January 2018
THE CHRONICLE
IN THIS ISSUE Page 2. Letter from Editor Page 3. Mensa International International Treasurer Finland
Letter from the Editor
Netherlands Competitions Page 8. Mensan’s Musings The mathematics of society Neglected Tropical Diseases Page 11. Letters
Mensa South Africa Webpage: www.mensa.org.za National Chairperson: Simoné Deyzel-O'Brien chairperson@mensa.org.za admin@mensa.org.za National Treasurer: Jaco van der Merwe treasurer@mensa.org.za National Marketing Officer: Shaun Heunis marketing@mensa.org.za National Secretary: Jess Steyn secretary@mensa.org.za Page 2 THE CHRONICLE January 2018
We have arrived in the new year already. For many, myself included, 2017 seems to have been the fastest year to date. Welcome to 2018 and I hope that this will be a productive and rewarding year for everyone. This edition of The Chronicle marks my inaugural foray as editor. I strive to publish an edition at least every quarter covering both national and international content. Editing and contributing to this journal provides me with an opportunity to contribute to the Mensa goals. (To identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity, to encourage research in the nature, characteristics and uses of intelligence, and to promote stimulating intellectual and social opportunities for its members.) What specifically resonates with me is the goal to foster human intelligence and promote stimulating opportunities for members. Something which I also like is that the aim of Mensa is to be a society that is non-political and free from all racial or religious distinctions. The opinions of an individual does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other members. This enables true freedom to share one’s thoughts and is one reason why I’m so excited about editing The Chronicle. Write to The Chronicle and share your stimulating and intellectual considerations (articles, letters, interesting anecdotes, pictures, questions, answers, or anything that we have permission to publish.) We’re starting a section in The Chronicle called Mensan’s Musings. A few articles are already published in this edition. I look forward to continuing the great work of the previous editors of The Chronicle. May it be an enlightening year of expanding horizons and visionary articles for all South African Mensans. Erik Lear chronicle@mensa.org.za
MENSA WORLD JOURNAL – International Treasurer Starting the Flywheel A flywheel is a heavy wheel that is difficult to start into motion, but once it comes up to speed it is very difficult to stop. Ultimately, we want Mensa to be a large association that is known as the premier organization for intelligence. Societies the world over will look to us for guidance on such issues. Much like a flywheel at full speed, once we have achieved this status, it will serve to build our reputation and numbers with little effort on our part. Today our flywheel is strong and wellconstructed, but not in motion. During my two-year term as Treasurer, I will start that wheel spinning. Mensa International is in a strong financial position. We will end 2017 with assets of about £440,000 British Pounds or a bit more than a year of operating expenses. This is an excellent position to be in and will enable us to undertake some risky but highly rewarding activities. This is our flywheel. At the International Board of Directors meeting (IBD) in October, I held a discussion about starting a global life membership program. The proposal is for Mensa International to create and manage a system of paying the dues of any person that wishes to buy a life membership. This will increase membership numbers, decrease expenses, increase international income, and add income stability to any country that wishes to join the program. Although the benefits of such a program are enormous, there is also risk involved. What if we get the pricing wrong? What if not enough people sign up? Because our assets are strong, we can comfortably undertake the risk until we are able to adjust to a streamlined system. And with that, the flywheel is set into motion. Also at the IBD meeting, I held a second discussion about ways to improve the cost/benefit tradeoff of the meeting itself. The feedback was clear that the primary purpose of the meeting is to share ideas and
