Silhouettes of four dancing people captioned in turn 'Regional Publicity Officer?', 'Luton Local Secretary?', 'Junior Mensa Officer?' and 'Empress Editor?'

See yourself here?

If you've ever thought of helping your society, now's your chance to get started by filling one of these vacant posts within East Midlands Mensa. For information on what each exciting role involves contact Maxine Bates on [Phone Number] or [Email].

 

Regional News

As the year draws to a close I would once again like to thank the officers of East Midlands Mensa for their time and effort over the last 12 months. Also all the members who have attended local events which makes that time and effort worthwhile. And everyone who has contributed to Empress by writing an article, an event review, a quiz or sending in photographs. It wouldn't be the same without you all.

Planning is well underway for the coming year and will start with our next regional event on Saturday 25th February. This will be a barn dance so we all get to meet each other and can swap tables as well as dance partners throughout the evening. The venue is Diseworth Village Hall which is the village adjacent to East Midlands Airport and only minutes from M1 J23A or J24 and the fun will last from 7.00pm to 11.00pm. The event is being subsidised from regional funds so only costs £5 each. That includes band with caller plus a hot supper. See www.mensa.org.uk/eastmids for full details or contact me on [Phone Number] or [Email] to reserve your place. Members and guests of all ages are most welcome whether single, a couple or a family.

Prior to the barn dance we'll be holding our annual committee meeting so if you have any comments - positive or negative - about East Midlands Mensa please do get in touch with myself, any LocSec or Editor and pass them on. It's always nice to hear from you. Wishing you fun filled festivities with family and friends and may 2012 be a happy and healthy one for you.

Maxine Bates

Regional Officer

Events and Meetings

photo of Richard Allen

Hertfordshire Happenings

On Thu 1st Dec at 8.15pm - FThOTM

Regular FThOTM will be on Thursday 1st from 8.15pm. Come and join us! We'll be around for our usual mix of lively conversation and a good atmosphere. As always, we're at the Millstream, Cambridge Road, Hitchin. Good food and good beer both available! Call me for more details and encouragement. The pub is about ten minutes' walk from the railway station.

No Last Friday this month as it's Christmas.

I'm also arranging our traditional trip to the Viennese New Year's Eve concert at the Barbican this year - look in the London section of the Mag for further details.

Richard Allen

Contact [Email] or [Phone Number] for details

photo of Jo Sidebottom

Mensans in MK & Bedford

On Thu 1st Dec at 8.00pm - FThOTM

Please join us on Thursday 1st for informal chat at our First Thursday venue of Jurys Inn Hotel on Midsummer Boulevard (West). Look out for the Mblem or mag on one of the tables to the right in the foyer.

On Sat 10th Dec at 3.00pm - T@3

On Saturday 10th we return to Dobbie's Garden Centre in Fenny Stratford, just south of Milton Keynes, for T@3. Look for us in the restaurant from 3.00pm onwards - there are several sections so we may not be immediately obvious, but we'll be there somewhere. It will no doubt be looking very festive so will be worth a visit.

Mike Hargreave Mawson continues to host meetings at his home in Bedford this month, with "My Favourite Things" on Sunday 11th and Tea and Mince Pies on Thursday 15th. This month's theme for My Favourite Things is colours, so bring along samples or memories to share with others.

On Sun 11th Dec at 8.00pm - 2SuOTM - My Favourite Things

A thinly-veiled excuse to get together for a relaxing evening of chat over a glass of wine, each month you are asked to bring samples (or memories) of your favourite things to share with others - this month, the theme is colours.

On Thu 15th Dec at 4.00pm - 3ThoTM - Tea and Mince Pies

Now that the festive season is here, come and join us by the fireside at Oaklands for a nice cup of tea and some hot mince pies.

Mike's address is [Address]. He strongly advises contacting him in advance for directions and parking hints if it's your first visit - email [Email] or phone [Phone Number]. It's great to see meetings happening in Bedford again and hopefully they will be well supported by Bedford members.

On Sun 18th Dec at 10.15am - Sunday breakfast

Sunday breakfast will be at 10.15am on Sunday 18th at our new winter venue of Brown's restaurant on the front of The Hub (next door to Jurys Inn), which we think is a bit cosier. Feel free to come for a full breakfast, a snack, or just a drink, but if possible please let me know by Saturday 17th so we have an idea what size table to grab when we arrive.

We hope to see as many of you as possible at one or other of our events in December.

Jo Sidebottom

Contact [Email] or [Phone Number] / [Mobile Number] for details

photo of David Seddon

WATever . . .

On Mon 12th Dec at 8.00pm - At Home

A Christmas get-together on Monday 12th at 8.00pm. The usual pre-Christmas festivities, a look back at the previous year - and those mince pies and mulled wine. Last year I plotted a fiendish puzzle which proved quite entertaining - watch this space!

