me a new connection to Dallas. So instead of arriving 10.30pm Tuesday Dallas time, I will be there 2pm Wednesday. So many people didn't make it on and I would hate to think how they are all trying to get to LA.

I met a great girl during all this called Laura ( funny right Miss Burgess?!) and we both found out we had been rebooked on the Delta flight. So we decided to go check into our hotel provided by Virgin, the excellent Rydges Hotel at Sydney International, then did a bit more exploring around Sydney. We went through University of Sydney and checked out all the gothic inspired architecture (my favourite!)

We even saw an eel in the pond in the park!

We walked through the city to Newtown, which funnily enough feels like the Newtown of Wellington, just with a few more nice bars added in. We met up with Laura's friend Sophie and went and had Thai for dinner.

So despite a rocky start, I'm now at my gate in Sydney, waiting for my flight to LA. I've got a quick turn over in LA so I'll post again once I arrive in Dallas! 

Dallas - day one

After we were stuck waiting 40 minutes to get off the plane, I got sent to the wrong terminal and the airport staff thought I'd missed my flight to Dulas, Washington (stupid accent haha!), I finally made it to Fort Worth, Texas! I'm staying in the Worthigton Renaissance Hotel, a gorgeous hotel in Fort Worth.  

I checked in with my roomie, the awesome Jessie Cat from Australia (based in Finland) and went to see what was happening around USMAG.

So, the US Mensa Annual Gathering is huge! There are 1600 people here! There are presentations, games rooms and the hospitality room pretty much running 24/7. 

We checked out the Gifted Youth/children coordinators meet and greet and ran into some of the awesome ladies who keep the children's and teens programmes running in the US. This was really interesting, especially to hear they share some of the same issues as us.

We then missioned off to a group we heard was having a few drinks and ran into the amazing GenY SIG who are the US equivalent of those of us who are in our late teens/early 20s in Young Members! They are a cool bunch and somehow I ended up talking to their coordinator and we went and talked shop for a couple of hours. It was fascinating hearing what he had to say about the initiatives GenY are trying to get underway, and the kind of support they would like from their National Board. Needless to say, I explained why I was there, and definitely hoped I would be able to provide something helpful for them to use.

First leg done!

So I've made it from Auckland to Wellington no problem! Big thanks to Aimee for getting me to the airport in plenty of time for my flight. 

Hooray! I'm on my way! love flying and airports, it's all so exciting. Weird being around late at night, still so many people around. I've got an early check in to Sydney so I'm going to get some sleep, will update you with more adventures tomorrow! 

Two sleeps to go...

And I'm getting down to business! 

Thanks to the help of the lovely Michelle, we set up my business cards with the date, time and room of my LEAP presentation to give out to people I meet at USMAG 2013! They look so cool and even though it was a mission to get the labels printed, they worked really well :)

Although there will be some promotion of LEAP events at USMAG, I'm also a big fan of working to promote our group myself, and I hope the people I meet will be interested in coming along to see what Young Members is about. I will be attending a few events prior to my presentation to talk to people who may want to find out more.

The amazing Laura also sent me the custom-made singlet she made me to promote Mensa New Zealand over in the USA! We made white writing on blue singlets for our promotion days at University of Auckland and Victoria University earlier this year, but we loved the white t-shirts we made. Laura definitely delivered on this and I can't wait to wear it in Dallas!

The last piece of the puzzle is my presentation, and I am just about finished matching the PowerPoint with the presentation. I will be doing a mihi at the start of my presentation (Thanks to Louise for your help!), and not having much experience with Maori it's probably the part I am the most nervous about. Hopefully  my pronunciation won't be too rough. It will be cool to share a little bit of New Zealand Maori culture while I'm overseas!

The countdown is on!!

Only 4 more sleeps til I head up to Auckland and off to the US! 

So I'm a busy girl getting ready.  My presentation is almost 100% completed, I've picked up my tickets from the travel agent and organised my various visas and insurances.

Now to try to get work sorted and get on the plane!

Having an awesome catch up with the Wellington Mensa members at LunchSIG today made me think more about what I want to achieve on this trip.

I want to be able to share the awesome things that Young Members of Mensa New Zealand has been doing, and how creating this community has made such a difference to our members and how they participate in Mensa.

I want to show them that it isn't impossible to connected Young Members and that Young Members are a vital part of making a Mensa organisation great to belong to. I want them to see how important the Young Members groups is to the Young Members.

I'm also using this trip to find out more what Mensa can offer its members here in New Zealand.

I want to learn more about how Mensa groups internationally are run and what activities and ideas we can bring back to Mensa New Zealand and try to implement them here. I am interested in knowing new things about how their Mensa groups interact, meet, and what activities and programs are in place around the world.

I'd love to know what other plans Mensa groups around the world have for expanding and making better connections between members. I want to know how they use technology, how they meet and how often.

I'm on a scouting mission! 

I'm a Guest Blogger today!

As part of New Zealand Gifted Awareness Week, I wrote a post for Creating Curriculum's blog for Gifted Children. 

You can find the post here.

I wrote about Young Members of Mensa New Zealand, what our organisation has to offer gifted young people, and what we hope to do in this future.

I am so proud of Mensa being involved in Gifted Awareness week this year, as well as being part of the blog tour we're going to have members at the Explorer's Gifted Children's Expo. More information about this can be found here

I hope everyone is able to get along to an event, post something about Gifted Awareness or write a letter to their MP. You can use the hashtag #NZGAW on Twitter to let more people know about your post!

Getting ready for take-off!

So it's now less than a month to go and planning and writing are in full swing for my trips and presentations.

I will be presenting at the USMAG at 6pm on Friday 5 July 2013 Dallas time. So exciting!

I'm working hard to make my presentation interesting and inspiring for those watching, and I hope it comes across how much our Young Members group means to us.

So at the moment, I'm working at getting data from all over the world about the ages of their members so we can use that information to help Young Members everywhere.

I'm also working with the amazing Young Members of Mensa New Zealand to put together a video about them to show off to everyone. They've been so amazing and supportive I love hanging with you guys! 

I'm also trying to figure out how to make a video of what is happening on my computer screen so I can show other people. SO much harder than it looks....

I really want to show other Mensa groups around the world what an awesome opportunity this would be for their members, and I'm so keen to show everyone what little ol' New Zealand has done!

So I am a very busy bee at the moment, and thanks to all if I'm taking a while to get around to doing things for people :)


I'm also now on Twitter so you can follow my adventures @AnnikaVoulgaris

My travel plans are all in place and I can't wait to meet other LEAP participants and other Mensa members in the US and Europe!

EXCITING TIMES!!!