Or is what you see below the real reason behind Mensa's phenomenally high drop out rate?

Subject: RE: [SFRM Disc] What are we?
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 15:59:44 -0800
From: Marie Sooklaris

I know that one of Darrell's concerns is to have more SFRM events of intellectual content, and as Francesca pointed out, a social event does not preclude intellectual exchange.

But I find the major problem with "providing" programs and activities with intellectual content is that you will still only appeal to those who are interested in such topics.  How does that make that program any different than a chocolate tasting or a pub trek?

When I was program director, I arranged a few programs of a scientific bent, even though that was not a subject of interest to me.  Yes, we had great turn-outs for those subject matters, leading one to assume that a number of Mensans like scientific topics.  But that doesn't mean that all of us do -- myself included.

The main thing we are, as I see it, is a resource, a link, to people who think as quickly as we do and hopefully in that group we'll find people we enjoy interacting with.  That makes us, to my mind, mainly a social organization.  We can socialize around a scientific topic or we can socialize around chocolate (or beer or sex or gourmet dining).

And as others have pointed out to me, if people want intellectual content, they attend the conferences of the professional organizations they belong to that are more geared to a specific topic.  People in Mensa are often seeking a respite from their intellectual "nutrition" and may just want to let their hair down a little.  So what's wrong with that?

We who are active in Mensa should not be responsible for spoon-feeding inactive Mensans.  I think the main responsibility for how we get together is up to each individual member.  We have our monthly newsletter/calendar as a vehicle to send out signals to others of hopefully like mind with whom we might enjoy getting together.  Each
member has that option and responsibility if they want to receive full benefit of their membership.

I don't think it's up to the Program Director to be all things to all people.  I put on programs that weren't fun for me just so that I could provide content for this supposed "other" group of Mensans.  That was not satisfying for me.  How long will someone want to be a volunteer if they're not having a good time doing it.  It has to be satisfying to the volunteer in order for them to continue to volunteer.

The best way for me to put on events is to conceive of something that is fun for me and that will attract hopefully like-minded people.  I don't have to be an officer to do that.  In fact, I think having the "title" of program director cramped my own personal style.

Plus, being a volunteer opens one up to criticism if the volunteer does not "perform" to the level of often an inactive Mensan's expectations. Geez, who needs that?

I think Mensa is a do-it-yourself organization.  It works best for me that way, that's for sure.

Yes, we need to "put on events" like the RG to make money for our chapter.  I will leave that to others.  I only got involved in running the '99 RG very reluctantly because Les Creelman begged me to do it for about nine months and I finally caved in out of the goodness of my heart because nobody else came forward.  I did the best I could under the circumstances, especially considering that I have not been an RG afficionado anyway and was unaware of certain expectations of RG goers. I might have been more clued in if anyone had bothered to inform me that
National puts out a manual for how to put on a successful RG.  Several people told me that afterwards.

Anyway, as people have pointed out before, ya don't want all 2000 members showing up to a party.  I think it is more productive if we have orientation material to new members that encourages, welcomes and informs them on how best to meet other like-minded people in this organization by putting on events or initiating a SIG, rather than
appointing an officer to second-guess people and put on intellectual events just to draw out these new members who have such expectations of this organization, unless, of course, that is what that particular volunteer likes to do.

Marie

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Subject: RE: [SFRM Disc] What are we?
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 18:01:07 -0800
From: Alan Baltis

I had my best success back in Chicagoland when I personally sponsored events which, even if virtually NO ONE else showed up, I would still have a good time. So for years I sponsored silly stuff like mini-golf and shooting pool, and serious stuff like The Smart Life (a salon-ish discussion group), and put together one-time "specials" like a weekend on the Blackhawk Chocolate Trail (tell me THAT isn't a perfect Mensa event!)