knowledge between countries. With that in mind, we can create policies and agendas that decrease expenses that don’t directly relate to that goal while investing in areas that do. For example, we discussed lower cost locations to hold the meeting, splitting the discussion items into two separate but simultaneous tracks, and other ideas. With this feedback, I will bring a proposal to the Executive Committee on how to change the meeting going forward. By spending less money to get a greater benefit we add energy to the flywheel. Beyond what was discussed at the IBD meeting, I am also working on projects to start investing our money for a reasonable risk/return, trying to build an international licensing arrangement that is acceptable to all countries, formalizing several financial policies that are currently just understood to be true, and building a system of internal controls. Each one of these things adds that much more momentum to the flywheel. The above changes along with other non-finance demands will require specialized professional coordination and administration. With that in mind, the 2018 budget was approved to move us from 1.4 Full Time Equivalent employees (FTEs) to 2.0. Not only will this enable us to undertake more complex projects, but it will begin to build a structure that will transcend individuals. By making our administration more capable and more resilient to employee changes, the flywheel moves faster still. Imagine if all of these concepts are fully implemented and running smoothly. Notice that the simple existence of a stronger organization creates an environment in which we will grow with little additional effort. This is the flywheel at full speed. Nick Sanford, CPA, FRM Mensa International Treasurer
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MENSA WORLD JOURNAL - Finland Mensa Midnight Sun 2017 - A Small Is Beautiful Event Model Look! Reindeer! A dozen cameras on the bus started clicking - the first time. Reindeer sighting soon became commonplace and drew scant attention unless the Midnight Sun 2017 bus had to brake hard to avoid hitting an animal on or about to cross the highway. Reindeer enjoy the right of free range in Finnish Lapland. The program at the 4th Midnight Sun gathering hosted by the world’s most northerly Mensa chapter in Rovaniemi Finland merits description in its own right. But the really remarkable feature is their event model, which stands in sharp contrast to most Mensa gatherings. Martyn Davies (Mensa International Ombudsman from the UK) who has attended a variety of Mensa gatherings, called it “unique.” What key features of Midnight Sun gatherings make them so special? First, the number of attendees is limited by the available seats on a bus - a maximum of up to 50 - that is rented for the duration of the event. It makes for a personal scale gathering. Second, registration is managed to ensure that Finnish Mensans do not outnumber non-Finnish Mensans. The balance broadens the range of cultural outlooks and experiences. Third, unlike typical gatherings with several concurrent streams of events, Mensa Midnight Sun has a single program. That allows more opportunity for attendees to get to know one another. Mensans meeting Mensans do not have to rush away to attend different offerings before having enough time to really exchange views and experiences. Fourth, the venue is mobile. Instead of being held in one site, the gathering is bussed from a home base to a selection of interesting and informative local attractions. Those core elements can be adopted by any Mensa chapter anywhere that seeks to hold a modest scale gathering that is both engaging and intimate. The physical location of the Midnight Sun Mensa Page 4 THE CHRONICLE January 2018
Leo Lehtiniemi (Mensa Canada) and Pekka Lovikka
chapter contributes aspects that make it special. Lapland is an exotic destination, far from the beaten path. It offers the promise of novel and memorable experiences. Several non-Finnish attendees described
Hiking Up an Ice-age Rebounding Island in Lapland
visiting Lapland as something on their personal bucket list. The attraction of doing things that are unusual and broadening was a unifying bond among attendees. The organisers capitalise on the uniqueness of Lapland. It constitutes one third of Finland’s land mass but has only 2 percent of its population. There are more reindeer than human inhabitants. Unlike Canada’s barren and usually frozen Arctic, due to the warming influence of the Gulf Stream, Lapland’s landscape is much like Ontario’s Muskoka or Quebec’s Laurentians. It is mostly forested, with rivers and lakes nestled among hills that Wim from Belgium said would be called mountains in his home country.
Many lakes have small resorts with cabins for vacationers. The Midnight Sun organisers select one with a good kitchen/cook and dining facilities, and the ability and willingness to dedicate their facility to a group of 30 to 50 Mensans as a home base for the gathering. Susanna Rantala of the organising group added that a sauna large enough for 10 or so at a time was also essential.
