September 2017
THE CHRONICLE 2017 SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS More than 10,000 students competed for 195 scholarship awards at the local, regional, national and international level with a value of more than $135,000. The 95 American Mensa Local Groups who participated and completed the scholarship judging have a $600 Karen Cooper or Diana Mossip Memorial Scholarship awarded on their behalf to a student with the funding provided by the Mensa Foundation. Ed Vincent Scholarship ($1,000.00)
Pablo Pueyo Poves, Mensa Spain
Mensa International Scholarship ($1,000.00)
Jose Rafael Saade, Mensa Spain Marlene Tahedl, Mensa Germany
Mensa International Scholarship ($2,000.00) Megan Griffiths, Mensa South Africa
Mensa International Scholarship ($1,000.00)
Sebastian Seidel, Mensa Germany
Megan has been a KZN member since 2016.
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
TWO QUICK QUESTIONS ...
Across the board ......................2
... to the International Election Committee (IEC) 2016-2017
Mass testing in Moscow...........3
Did the electronic election system work out well, according to the view of the IEC? Yes, there was a huge increase in both voters and candidates. Has the electronic election system increased the number of voters taking part in the elections?
Yes, it more than doubled the number of voters compared to 2015.
Note that the member numbers for 2017 are based on the June 2016 records, since the count is produced at the IBD meeting later in the year.
High IQ Medical Survey ..........4 Mensa Winelands ....................4 Photocup Winners ...................6 Mensa Johannesburg ..............8
Contact details .........................8
ACROSS THE BOARD Thank you for the confidence that you, the collective you, have shown in me in electing me International Director-Administration for the 2017-2019 term. I hope to live up to your standards and expectations.
The Director of Admin is in charge of several areas of vital importance to Mensa International, among them communications and the international business office. (Communications is a big area all in itself, as it includes the Mensa World Journal, the web site, and social media.) The Director of Admin is also in charge of the recruitment and appointment process for all the international appointees and commit-
tees. And then there is being a member of the Executive Committee, which manages Mensa International on a day-to-day basis between the annual meetings of the International Board of Directors (IBD), and being a member of the IBD itself. So there are a lot of moving parts to being Director of Admin. Living in the United States as I do, I do not have as many international experiences on a day-to-day basis as some Mensans have, but within the world of Mensa I have a lot of international experience. I represented American Mensa on the IBD thirteen times between 1999 and 2015, including two years on the IBD’s Executive Committee while American chair. In addition
“I have been a member of Mensa, and of American Mensa, for 35 years”
to being on the IBD, I chaired the International Governance Papers Advisory Committee from its founding in 2010 until I had to give it up upon becoming Director of Admin; the GPAC is the committee of experts on the international Constitution of Mensa and the international Actions Still in Effect, answering questions and recommending changes when needed. This past term I was also Constitution Review Officer, reviewing national Mensas’ constitutions and amendments to them before they were presented to the membership for voting. And I have been a member of the International Name and Logo Committee since 2002, including two years as its chair. A lot of the committee and appointee work I’ve done has been analytical and/or detailed and/or procedural in nature, and that falls in well with some of what the Director of Admin does On a non-international level, I have been a member of Mensa, and of American Mensa, for 35 years. As I have moved around the country I have been a member of seven local groups, and have served as an officer in many of them. I also served on American Mensa’s national board of directors for fourteen years, culminating with two years as national chair from 2013 to 2015. I have also been a test proctor since the 1990s and a scholarship reader since the 1980s. And, best of all, I met my wife through Mensa. She and our two children are the lights of my life.
I look forward to meeting new and old Mensa friends at EMAG in Barcelona in August and at the IBD meeting in Nice in October. Until then, Floreat Mensa!
By Dan Burg International Director of Administration
2
THANK YOU A big thank you to all of us at Mensa to Jurie van Wyngaardt for keeping the Mensa SA riddles group going on Facebook...
Some of the candidates, after their test"
MASS TESTING IN MOSCOW BY: JOSÉ BELTRÁN ESCAVY, EDITOR OF THE OMNIA (MENSA SPAIN) Russia remains one of the points of interest for the growth and expansion of Mensa. The potential is there, and for quite some time there have been plans for getting a basic "core" of members started there also.