On the other hand, when I was Programming Chair for HalloweeM for 2 years, my key pursuit was variety. We had a number of recurring events, but then what I sought out wasn't just more of the same, it was often things as far
afield from those "standards" as possible. So I tried to have us offer thoughtful things and emotional things, active things and passive things, serious things and frivolous things. And my successor is even BETTER at pursuing diversity than I am, and I think that's one of the strongest things about big RGs and AGs, the wealth of cool programming.

On the other OTHER hand, there were certain things that I very actively didn't pursue, because I thought they were ridiculous or "not the kind of things I wanted associated with Mensa." I didn't turn them away if they fell
in my lap or if another member was willing to do the legwork, but I didn't want to waste a moment on crap like palm readers or "magnetic field therapy" or any number of other things that I was embarrassed other Mensans even gave the slightest credence. But hey, to each his own, and I didn't accept or reject things with the rigor of a Colloquium, I just didn't pursue things in which I had no (or even a negative) interest.

I agree with Marie that Mensa is very much a do-it-yourself organization, and even when I took on roles that were more in-service-to-the-group, I was determined to not let the complainers and never-good-enough-for-them folks
drive me to doubt myself or overtax myself. As always, if a complaint wasn't accompanied by an offer to assist in the improving of things, I just kinda filed that complaint in the scut bin.

- Al

--
Alan E. Baltis
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Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 12:58:34 -0800
From: Darrell Bross <dbross@pacbell.net>

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I could not resist responding to Marie's and Alan Baltis commentaries on the Discussion list.  Since I have an entire website devoted to this topic (see link below) I felt compelled.  Since some of Alan's comments intersect with
Marie's I will depart from our normal procedure and "snippet" the stuff out and then comment on it.  I realize this comes close to "quoting out of context" but I will do the best that I can.  With the permission of the two of you I will reproduce your messages extant with this commentary to follow on my website.  It completely illustrates both the extreme of the argument and the "middle road approach" IMO.  So I am going to say, up front, thank you both.  And I may repeat this later on because it deserves all of the mephasis that I can muster. BOTH OF YOU have a valid viewpoint and an approach to membership that ABSOLUTELY needs to be accommodated.

I'll try to get through this as fast as I can.  85% of the members who join drop out within two years.  We have done four separate surveys over the 36 years of American Mensa's existence, as to why these people have dropped
out.  I will paraphrase the reasons in the following manner: Members express a dissatisfaction with what they initially experience in that they do not think Mensa is anything but a party oriented group, and a poor one at that.
They complain about the boorish behavior of the members but primarily they do not perceive the group as "intellectual" or providing intellectual stimulation.  They also complain that with the potential of such a group we
do not seem to "benefit mankind" in any significant way.  In short it is a group that is perceived to exist solely to provide a social environment for it's members.

Forewarned: I am again going to parphrase our history.  In our very early years it seemed enough to just form the group and get a bunch of, discriminated against people, together to provide a social environment. The obvious parallel is to the gay movement of the 1960's.

I believe that we were fortunate enough to have been born during those, very interesting times, of the 1960's and this was enough "intellectual stimulation" to keep this group vital, alive, and certainly intellectually stimulaed.  The human potential movement, psychedelic drugs and the whole counter culture movement fed us with a very large platefull for our discussion groups.  And certainly I was there for the topics that we so wholeheartedly embraced such as the subjects that were calendared at Asilomar.  I remember dropping Mescaline at the onset of my discussion topic at one of our weekly discussion groups to show the group what happens when you do a psychotropic - a whole story in itself.  And I dare say, we don't do that sort of thing today.

