Updates from Tribal Mensa

Akshay Kulkarni Principal Investigator, Tribal Mensa Nurturing Program

Akshay Kulkarni has been working with Tribal Mensa Nurturing Program for the past 5 years. He is involved in various activities of Tribal Mensa Nurturing Program such as identification, nurturing, counselling sessions, and content development.

Tribal Mensa Nurturing Program is an initiative to identify and nurture gifted children among underprivileged populations in India. TMNP team believes that there is a strong need to recognize gifted youth, as their accomplishments, potential, capacity to lead, their concerns about the world and ability to think creatively are in fact national assets. Once identified through Mensa India IQ tests, these children are nurtured through a series of non-academic workshops designed to ensure holistic learning and development of the child’s body, mind and brain. Team members make two trips a month to each school that we work with and conduct nurturing activities based on the ‘Pancha Kosha’ Model of Human Development which is derived from ancient Indian texts. Each student receives a “Nurturing Kit” which contains activity books and games that challenge the child’s intelligence. Individual counselling, assessments and teacher training programs are conducted to increase the effectiveness of the Gifted program.

NEW DRAFT ELECTION RULES

The following rules have been adopted by the International Board of Directors to govern the election of the following International Elected Officers of Mensa International: Chairman, Director-Administration, Director-Development, and Treasurer. Throughout these rules, unless otherwise specified, all dates will correspond with Coordinated Universal Time, all starting times will be 00:01 UTC on the date in question, and the time of all deadlines will be 23:59 UTC on the date in question.

DEFINITIONS:

Throughout these rules, the following terms have the meanings indicated: “DIM” means Direct International Member. “election period” means the period in which the voting process takes place in the election year, which shall be April 15th at the latest through May 31st, as defined in the International Constitution. This includes the period during which votes are verified and is different to the “voting period”. See below.

“election year” means the year in which an election is held. “IBD” means the International Board of Directors. “Independent Election SupervisoryAgency” means a commercial company expert in conducting electronic balloting and supervising elections. “IEC” means the International Election Committee (see Constitution Section X.A.2). “MWJ” means Mensa World Journal. “national chair” means the member with chief executive authority within a national Mensa Committee. “national Mensa Committee (NMC)” means the governing body (the board) of a national Mensa group. “national Mensa group (NM)” means a Full National Mensa, a Provisional National Mensa, or an Emerging National Mensa. “NCIE” means “national coordinator for international elections.” This is the person who actually runs the international election within a national Mensa and interacts with the IEC on behalf of the national Mensa, whether that be the national chair, or an appointee, or an employee, or anyone else. By default, it is the national Mensa chair, unless a different person is appointed “preferential voting system” means the voting system wherein the voter expresses their preferences by means of a transferable vote. “publish” means distribution to the entire Mensa membership of the entity doing the publishing (e.g., to all members of a national Mensa, or to all DIMs, or to the entire worldwide membership), whether electronically (via email or the like) or in print or both. “votekey” means a unique identifier used to associate an electronic vote with the voter who cast it. “year before the election year” means the year before one in which an election is held. Elections will now be held every 3 years (2021,2024, 2027……) “voting period” is the period during which votes may be cast –April 15th through May 15th.

INTRODUCTION

These rules apply to the election for International Chair, International Director-Administration, International Director-Development and International Treasurer. The remits for the four positions may be found in the International Constitution IV.C. (Note: A fifth international elected office, that of Director – Smaller National Mensas, was added to the international Constitution of Mensa in 2005. However, the election for that position is managed separately from the election of the four member-elected officers. See Constitution Section X.B.) Because several of the processes for the conduct of the international elections are different to previous years, and some of the deadlines are different as a result, the following is provided as a summary of the new process. International elections require actions both on the international level and within individual national Mensas. The outline process is as follows: è Candidates register their intention to stand for election to the International Election Committee (IEC), by seeking nomination. è The IEC notifies National Mensas of the nomination process; national Mensa boards or individual members acting together can nominate candidates. è Candidates provide their election campaign materials to the IEC by the deadline date. è The IEC creates nomination webform for candidates. è National Mensa nominate candidates they wish to support. è The IEC collates and checks campaign materials from the candidates, creates a ballot for the candidates that are not unopposed. The IEC sends the ballot and the candidate materials to the national Mensas. è The national Mensas appoint a national coordinator for international elections (NCIE) and inform the IEC. This can be the national chair, an appointee or an employee. è The national Mensas decide whether voting for their members will be electronic only or if they will also offer a paper ballot option. è The Independent Election Supervisory Agency will distribute vote keys electronically. National Mensas may share their entire record of member e-mail address with the Agency. Otherwise, the registered e-mails on Mensa.org will be used to distribute vote keys to their members. è The candidate material, or a link to these, must be distributed along with the vote keys. è The national Mensas that offer paper ballot voting publish the ballot and the candidate materials to their members on paper. The members vote and send their ballots to their national Mensa (or vote electronically). è For paper ballots, the national Mensas collect the ballot envelopes, check them for validity according to the election rules without opening the envelopes, and send them to the Independent Election Supervisory Agency for counting. è The Independent Election Agency tallies the electronic votes; cross-checks paper envelopes against the names of those who voted electronically in order to eliminate any double votes; counts the paper ballots and sends the consolidated results to the IEC. è The IEC notifies the candidates, the IBD and the wider Mensa membership of the results. è All members must be given the opportunity to vote electronically and no national Mensa shall confine its members to paper voting only. The decision on how to send out candidate materials to their members lies with the national Mensa, but the cost of printing and

These Rules describe each of these steps, and more, in detail.

