Robin Crawford American Mensa - Joining American Mensa not Very Smart!

Very true! I was a member for several years. I trying out a few local events, I realized Mensa was just a retired people's club!

Very true! I was a member for several years. I attended a few local parties and realized that Mensa is nothing but a retirees club!

I am the president of the local chapter of American Mensa in San Diego. Our group actively seeks out members of all ages and races. In fact, 30 percent of our local board of directors is under the age of 40.
As a Mensa member, I'm glad that the organization does not allow others to use the name without permission. It is a prestigious organization and I would hate to think that others were using the prestige of the name to add value their products, which might not be up to our standards.

I recently became the leader of my local Mensa group in upstate New York. Mensa is filled with amazing, brilliant, fun, caring, and otherwise wonderful people. Joining Mensa was one of the best decisions I ever made.

My intellectual property law course in law school seemed to imply that protecting intellectual property was a good idea. I imagine Mensa's lawyers felt the same way.

The report describes a bunch of time and money being spent on a protecting Mensa's intellectual property. I assume the person who wrote the report would be in favor of Mensa being less vigorous in its intellectual property protection. The report writer makes the determination that "American Mensa is a complete scam" because Mensa came to a different conclusion on how to handle its intellectual property defense. I couldn't disagree more.

While I don't agree with assertion that Mensa is a scam and I further disagree with the assertion that a particular officer uses her position to have an attorney "harass people she does not like," let's assume that everything he said is true. With dues under $6 a month, I think I'm getting a deal. I have never had more fun than at Mensa gatherings. I have never been a member of an organization that felt more like family than Mensa does. I have never before felt so strongly about an organization that I would post something online in its defense. Mensa is most certainly not a scam.

I hope all of you smart people out there give Mensa a chance. I promise that most Mensans are reasonable people and those who remain active enjoy their membership as much as I do!

By the way, I'm 29. I'm not retired, but I want to be!

The organization actually drove itself to bankruptcy for this law suit which it did not win - both parties settled out of the court - the other party agreed not to use a product name it wasn't using for 6 years, and Mensa agreed to eat up all of its legal cost (Inpharmatica did not reimburse a single cent) The only winner in this case was Mensa's attorney laughing all the way to the bank.

As the above attorney notes, it borrowed and continues to borrow year after year from its lifetime membership fund - a fund whose principal amount should not be touched, and earnings should be used to provide the equivalent services to life members to make up the deficit. How many organizations drive themselves to bankruptcy for a dubious claim?

I agree with Mensa being primarily a club where old white retirees get together to eat meat balls and try to one up each other - I am a member but do not plan to renew.

The organization actually drove itself to bankruptcy for this law suit which it did not win - both parties settled out of the court - the other party agreed not to use a product name it wasn't using for 6 years, and Mensa agreed to eat up all of its legal cost (Inpharmatica did not reimburse a single cent) The only winner in this case was Mensa's attorney laughing all the way to the bank.

As the above attorney notes, it borrowed and continues to borrow year after year from its lifetime membership fund - a fund whose principal amount should not be touched, and earnings should be used to provide the equivalent services to life members to make up the deficit. How many organizations drive themselves to bankruptcy for a dubious claim?

I agree with Mensa being primarily a club where old white retirees get together to eat meat balls and try to one up each other - I am a member but do not plan to renew.

The organization actually drove itself to bankruptcy for this law suit which it did not win - both parties settled out of the court - the other party agreed not to use a product name it wasn't using for 6 years, and Mensa agreed to eat up all of its legal cost (Inpharmatica did not reimburse a single cent) The only winner in this case was Mensa's attorney laughing all the way to the bank.

As the above attorney notes, it borrowed and continues to borrow year after year from its lifetime membership fund - a fund whose principal amount should not be touched, and earnings should be used to provide the equivalent services to life members to make up the deficit. How many organizations drive themselves to bankruptcy for a dubious claim?

I agree with Mensa being primarily a club where old white retirees get together to eat meat balls and try to one up each other - I am a member but do not plan to renew.

Interesting discussions. Interesting to see that the two people who are defending Mensa are both officers. Without commenting on the legal issue / IP, I would like Ms. President and Mr. 29 year old Rob to share the demographic statistics of their groups.

Looking at the 21 Voting officers of American Mensa's national Committee, here is what I could quickly come up with (Using Categories used by the Census Bureau) - I have compared them with the average of the general population:

Race:
White Alone: 21 out of 21 - 100% [national average: 75% in 2000]
Black or African Americans 0 out of 21 - 0% [National average 12.3% in 2000]
Asian 0 out of 21 - 0% [National Average: 3.6%]
American Indians / Alaska natives -0 out of 21 - 0% [National Average 0.9%]
Two or more races/ others - 0 out of 21 - 0% [National average 8.2%]

Median Age of the AMC members (based on data provided by SmartPeople.com, who bases it on public records):

61 years - with 10 members more than 61, and 10 less than 61. Average is 59 years [US Median Age: 37.3]

So in summary, sounds like an organization of oldish white people, for oldish white people, by oldish white people. there may be an exception here and there, but that does not change the rule.

Once again, I will like both Rob, the NY "leader" and Ms. President to share the demographics of their groups, not state the exceptions.

Some people join clubs to be entertained and some to find creative outlets.
If you are in MENSA then it is your club.
It can only be what you make it. You want younger members, start a SIG and find interesting people in the demographic you desire with interests similar to yours.
You want ethnic diversity, find members by race, although it seems small minded, and figure out a political strategy.
The only thing that is really small, is to sit on the sidelines and complain, waiting for someone else to put in the time and effort for change.

3333, we created not one but several SIGs - all approved by the AML's SIG officer. Ms. Robin Crawford, who is in not even remotely involved in SIG creation process, but a very politically ambitious AMC member who considers AML to be a personal fiefdom misused her power as the Chair of the Name and Logo Committee and spent Mensa's membership funds to the tunes of tens of thousand dollars the Mensa's IP attorney to harass us (while I and my collaborators were still Mensa members) on issues which were not even remotely related to Intellectual Property. Mensa has to be the only organization which pays for attorneys to harass its members - so much so that we had to formally threaten the Mensa attorney for unlawful harassment - at which point, the harassment stopped.

As a we result, the SIG broke off and became independent high IQ organizations, and Mensa lost thousands of dollars in revenues because the SIGs were placing paid ads in the Mensa Bulletin.

Since then, we had heard from reliable resources that Ms. Robin Crawford, American Mensa Management Committee Member has a kickback arrangement with Mensa's Intellectual property law firm, where by she gets a generous percentage for bringing more business to the firm. This explains why American Mensa Limited spent more than 1.9 million dollars suing a bio-tech company for violating its IP in an unrelated business to business software product. That expense could only be paid by AML raiding the "reserves" set up for lime time membership funds. IMO, American Mensa is not only a white supremacist organization (all members of American Mensa management committee and various appointees are old white retirees, but also corrupt whereby AMC members such as Ms. Robin Crawford use their position to supplement their income.

Was a member for a year. Went to two events. Mostly a group of disgruntled middle managers and public school teachers trying to show each other how smart they were.

Never renewed my membership.