From the LocSec
By
September 2008
Why do people join Mensa? And, once they've joined, why do they stay members? There are probably as many reasons as there are members (and former members). That said, I think I can group people together enough to talk about the role of our local group for those in each group.
Some people join for the validation - just having the membership card in their wallets shows that they are in fact intelligent. There's not a lot we can do for those folks, other than to not do anything that would debase the value of the validation - in other words, we have to avoid doing anything publicly embarrassing.
Some people join for access to national SIGs (special interest groups) and national publications. Again, there's not much we can do locally for those members. We might occasionally have a program that appeals to their interests - but we can't even count on them reading the activities listings when that does occur.
Some (myself included) join for access to other intelligent people. We like talking intelligently with other people - people we know who won't need us to remind them that two plus two still equals four. We like being around people who know what it's like to have been (or, in a few cases, to be) the smart kid in the classroom. For this group, the local group is most active - we sponsor activities you find in the Mencinnatian's calendar, we sponsor discussion groups on the internet, we publish a newsletter for the exchange of written ideas. Some in this group want serious discussion, while others want frivolity to hone the intelligence that gets used in the "real" world - and there's no reason we can't have both.
Some join for access to intelligent people outside their narrow field. This group includes a lot of college faculty and others academics, who have plenty of intelligent people around them at work - but who want to share ideas on subjects outside their niche with people who can have intelligent discussions. Hopefully, the same activities that work for the people who want to be around intelligent people generally will work for these folks - and, if not, like all our members, they're free to start their own activities.
Some people join so that they have a network of people to meet as they travel - so that they have a contact with a group of welcoming, intelligent people in other cities to which they travel. For this, we have SIGHT - Service in Information, Guidance, and Hospitality to Travelers. Polly Grismayer, our long-time SIGHT Coordinator, recently retired from that post; we offer Polly our deepest thanks. Our new SIGHT Coordinator is Marty Meighen, and we welcome Marty to the post. Of course, our local SIGHT Coordinator gets contacted primarily by Mensans from out of town, seeking information on where to stay and where to meet our local members; our local members traveling elsewhere use the SIGHT Coordinators of other groups when they want information on Mensa activity or general information on the places to which they travel. We have a SIGHT Coordinator as part of a mutuality we feel with the other groups; we serve our members by encouraging other groups to do what we do.
And some members join on whims. They realize they have a qualifying score, and send it in out of curiosity (or a family member does it for them!). It's hard to know how to serve these members, at least until they figure out what they want from Mensa. We hope that they find something we're already doing of interest, or that they help us set up something that interests them.
Have I missed you? Do you have a different reason for being a Mensa member? Let me know (my contact information is on the inside back cover of the Mencinnatian), or, even better, write a letter to the Mencinnatian editor explaining why you're a member, what you want from CAM, and what you're getting from CAM; Andy Freede, our editor, loves submissions.