The stars finally aligned, apparently, because a fortuitous circumstance allowed us to organize a first mass session of tests in Moscow. At the end of May I was going to Moscow to celebrate my daughter’s birthday, and since I am an authorized test supervisor, and knowing about the MIL plans to build up a regular Mensa presence in Russia, I contacted the International Director of Development and the Executive Director of Mensa International to suggest that I take care of supervising a mass test session in Moscow. It was agreed that this was a chance not to be missed. The project was on.
I am a member of Mensa Spain, and I contacted its board of directors. Mensa Spain agreed to supply the testing materials (booklets and answer sheets for the Figure Reasoning Test, the standard test used in many European countries) for me to take to Russia. Ms Isabella Holz, from Germany, prepared a very nice-looking brochure and a really cool poster for publicity. Mensa International also contacted the International Members living in Russia asking for assistance, and two of them ended up becoming essential for the success of our endeavour: Mr Mikhail Mondri and Mr Viktor Baranchikov.
Mikhail Mondri, with the inestimable help of his secretary Ms Sasha Nenasheva, arranged for a wonderful location for the test, a meeting room in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, in the very center of Moscow. They did a great job dealing with the logistics of the test session: printing and distributing the publicity materials and invitations, getting in touch with people who might be interested to take part in the test (for instance, a group from the Chess Federation), dealing with the hotel, getting everything set up nicely...
3
sustaining group can be started there.
HIGH IQ MEDICAL SURVEY Little is known of how gifted adults interact with medical professionals and whether a high IQ is an important issue. To explore this question, Mensa members Rebecca Ridolfo and Dr Noks Nauta surveyed gifted adults from all over the world about their experiences and collated their replies into a 44-page report. The responses showed a broad spectrum of experience, yet also common themes, yielding both hairraising and heart-warming stories and also some remarkable insights. Most importantly, they contained useful and thoughtful advice that professionals in healthcare can apply towards improving their relationships with all patients and thus getting better healthcare results.
This study is the first of its kind globally, as far as we have been able to ascertain, and has raised further questions for future research. The report has been published by Instituut Hoogbegaafdheid Volwassenen (The Netherlands Gifted Adults Foundation) and can be found here: https://ihbv.nl/wp-content/ uploads/2017/06/ HighIQMedicalSurvey.pdf
Mr Viktor Baranchikov gave very good advice regarding possible issues with the Russian authorities if it would come to actually registering Mensa Russia as an organization in Russia itself. He also helped me a lot during the preliminaries to the test sessions, translating when my knowledge of Russian was not enough to deal with questions from candidates or when explaining how the test was going to be run.
The date selected for the test was Saturday the 3rd of June. The whole session lasted from 1PM to approximately 5:30PM (with a lunch break in the middle). There were 4 separate testing "batches", for a total of 51 candidates, from Moscow but also from quite far away from the city; There were people coming from Tula, from Volgograd, even from Izhevsk (1250 km away) - people who took an airplane for a day-trip to Moscow just to come to take a Mensa test.
Right now the plan is to concentrate the development to Moscow. Later on, expansion can be carried out towards other big cities, beginning with St. Petersburg. Mensa Spain has offered to act as a "mentor" for a fledgling Mensa in Russia, if necessary. There are people who, like me, can volunteer to supervise test sessions in Russia.
I am really excited about this whole project. I hope that in the not too far future Mensa can take root and have a stable presence in the largest nation on Earth.
L-to-R: Mikhail Mondri, José Beltrán and Viktor Baranchikov Caption describing picture or graphic
The feeling that I took away was that, in Russia, there is a positive curiosity about Mensa, a desire to take the test, to see what Mensa is about. I think that the potential for Mensa growth in Russia is very high. Our Russian friends are quite fired up and want to set up another mass testing session by September. All in all, I think that we have a very good chance of getting Mensa started in Russia. We have to help them achieve "critical mass", so that a self-
MENSA WINELANDS Mensa Winelands attracted a record attendance of 81 people at their June speaker evening, at which eighteen-year-old Rowan Mockler spoke about academic doping. Rowan, from Johannesburg, won the World Persuasive Speaking Champion accolade in Pennsylvania last year, and will now be continuing his studies at Stanford University.
