Membership

Membership Criteria

Being a member of Mindbridge is about participation and showing an interest. In game mechanics, it means showing up at meetings and taking a part in corporate events such as AnimeIowa, ICON or Gamicon. To become a member you must meet these criteria:

  • Be a living human of at least 12 years or age (no baby monkeys)
  • Must attend 2 membership meetings within a 6-month period
  • Must have registered for or officially attended at least one corporate event in this or the previous fiscal year. In other words, if you have registered for either the last or the upcoming AnimeIowa, ICON or Gamicon then you will generally fulfill this requirement. Sometimes the board will call something else an official “corporate event”, but that is rare.

When you attend that second meeting within six months, and meet the other criteria, then you can say “Hey, I want to be a member!” The members in attendance will say “Cool, beer’s on you tonight!” Then you will be made an official member, be sung the official new member song, and the meeting will continue.

In very special circumstances, the Board of Directors can grant membership to individuals who do not meet the requirements. But, that would require either extremely compelling reasons or massive quantities of beer.

Keeping Your Membership

Keeping your membership is easy! You just need to make sure that you:

  • Attend one of the last three membership meetings. These are usually once a month.
  • Must have registered for or officially attended at least one corporate event in this or the previous fiscal year. Just like becoming a member, if you have registered for either the last or the upcoming AnimeIowa, ICON or Gamicon then you will generally fulfill this requirement.

That’s it! Just make it to a meeting once in a while and go to the conventions. If you get really stuck, you can issue a proxy to a member. This is a piece of paper that states that you are giving the holder the power to cast your vote and it will count you as attending the meeting. A proxy statement looks something like this:

For the membership meeting on (month) (day), (year), I (your name) give proxy authority to (other member’s name) to cast Mindbridge membership votes in my name. This power is granted only for the stated meeting. I understand that I cannot guarantee that my proxy vote will be cast in accordance with my personal wishes, and if not satisfied I may only exact trivial retribution in accordance with the spirit of the by-laws, such as calling the person a weenie.

Membership Benefits

So, what does being a member get me?

This is a question often asked! Our benefits committee has come up with a list of benefits of being a member, and are working on setting up some perks with other agencies and businesses. For now, our list includes:

  1. The Bi-Annual Picnic: This means twice a year, rain or shine, Mindbridge buys Hamburgers, brats and hot dogs, along with their requisite buns, and pop. All else is potluck. It’s a great place to talk sci-fi and fantasy with friends. Oh, and we do some business too.
  2. Mindbridge Foundation Volunteer Points System: Read this PDF for the full details of our new volunteer rewards program.