As I’m writing this, I’m already planning my trip to London this spring to meet the rest of the ExComm members. This will be our first in-person meeting since we took office and it is so exciting, not just because of the opportunity to visit a new city, but the very opportunity to meet other Mensa members from another part of the world in person. This is what makes this society so stimulating and compelling.
What’s more we will be meeting to discuss and decide upon various motions and topics, and if there is one thing that the pandemic taught us it’s that video calls are great for when there is a great distance between people, but nothing can substitute for the authentic human experience of meeting one another in person.
One of the initiatives I am now doing in my capacity as DSNM is to gather small but frequent updates from the Full National Mensas under my portfolio. A pulse check like this can be far more effective than a large-scale project that may seem grand at first but hard to execute. And the same can be said about what is happening in National Mensas around the world.
If there is one thing I’m noticing from the reports, it is that National Mensas around the world are budding and thawing through the winter of the pandemic and finding new breath of life and vigour. Many National Mensas are already having in-person gatherings. Others are preparing for their National General Assemblies. Some during this down time were able to revamp their National Mensa website — a feat carried out purely by volunteers! Testing sessions are being carried out again and National Mensas around the world are poised for growth by meeting the repressed demand for Mensa Admission Tests.
But mind you it is not going to come to pass over night. For this to happen it’s going to take all of us. Every single member must be clear what we are all here for: that deeply personal and deeply meaningful human experience that we can only find in Mensa.
For that to happen we must all take part in bringing our own portion to the table. Volunteer and support your boards or take part to lead one. Be the member you want to see in your National Mensa and you will find other like-minded individuals coming to the forefront.
This pandemic winter has taken enough from us – our time, volunteers and momentum. Every little bud that sprouts is every new volunteer that raises their hand through the snow. Every generation of old methods of doing things now thawing to new and fresh more efficient ideas on how to run the society. It turns out, time like energy is never lost, only found in a different season.
A dear Mensan friend of mine once taught me that in order to get, you must first give. Change always involves the gaining and giving up of something. And indeed, this is always true with Mensa. You get what you put into the society. And if there is something I’ve always known to be true, what you get from what you put in, can never be bought by money for it is the priceless human experience that can truly be found in Mensa.
As I prepare for the trip to meet the rest of the ExComm, I’m looking forward to the spring we will all soon see in Mensa and helping our global membership see and respond the same.
Reprinted from the Mensa World Journal, May, 2022, issue 112