On the social front (and living up to their name!), Winelands’ members enjoyed a wine and biltong pairing on Saturday 10 June, where they were given an opportunity to pair six different wines with varieties of biltong and droëwors, in the cellars of Stellenbosch Hills Winery. At Winelands’ Annual General Meeting at the beginning of July, members enjoyed soup and sherry around the fire, and the chapter was able to report significant growth of 147% for the year ended 30 June - an increase of 84 members
4
over the previous year, the only chapter to have recorded an increase in membership for the year in the country. After business was concluded, South African muso Koos Kombuis entertained members with a few of his iconic songs. Winelands members were sad to bid farewell to six of their members who have emigrated - but delighted to ‘capture’ two new members back this year, when Julia Haldane joined from Mensa UK, and Tarik Oguz transferred his membership from Mensa Australia.
Winelands had a significant growth of 147% for the year!
One way of getting new members to join Mensa South Africa, is by inviting your guest speakers to write the eligibility test! Dr Sara Andreotti, a postdoctoral researcher at Stellenbosch University, spoke at Mensa Winelands in August 2016 on the imminent extinction of Southern Africa’s great white sharks, and joined the chapter after successfully qualifying at their testing session in January this year.
For the year ended 30 June, 107 candidates participated in Mensa testing at nine sessions in Somerset West, which represented 43% of all the candidates tested in the country during the year. 62 of these successfully met the eligibility requirements. Despite having ‘officially retired’, futurist and scenario planner Clem Sunter can still rock an audience! He was the guest speaker at Mensa Winelands’ monthly meeting in August, which attracted a large crowd, including a contingent of members from Mensa Cape Town. A transcript of Clem’s presentation to Winelands was published on 28 August 2017 by News24, and may be accessed at http://www.news24.com/Columnists/ ClemSunter/whats-new-mr-fox-20170828.
5
PHOTOCUP WINNERS Winner - “Detour” by Christian von Wechmar
Christian von Wechmar How old are you? I am 52. Where do you reside and part of which chapter are you? I live in Stellenbosch (where I was born) and am part of the Mensa Winelands chapter. What do you do for a living? I was a film location provider for 20 years. I am now starting to specialise in 360° panoramas and virtual tours. How long have you been a member of Mensa? Since 2002. How long have you had an interest in photography and what is your experience in photography? I've been interested in photography since childhood. I've read photography magazines in our town library since high school in 1983. I bought my first film camera (point-and-shoot) when I was a university student. And used the Stellenbosch University Photography Club dark room to develop and print my film back then. In the early 2000's I studied with the New York Institute of photography, but only completed half the course. I re-enrolled in the NYIP course in 2014, and graduated in February 2017. Incidentally, I shot Detour on 2 August 2015. I have done a few photo projects for clients in the past year. These days my main focus is on high-resolution 360° photospheres/panoramas shot with pro DSLR cameras. I'm a Google Trusted Photographer, with 360,000 views on Google Steet View and Google Maps.
6
What made you enter the competition? Yvonne Steyn, our Mensa Winelands secretary, insisted strongly that I enter :-) How did you come up with the idea for the photo and what was your though process in preparation/ composition? I was on an evening walk with my girlfriend near the Lanzerac Hotel and surrounding Stellenbosch suburbs in August 2015. I usually carry a camera with me when we are out walking. We stumbled upon the mis-aligned road marking, and I asked her to pose for the shot. (Tip: Evening-walks in the company of a photographer should generally be avoided, as they pause at inopportune moments to photograph seemingly random/boring objects.) I thought the anomalous line combined with the shoes would make for an interesting abstract/curios/funny image. I called the photo "Detour", but the Borders-theme of the competition made me think that the red-line could be a symbol for borders. It invoked the question: What if our border-makers, be they road-painters or politicians, create lines that make no sense? What camera/editing software did you use? The image was shot with a Fujifilm X100T at 1/30sec, f/8 at ISO 800. Edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. First, I colour-corrected and cropped the image in Lightroom. I then desaturated all colours, excluding the red. Photoshop was used for cleaning-up pieces of grass, leave, stones. Then some more Lightroom for contrast and a vignette. Any other info you’d like to share on the topic. Well, borders are a big deal in our world. They are in the daily news regarding refugees and asylum seekers worldwide. And of course conflicts. Laws regarding borders can seem surreal at times. Looking at maps of our world, we see many straight-line and right-angle borders between countries - especially in Africa. They have been drawn with rulers by men sitting at tables. These lines often split families, tribes and cultures without considering the strife and hardship they would cause in the future. I sometimes wonder if borders are just crazy lines drawn by crazy humans. On the other hand, Benjamin Franklin said, “Love thy neighbour, yet don’t pull down your hedge.”