[Address] All warmly invited but please do let me know if you plan to attend as numbers may be limited.

David Seddon

Contact [Email] or [Phone Number] for details

photo of Maxine Bates

Notts News

On Mon 5th Dec at 8.00pm - 5OTM

Join us for our last get together of the year at the Vat & Fiddle pub from 8.00pm on Monday 5th. We'll be in the new Golding's Room to the left of the bar where, for the past few months, we've had the room to ourselves. There will be silly and serious chat, real ale and soft drinks. Pop in briefly or stay all evening. New faces are always welcome. Call me for directions to Queensbridge Road or just look for the Castle Rock brewery illuminated next door.

On Wed 14th Dec at 7.00pm - Chicks & Flicks

I should point out that our "chicks & flicks" event on Wednesday 14th is aimed at both sexes and not to be confused with "chick flick" aimed just at females! The chicks relates to Nando's peri-peri chicken restaurant where we dine and the flicks bit relates to the cinema where we go later. Meet us at 7.00pm prompt (so that we have plenty of time to eat before a film) inside the doors to the Cornerhouse in the city centre. Contact me in advance if you'd like the film choices and to find out our preference.

On Sat 17th Dec at 8.00pm - At Home

Our final event of the year will be a party at my home in Langley Mill from 8.00pm on Saturday 17th to celebrate the festive season. I'll provide a buffet and some music so just bring yourself and whatever you wish to drink. Please let me know if you need directions or plan to come along to help the catering.

Ciao for now!

Maxine Bates

Contact [Email] or [Phone Number] for details

photo of Val Hinkins

Mid Bucks

On Thu 8th Dec at 7:30pm - Eating meeting

As a repeat of our successful meal a few years ago, we will be returning to the popular Greek restaurant Santorini's, in Hazlemere, for a pre-Christmas meal on Thursday 8th. Meet us there at 7:30pm. We have been promised free Christmas crackers to go with our meal!

Please ring or email me by Wednesday 30th November to let me know you are coming.

Val Hinkins

Contact [Email] or [Phone Number] for details

photo of Christine Howells

Lively Lincs

On Sat 10th Dec at 12.00pm - 2SaOTM

Hopefully the cafe at The Collection in Lincoln will be open again for our usual 2SaOTM, 12.00-2.00pm on Saturday 10th, but do email me in case they are still closed and we have to decamp to elsewhere. Some have lunch, others just drop in for a quick coffee, all welcome for chat and some more serious discussion.

Christine Howells

Contact [Email] for details

More or Leicester

On Thu 8th Dec at 8:00pm - 2ThOTM

Christmas always reminds me of the good things in life like crackling log fires, roast turkey and buying the LocSec a drink, and where better to fulfil at least one of those ancient traditions than at the Leicester Mensa Third Thursday of the Month Yuletide pub get together thing? The first thing to note is that this will be on the second Thursday of the month to make way for the demands of last-minute panic present buying, works "do's" and even holidays, so we'll be meeting on Thursday 8th at 8:00pm.

Craddock

We'll be at the usual place (http://tinyurl.com/leicsMensaTTOTM) but all the usual stuff applies about giving me a call or emailing for further info, a chat, to wish me a Merry Christmas, and so on.

I hope to see you there, but just in case you can't make it: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Paul Coulson

Derby Diary

On Thu 15th Dec at TBD - Old fashioned cinema

Apart from our regular Derby pub meet I am looking to repeat our earlier visit to the Ritz cinema in Belper. The Ritz cinema is a wonderful old fashioned cinema where you can watch a film with a glass of wine or cake in a very comfortable environment as shown on their website http://www.ritz-belper.co.uk/ . I don't yet know what is showing on the 15th but thought it would be a good day to experience the ambience. If you would like to join me please call or email me by Thursday 8th as things get booked up there. Hopefully we will see a good film but the cinema itself is the star with its high levels of comfort, licensed bar and generally homely atmosphere.

On Wed 21st Dec at 7.30pm - 3WOTM

As usual I will be hosting the regular Derby 3WOTM get together at the Standing Order in Irongate Derby. This is a Wetherspoons free house with a wide range of pub group beers and other alcoholic beverages and a wide range of soft drinks. It is comfortable and airy and the Mensa tables will be straight on past the bar. If you're coming for the first time it might be advisable to let me know so we can keep an eye open for you. For encouragement/directions call or email me. There is however no need to pre book just join Mensans from Derby and environs for good pub food, drink and chat.

