I recently joined Mensa in Minnesota. My youngest (PG) kid is leaving for college in California in six weeks and I realized I was going to miss having that really smart kid around. I have only been to one event so far (new member dinner), but enjoyed it a lot and plan to do more with them once the kid launches at the end of August.
To join Mensa you can go to their website. They accept a variety of types of tests you may have already taken -- I was able to use my old SAT scores and didn't have to sit for the test they have available if you don't have any of the variety of test results they already accept. There is a fee to join, and I think an annual fee as well. It took maybe a month for them to get back to me with membership confirmation after I sent in my information.
They send out a monthly newsletter/pamphlet with all the activities in it. So far I am interested in a couple of the "SIG" (special interest groups). There is a "games" SIG and a "science fiction" SIG that I am interested in, but I haven't been yet. There are more SIGs, those are just the ones that caught my eye to try first. There is a monthly get together (haven't tried it) as well, and then there are some national weekend events that sound fun. There is one where they try out new games (hundreds of them) in the course of a weekend and provide feedback to the manufacturers.
My first event had about the mix of people you might expect -- some really fun, interesting people. And a few so annoying that you really needed leave to freshen your soda pretty quickly.
But enough of the former to make it worth continuing to attend, for sure.
