Lest it be thought that I've breached a confidence by making this memo public here:  it was  used as the preface to a report entitled "The Past as the Key to Mensa's Future," a summary of past studies and planning activities and a guide to sound future strategic planning, prepared for the AMC in December, 1995, by Darrell L. Noe; and posted on the Mensa Grapevine mailing list by Bob Beatty.

--Dick

I believe that the “mission” of the committee is to explore ways and means for American Mensa to survive healthfully into the twentieth century.  That is not as easily done as said. 

Mensa has existed reasonably healthfully for 30 years.  But it is not the same Mensa many of us found in the early 60s.  What has changed?  Why has it changed?  Are the changes due to the world-at-large or are they due to Mensa only?  We have members who have been with us for the nearly 30 years of our existence and even though their responses probably could not be received within ten weeks, I think it is important that they be contacted, even though we’ve spent thousands of dollars on surveys of past and present members. 

1. Why did they join Mensa?
2. What did they find when they joined Mensa?
3. How did it measure up with their expectations?
4. Where it didn’t measure up, what was their reaction?
5. Why have they continued to be members?
6. What does Mensa offer them now?
7. How has Mensa changed in their perception from the time they joined?

Mensa should be a thing of pride--call it elitism if you like.  If Mensa is just like any other club, why should people join it?  One of the contenders for the position of outside Mensa PR counsel came up with the idea that corporations should be wooed to make Mensa membership of their top-notch employees a perk and eventually that would change the image of Mensa membership from one of ridicule to one of pride.  I think it’s an idea worthy of stealing or pursuing.  We have to resurrect Mensa from the image of the beer-swilling, loud-mouthed, overweight, unattractive, etc., etc., etc. member.  (I can say that now, at the near end of my sick-leave payments!) 

My vision for Mensa is that it should be the “umbrella” under which anything could happen.  Because officially it stands for nothing, it gives its members a chance to stand for everything and anything.  Some care must be taken, however, that the “crazies” do not gain the upper hand here.  One of the changes I have seen during the past 28 years is from a “reverence for” and “care about” Mensa to a “let’s tear it all down” attitude.  Mensa’s greatest danger comes from within, from people who join not to participate, but to “tear down.”  Not to necessarily improve by tearing down, but just for the fun of doing so.  Decent and polite behavior seem to be a thing of the past.  Insults, accusations, and all similar expressions seem to be the savored mode of a very small, but very vocal, group who do enormous damage without caring. 

I believe that if one mistake was made in the nearly 30 years I was (mostly enjoyably) employed by Mensa, it was in the area of too much freedom for those who don’t respect or know how to handle it, and not enough requirement for proper behavior (and I don’t care what anybody says...in decent society there are still decent practices of behavior).  The question is, in discussing image, whether it is the Degenerate SIG that you’d want representing Mensa or some other image less likely to turn off great numbers of people and more likely to instill pride in membership. 

In my opinion, the main problems that Mensa faces are:  financial, quality of membership, attraction of new members, communication with members, and making members aware that they are part of a national society (i.e. if they don’t like it, suggest that they may be happier elsewhere--they might try the East Village Drinking and Marching Society which has no interest in a book, community-support work, or anything other than their own limited scope of interest). 

What should we do? 
 

1. Pride! pride! pride! must be instilled (i.e. membership must stop being a joke) and Mensa must have better communication with its members.

  
2. Criteria for AMC performance--and no mercy if they don’t deliver.
    
3. A completely different BULLETIN, but not in the genre of INSOMNIAC, PROPELLOR, LOGORRHEA, or any other stream-of-consciousness, so-called intellectual publications.  Hire a professional who is not a member, but is a professional editor.

  
4. Change the at-home test to a self-scoring one.  For $9, candidates will get a test they will complete and then score themselves.  They can take the supervised test whether they take the self-scoring test or not.  We will save substantial cost in scoring, mailing, data-entry and other record-keeping.  Inasmuch as the preliminary test score does not count, why bother with all the rigmarole?

  
5. We are suffering from a lack of storage space and other inefficient uses of space.  Have the interior designer come in with an eye to revamping the space so that we can get what we need efficiently and effectively without major cost.  This should not be delayed very long and should then be followed with a painting/carpet-cleaning.  Right now the office is quite dirty and, after three years there, a little freshening up wouldn’t hurt.

It is true that the 16 paid staff people make their living from Mensa.  Earning one’s keep, doing a good job, making the boss look good, etc. have always been honorable endeavors in the American “system.”  In Mensa, however, this same very vocal minority resents anyone, other than themselves, getting anything from Mensa.  Salaries paid to staff are obviously “too much,” benefits are obviously “overly generous,” work is obviously “too slipshod,” etc.  Let these carpers come and spend one or two days--by appointment--at the office.  Let them see the enormous amount of both interesting and repetitive scut-work which needs to be done on an ongoing basis, reliably, so that an organization of over 50,000 members in nearly 150 chapters get the support it needs.  Let them remember that to say “hello,” "please,” and “thank you,” are appropriate salutations.  “Fuck you” and “drop dead” are not.  Let them remember that they, on their own jobs, wish to be treated with courtesy and that Mensa employees are no different.  Let them remember that they do not with to be asked the ethnicity of their own background and that Mensa employees are no different.  Let them remember that their salary is nobody's business but their own and that Mensa employees are no different.  Finally, let them remember that if they want good service, they should treat Mensa employees with politeness--nothing more, nothing less; and let them also remember that, vain though it may sound, the Mensa organization could not function without a staff. 

What do we need?  Better ethics, better and simpler ways of safeguarding the organization, not from criticism but from vandalism. Local groups should required to have an Ethics, Grievance, Ombudsman, etc. procedure; nothing should be taken up at the next level unless first handled there.  Bringing it to the regional level should not be so easy as to be inviting, but neither should it be as convoluted as it is now.  Of course, the loser should be responsible for reasonable costs. 

There must be an end to the misperception of the groups, fostered by some newsletter editors and, again, by that very vocal minority, that once in Mensa they--groups and publications--are sacrosanct and owe no fealty to American Mensa.  They are, in fact, only a franchise of American Mensa and they must be brought around to understand this.  If they don’t, that’s where the destruction will come from. 

I don’t mean to be a “doomsayer,” but that is where destruction will come from.  I see things rather gloomily unless some changes are made.  One of these includes the operations of the AMC and its procedures.  Truthfully, they’ve become less and less meaningful.  In looking over the last years’ agendas and resultant minutes, I was hard-pressed to find some meaningful actions that Mensa could not have lived just as well without.  I’m sure that it turns off those members whose dues pay for this exercise.  Perhaps not every motion deserves to be a motion, deserves AMC’s time, deserves to be on the agenda.  We must make critical judgments as to the worthiness of a motion.  If there isn’t enough Mensa business, perhaps the meeting ought to be cancelled. 

In any case, time for “business as usual” is over. 

Sincerely, 

s/Margot Seitelman