Just to note here, that this is a list of people who need 1-5 merit to rank up / depending on the rank of course [...]
Aaa.... ok 
I missed that "small" detail. I though OP was just creating a list of people who are missing merits to ran-up, didn't check their current merit rankings.
In your case you gonna need to wait until you reach 245 merit. I hope you don't need to wait to long as I'm familiar with your posting habits.Looking forward to give you the missing merit to rank up 
Thanks for the encouragement but from the looks of it, it's going to take some time for me to gather the extra 80 or so, merits... I have been trying to make my posts more visible these days, let's see how this works out.
Don't know why, but since I gained the necessary activity, I'm seeing getting the required merit as a challenge.