First runner up - “Emotional Boundaries” by Daleen Haigh
31 years old Where do you reside and part of which chapter are you? Reside: Northern Suburbs of Cape Town - Brackenfell. I’m am cur rently from Mensa Cape Town What do you do for a living? CAD Drawings for an Electrical Company How long have you been a member of Mensa? Since 2013 How long have you had an interest in photography and what is your experience in photography? I have no prior history or experience in photography. I was in an art school in my heyday :) and love to paint. So I have always taken photos with the idea of "This would make a stunning painting". A while back, my sister perused through my "potential paintings" photos and stated that I have an eye for photography and that I must pursue it. Thus my first leap - submitting it to Mensa PhotoCup competition. How did you come up with the idea for the photo and what was your though process in preparation/composition? We were on a family outing to Simonstown. And as my son, Alex, now 8 years old, walked ahead, I saw a great opportunity to capture a moment where I saw him as he really is - In isolation. he was recently diagnosed with ADHD and really struggles with social interactions. He has no friends and spends most of his time with his nose in books and puzzles. That was him drifting off in his mind again strolling towards home.
PHOTOCUP WINNERS
How old are you?
What camera/editing software did you use? Sony Experia Z1 Compact Android Phone
7
Second runner up - “Cape Town International Airport in Mist� by Paddy Langguth
Where do you reside and part of which chapter are you? I live in Somerset West and am part of the Helderberg Chapter What do you do for a living? I am a pilot, hence my ability to take pictures of airplanes, and scenery from the air! How long have you been a member of Mensa? I have been a member of Mensa for just 5 months How long have you had an interest in photography and what is your experience in photography? I have always loved taking photos and am in the lucky position of being able to capture some interesting shots due to my work What made you enter the competition? I entered the competition just for fun, I never expected to win anything! But I hoped that my photos might be sufficiently different as to warrant consideration How did you come up with the idea for the photo and what was your though process in preparation/composition? I was pre-flighting the plane I was to fly from Cape Town International to Joburg early one winter morning and it was absolutely still and dark, with a shallow fog forming. As I walked around the nose of my plane I saw the aircraft in the background shining under the lights and just pulled out my iPhone 6s to capture the image. I did a little editing with an app called Pro HDR X, just to add a touch more brightness, and that was all!
PHOTOCUP WINNERS
How old are you? 48 years old
8
MENSA Mensa is an international society, free from all social distinctions (racial, religious, etc.) Roland Berrill, an Australian barrister, and Dr. Lancelot Ware, a British scientist and lawyer, founded Mensa at Lincoln College, in Oxford, England, in 1946. The word mensa means "table" in Latin, as is symbolized in the organization's logo, and was chosen to demonstrate the roundtable nature of the organization; the coming together of equals.
MENSA JOHANNESBURG We would like to thank all members who made it to the Johannesburg Annual General Meeting, which took place on 20 July. On the day, five regional committee members were elected for the Johannesburg chapter, who have since been joined by 3 more to have a solid working group. At the first meeting this Monday the committee decided on the roles, as per the Joburg Constitution: Miriam Jorna – Chairperson Stephan van Wyk – Treasurer Christo Venter – Testing and Members Officer Karini Govender – Meeting Officer Lennon Sukhoo – SIG Coordinator Rita Griebenow – New SIGs Organiser Mithun Kalan – Marketing Anne Rametsi – Secretary & Newsletter We look forward to building on the hard work that was done by the previous committee as well as to bringing you new events and opportunities to share with other Mensans. Please do share with us what you would like to see happening, to guide us in what our members want.
Webpage: www.mensa.org.za National Chairperson Simone Deyzel-O’Brien chairperson@mensa.org.za National Treasurer Jaco Van Der Merwe treasurer@mensa.org.za National Marketing Officer Shaun Heunis marketing@mensa.org.co.za National Secretary Jess Steyn secretary@mensa.org.co.za National Admin Officer Yvonne Steyn admin@mensa.org.co.za Editor Heidi Franck chronicle@mensa.org.za