The gay movement had it's Harvey Milk who, to some extent, reinvented the gay movement by giving it a political focus.  Mensa got stuck processing new members into a "socializing" environment.  Please note that none of my
characterizations are absolutes i.e. that I am only advocating one type of event. NOTHING I say is without its outstanding execptions.  In particular the fact that just because you are interested in partying this does not
necessarily put you into the bag with the "intellectual haters".  But for clarity of making my point I will have to draw some clear distinctions. Marie and Alan seem to fall into the middle ground where they don't mind and
can see the value of an intellectually stimulating event yet they both (Marie certainly more so) seem to be pushing for more and better parties...or don't care to spend equal amounts of time promoting either type of event.  That's fine as long as they don't hinder the vast majority of members who come and go but who are seeking a higher quality experience. This is the presumption that Meredy and Dick Amyx, Sander Rubin and I (and a few others) made in the early 1980's when we founded the Renewing the Promise of Mensa movement. In looking back I don't recall getting any overt signs of resistance...many opponents said well go ahead and try it.  In the intervening years however an elkement has emerged as we "grey" that is becoming more marked in their resistance to anything but a socializing backdrop.  I have a lot of theories about why the resistance is becoming more virulent and it encompasses an inherent guilt that the "popularity contest winners" who have been (not)leading us for decades have been deliberately ignoring what these dropout studies have been telling us and I will put it bluntly (for brevities sake) that the desires of the majority (and I need to remind you that "we" are not just ANY majority..we are a very special one).

This kind of "stuff raising to the top of our organization" is giving us more of the kind of thinking that is simply ignoring (very blatantly) the core requirement of the organization in that the vast majority of what I can categorize as "hard-core socializers" will also tend to not give a damn about who attends their events (please note back to my earlier caution about "not all of us").

I have also just gotten my third, reliable confirmation of something one of our elected officers has said privately to a very few people. "You don't get it do you? We need to make Mensa smaller." And the implication of that statement certainly had nothing to do with improving the quality with such a move.  It was so that the greying PTB (Powers That Be) can have their little environment with less threat.  That comment was also stated within the
context of a "word" coming down from the National level.  If you look at the consistent and patterned actions of the officers (in particular at the national level) it looks like that sentiment has been in place for some time.

Marie implies and Alan states it, "Mensa is very much a do-it-yourself organization".  I would submit that if there isn't a recognition and some additional support for the "intellectual element" then a new member coming in will very clearly pick up the sentiment, as so eloquently phrased by Marie that the officers and mover/shakers (in other words the people already firmly planted in the various drivers seats) will, at best, turn a deaf ear (unless the newbie is a real fire horse) and at worst boycott those events and in some cases overtly try to rub them out.  It is not so subtle a message that a newbie can't pick up on the fact that socializers form groups and the successful events (in terms of quantity turnout) depend on "falling into line".

I need to also extend another line of thinking.  Mensa started out and continues to place its greatest emphasis on providing an environment for socializing.  I can't say it any better than Marie:

"The main thing we are, as I see it, is a resource, a link, to people who think as quickly as we do and hopefully in that group we'll find people we enjoy interacting with.  That makes us, to my mind, mainly a social organization.  We can socialize around a scientific topic or we can socialize around chocolate (or beer or sex or gourmet dining)."

Notice the "almost" exclusive emphasis on the social aspect of providing something that we can be social around.

Also Marie grudgingly admits: "When I was Program Director, I arranged a few programs of a scientific bent, even though that was not a subject of interest to me.  Yes, we had great turn-outs for those subject matters, leading one to assume that a number of Mensans like scientific topics."  It was certainly my observation that most of the people who attended those General Meetings were members that I had never seen before and that they, for the most part, were NEW (or infrequent) members.

Following on I have to point out a piece of misdirection from Marie who says: "if people want intellectual content, they attend the conferences of the professional organization they belong to that are more geared to a specific topic."  She goes on to suggest members are "seeking a respite from their intellectual "nutrition"".  I can't seem to come up with anybody in my Mensa circles who is overtaxed by their daily profession (and that would certainly include Marie, whose profession I used to share).  I was the under the impression that Mensa is largely comprised of underachievers who are seeking MORE intellectual contact and that is why they join.  We are notoriously under represented by the  "lettered professions"

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