Finally I'd like to wish all Mensans in Derbyshire and environs a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Alistair Blackett

photo of Jenny Habib

Berkhamsted

On Wed 14th Dec at 7.00pm - Christmas party

Nobody will want to come to a meeting on the usual last Wednesday of the month, as this is only just after Christmas, and in the holiday week, so I am inviting you to my home for a Christmas party on Wednesday 14th at 7.00pm. Please email me if you want to come.

Thank you and All Good wishes

Jenny Habib

Contact [Email] or [Phone Number] for details

Editor's Bit at the Bottom

Oh, squashed again! Just room to say contact me if you're interested in the editor vacancy but want to know more about editing before volunteering, or would like to guest edit for a month.

Rosie Jefferson

MINDexplorersSIG

Caricature of a head with areas of the brain marked out and arrows pointing to some of the areas

Perhaps MINDexplorers is not the best of titles. It seems to say both more and less than what the SIG is. More perhaps because it might seem to suggest some supper scientific enterprise and less because it does not begin to give an idea of what the SIG does cover.

For instance, have you ever thought about dowsing beyond it being done with a person walking around with a bent stick looking for water? Actually you can look for anything and you don't need a bent stick - that is merely a crutch. Dowsers are using their unconscious minds and the stick is its means of communicating results. Dowsing doesn't work if you make a conscious effort.

What about I Ching, Tarot and Runes and all the forms of fortune telling? Nonsense? Superstition? Well maybe but each symbol or pattern carries with it advice or meaning put together over time and a skilled reader will use their unconscious mind (and not their conscious mind) to interpret.

Behaviour comes from our minds so what might influence our minds? Colour does and attitudes to colours can indicate much of the state of our minds. Smell does. Humans are effected by pheromones, not just between the sexes but between mother and child. And sounds most obviously do. How a person speaks or sounds determines how much they are listened to and for how long.

There is communication between our minds and bodies, not just through nerves but through hormones. The brain both sends and receives hormones and the mind is effected by this.

How can you influence other minds? How can you get the best out of your own? What about Ouija boards - how do they work? What about sleep learning? Memory training? Hypnosis? Relaxation? Imagination? Studying? All that and more is what MINDexplorers is about. It looks for ideas, experiences and opinions from its members.

MINDexplorers is best and quickest joined through Mensa although you could write to me at 6 Harlequin Close, Radcliffe on Trent, Nottingham, NG12 2HQ, enclosing a large stamped addressed envelope for copies of the newsletter.

20 Questions (No. 123)

The answers to the October competition were Mildred Hubble, Hogwarts, The Lady Of The Lake, Russo, Ian Brackenbury Channell, 1692, C S Lewis, Glinda, Anne Rice, 1999, Jadis, Pendle, Surrender Dorothy, Islands Of Adventure, Ralph Bakshi, Aslan, Merlin, Melissa Joan Hart, KingsIsle Entertainment and Cher. Thanks to Chris Newbold of Quorn, T Hamilton of Sleaford, Pamela Covey of Woburn, Pat Naylor of Nottingham, Alex Foster of Derby, Tony Dodd of Belvoir, Rita Beeson of Kempston, Philip Abbott of Watford, Sue Barker of Bury and David Crozier of St Albans for entering. Alex wins the £10 book token. Well done!

As Mensa ends its 65th anniversary year, this month's quiz concerns our society's birth year of 1946. Send your answers to "20 Questions (No. 123)', [Address], to arrive by the earlier closing date of 13th December. The winner will receive their book token in time to spend before Christmas!

1. Which American President was born on 19th August 1946?

2. The FA Cup was won in 1946 by which Midlands football team?

3. Which singer had a hit with "Prisoner Of Love" in 1946?

4. In which city did the first meeting of the United Nations take place in January 1946?

5. Which major sports tournament resumed in summer 1946 after a break during WW2?

6. The Philippines gained independence from which nation on 4th July 1946?

7. Which 1946 musical was based on the story of Annie Oakley?

8. Frenchman Louis Reard created which item of clothing in 1946?

9. Which country offered British people incentives to move there in 1946?

10. Which singer born on 19th January 1946 also owns a theme park in Tennessee?

11. Which Las Vegas hotel opened in 1946 and is now the oldest on "The Strip"?

12. Which film released in 1946 starred Lana Turner as Cora Smith?

13. UNICEF was established in 1946. What do the letters stand for?

14. Which Asian country's women got the vote for the first time in April 1946?

15. Which politician coined the phrase "Iron Curtain" in 1946?

16. What is the name of the national airline of Hong Kong founded in 1946?

17. Which puppet made its debut in 1946 on the TV show "For The Children"?

18. The trial of 24 Nazis concluded in which German city in 1946?

19. Which US state was hit by a tsunami on 1st April 1946?

20. In 1946 Mensa was founded in which British city?