A Bit of History

Mensa was founded on October 6, 1941 in Britain by Lancelot Ware and Roland Berrill, who wanted to have a group that discussed world problems intelligently. Initially, the requirement was set at an IQ in the upper 1%, but there were no supervised tests. The group remained small until Victor Serebriakoff substantially revised it and started to advertise it extensively. A few people from the U.S. joined, and by 1960 there were pockets of members in New York City, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles. American Mensa unofficially formed on September 30, 1960. It consisted of members both in Canada and the U.S. International Mensa and American Mensa both ratified constitutions in 1965. Canadian Mensa split off in 1967.

There are now National Mensas in all European countries, including the former Soviet states and Russia, India and many other countries. They work cooperatively together under a common constitution and through the International Board of Directors with representatives from all National Mensas.

American Mensa is subdivided into ten geographic Regions. Each Region contains many local groups such as ours. We are currently (2002) in Region 6, also known as the Southwest Region. It consists of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. New Mexico Mensa basically consists of the northern 2/3 of our state plus the Texas Panhandle area. The southern part of our state belongs to El Paso Mensa. Most of our members are located in the Albuquerque area, with a smaller block of members in Santa Fe/Los Alamos, a yet smaller block in the Farmington area, about 30 in the Amarillo area and the rest scattered thinly through the state. It should be noted that members living in a fringe area where activities of a neighboring group may be more convenient can transfer membership to the neighboring area just by writing our National Office. You’re not stuck with us. Or, you can transfer membership to Region 00 and receive the Isolated M newsletter, a pleasant and friendly publication.

The boundaries of the Regions and of local groups have been realigned many times. Each year, some new local groups are born and some die off, absorbed by a neighboring local group. Local groups have no “right” to exist and are permitted to exist for the benefit of the local members and administrative convenience. Typically, about 10-20% of local group members participate actively in social functions or through newsletter contributions.

In addition to local groups, Mensa has an entirely different substructure of Special Interest Groups (SIGs), each of which puts out periodic newsletters on a specialized topic. More Mensans are involved with SIGs than are active in local groups, even though belonging to a SIG will cost about $10/year.  Related to the SIGs, there are many on-line only (and free) forums for the discussion of various issues. These include Grapevine (Mensa politics and issues), M-Pol (politics), M-Salon (discussion of books and social issues) and many more. New sites come on-line every year. Most are yahoo groups and require joining yahoo (which is easy and free).