From the LocSec
By
April 2008
Last week, American Idol started with the judges saying that taking risks with the Lennon-McCartney songs the contestants were singing could lead be quite rewarding. One contestant took a big risk, singing a country version of 8 Days a Week, and we quickly remembered that risk-taking carries the potential not only of great success, but also of failure. As I write this, she's still on the show, but that performance definitely didn't advance her chance of winning the competition.
The Constitution of Mensa lists three purposes of our society: To identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity; to encourage research into the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence; and to provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment for its members. While we do foster human intelligence with our gifted children work and by participating in the Mensa Foundation's Scholarship Program, most of what a local group like Cincinnati Area Mensa does is in furtherance of the last goal, providing an opportunity for our members to interact; we tend to leave the first two goals largely to the Foundation.
In scheduling a variety of activities, we do occasionally take risks (and you were wondering why I started this column the way I did, weren't you?). Sometimes those risks pay off big, and sometimes they don't work out as well as we had hoped. While we don't want to take foolish risks, we're glad to try new things or new ways of doing old things, hoping for great successes. And when we don't succeed, we know that we tried - and hopefully, we learned something we can use to build future successes. The good news is that even our failures don't lead to someone being voted out (unlike American Idol, CAM activities are definitely not a competition!); we do appreciate our risk-takers, and we want them to know that we appreciate the effort, even if the results aren't perfect every time.
The activities you see in the Mencinnatian's calendar listing are really of two types. There are activities run by Cincinnati Area Mensa, and there are activities that individual members organize, and invite other members to join in with them. We welcome members to list activities of many sorts that facilitate members interacting in stimulating intellectual and social settings; we expect the activities to be safe and legal, that someone is coordinating the Mensans getting together (both before and during the activity), and that the listings aren't deceptive, but otherwise, you can list pretty much anything you want. And you can list something low risk, or take a chance on something that may soar; it's up to you. Contact calendar editor , if you want help listing an activity; we'll do what we can to increase the chances your activity succeeds.
I look forward to seeing many of you at CAM activities this spring!
--Rick Magnus