IMPORTANT. Every stage of the process has to be performed entirely by persons who are impartial and disinterested in the outcome of the election: -- The Independent Election Supervisory Agency, and each of the personnel within theAgency assigned to the Mensa election, must be impartial and disinterested in the results of the election. -- If a member of the IEC becomes a candidate, or if the spouse of a member of the IEC becomes a candidate, or if a member of the IEC has any conflict of interest regarding the election, the IEC member must immediately resign from the IEC. -- -- The national coordinator for international elections (NCIE, and any other key personnel) in each national Mensa must be impartial and disinterested in the results of the election.

RULE 1 – NOTICE OF ELECTION

1.1 No later than September 1st of the year before the election year the IEC will issue a notice announcing the election and initiating the nomination process. This notice will be published in the MWJ and in all national Mensa publications, or circulated by other appropriate means, in order to ensure that the notice reaches all members by November 1st of the year before the election year. The notice is also to be published on the mensa.org web site and via any other appropriate electronic channels. 1.2 The notice will instruct candidates for the four offices and specify that the IEC must receive nomination requests from candidates no later than January 4th of the election year for them to be valid. The notice will also specify how to obtain rules for completion and submission of nominations and the address to which nominations must be sent.

RULE 2 – INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES

FORMAT OF NOMINATION REQUESTS 2.1 Candidates inform the IEC that they intend to stand and are therefore seeking nominations and provide their candidate material to the IEC. The IEC will then inform national Mensas of the names of the candidates and request nominations from national Mensa committees. To be permitted to stand a candidate must secure at least one nomination. The process for nominations is described in Rules 3 and 4. 2.2 The IEC will provide a web form for nominations to ensure uniformity of requests, with all supporting documents. Nomination requests shall not be disclosed by the IEC to third parties before the deadline. Candidates are free to disclose their intention to stand as they wish. 2.3 Nomination requests from candidates must be sent to the IEC (iec@mensa.org), who will confirm receipt, no later than January 4th of the election year and contain the following information; • Full Name of candidate; • National Mensa to which they belong (or declare that they are a Direct International Member); • Address and other relevant contact information including email address;

• Mensa.org user ID (for which they must be registered on the mensa.org website), • Acceptance of candidacy, if nominated; • Current portrait photograph, no older than 2 years; • Scan of personal pages of their passport; • Campaign statement (limited to 200 words), biographical statement (limited to 150 words) and answers to the four IBD questions as shown in ASIE 06-49 (each answer limited to 150 words). These are not mandatory, but it is clearly in the interest of a candidate to submit them. 2.4 The biographical and campaign statements and responses to IBD questions must be provided in the English language. These documents may also be submitted in a translation into one or more additional language(s). The word limit for each translated statement must be reasonable in accord with Rule 2.3. The IEC reserves the right to ask neutral parties to verify the content of the translation is equivalent to the statement in English, and to reject any statements that are not equivalent to the English translation. 2.5 The IEC may request additional supporting documentation to support factual claims made in the candidacy (diplomas, degrees etc). 2.6 If a candidate intends to stand in the election as part of a slate of candidates, this must be stated on the request, and if the other named candidates on said slate reciprocate, they shall be identified in the election material as belonging to the same slate. The name of the slate shall be stated in the nomination request. The term “slate” means a list of two or more candidates wishing to be identified as a group supporting each other’s candidacies; each member of the slate must explicitly agree to be a member of the slate in order to be included on the slate. Good standing is defined in Constitution Section III.F. 2.7 National Mensas are required to ensure that all their members have the opportunity to vote. The NCIE of each national Mensa must submit evidence to the IEC of actions taken to meet with this requirement, such as copies of official publications or other national election correspondence. Deadline for submitting this is March the 20th of the election year.

RULE 3 – Nominations by national Mensa committees

3.1 The IEC will collect all nomination requests and accompanying documentation and make it all available online for the IBD and all national Mensa representatives.

Deadline for this is one week after deadline for nomination requests by candidates, January 11th of the election year.

3.2 The IEC shall offer an on-line form for the chairs or permanent proxies of NMCs to indicate which candidates, if any, they want to nominate, and issue instructions for the nomination process. A candidate needs at least one nomination to be eligible in the election. Nomination of a candidate shall constitute an endorsement of the candidate and indicate that the national Mensa believes that candidate is well-suited to, and capable of fulfilling the requirements of, the post for which the candidate is standing. 3.3 When marking a candidate's name for nomination, the nominating NMC shall have the choice to make the nomination public or not. If not, the nomination shall count, but the identity of the nominating national Mensa will not be disclosed in the election material. If yes, the name of the nominating national Mensa shall be included in the election material. The total number of nominations shall be displayed regardless. Example: John Doe, 13 nominations, including Germany and France. 3.4 All NMCs are to inform the IEC whether any candidate seeking nomination who claims to be member of their NM is a current member in good standing. The means of doing this shall be