Intrepid Mensans on Traditional Fish-Netting Platform at Kukkolankoski on the Tornio River (Sweden is on the
The group then scouts out attractions reachable by bus within an hour or less that offer an educational experience unavailable elsewhere. These may be hiking trails to unique topographical or historical features, visits to research institutes with presentations by expert speakers, or in the case of the 2017 gathering, a tour of Lovikka Ky, one of only two shops which make kanteles, the distinctive Finnish musical instrument sold all over the world. For fun, there are a variety of games. And once again, an opportunity for white-water rafting was offered for those seeking excitement. Jorma Kuistio, an organiser of the event, sketched the history of Midnight Sun gatherings. They heard Mensa Sweden had held such an event in the early 2000's, but never repeated it. Lapland Mensans, only about a dozen members strong, decided to give it a try in 2008. Steady rains hid the sun that year, but the experience inspired them to a second effort in 2011 - and it succeeded memorably. Most of the 50 who attended that gathering asked when the next one would be. The friendships that formed endured. A third gathering held in 2014 was also successful, so a fourth gathering was in order.
As Mensa Midnight Sun 2017 neared its end, I asked many first-time attendees to share their impressions of the experience. They were positively impressed. Comments included “Interesting, educational, intimate” and “More culturally enriching than other gatherings.” Christine Warlies from Germany, who like Martyn has attended numerous national and international gatherings, summed it up nicely as “cosy, warm, familiar and unique.” I did not have to ask the other repeat attendees. They just wanted to know where and when the next Mensa Midnight Sun gathering would be. The event model used by the small group of Mensans who live near the Arctic Circle succeeds in generating an intimate, human-scale gathering that attracts and impresses Mensans from across Europe and from the USA and Canada. It is a model that Juha Takkula of the organising team indicted requires only a modest contribution from Mensa Finland for deposits needed to reserve facilities. The approach, adapted to local conditions, is one that can be used by other local or national Mensa groups. As E. F. Schumacher, writing in 1973 about economic development observed, Small is Beautiful. That can hold true for Mensa gatherings too.
Leo Lehtiniemi, Mensa Canada (on the left), Jorma Kuistio, Mensa Finland (in the middle) and Anita Groenendijk, Mensa Netherlands (on the right), playing the Uniquely Finnish Game of Mölkky.
Text: Leo Lehtiniemi, Mensa Canda. Photos: Leo Lehtiniemi and Barbara Lehtiniemi This article was previously published in the Canadian magazine MC2, in the September 2017 issue.
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MENSA WORLD JOURNAL – Netherlands Dr Noks Nauta receives royal decoration in the Netherlands In March 2017 during a conference on giftedness in adults, Dutch Mensa member Dr. Noks Nauta received a royal decoration from the deputy-mayor of Amsterdam on behalf of the King (https://youtu.be/CnrDgkWQvtI). She is now a Knight in the Order of Orange Nassau (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_OrangeNassau). The conference was organized by the Gifted Adults
Foundation (www.ihbv.nl) in the Netherlands to celebrate 15 years of research into giftedness in adults. This period started with an article written in 2002 by Noks Nauta together with Frans Corten, who met at a Mensa meeting. Years later Noks co-founded the Gifted Adults Foundation as an institute dedicated to collecting, documenting and distributing knowledge and information about gifted adults. Noks received the decoration for her enormous contribution in this field. The Gifted Adults Foundation in the Netherlands offers many resources on giftedness in adults, like articles, leaflets and reviews of books and articles, which are partly also available in English (https://ihbv.nl/international/english/).
MENSA WORLD JOURNAL – International Mensa Constellation Competition The Mensa Constellation Competition was a ”connectthe-dots” competition, the aim of which was to create a constellation image for the star constellation named ”Mensa”, in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Winner of the Mensa Constellation Competition 2017: 1st Ms Mutsumi Iijima, Mensa Japan 2nd Mr Uwe Doetzkies, Mensa Germany 3rd Mr Pery Pinheiro Freitas, Mensa Brazil The jury consisted of the Chair of Mensa International, and the Editor of the Mensa World Journal, both ex officio. A prize for is being prepared for the winner, Ms Mutsumi Iijima, and will be sent to her once completed. The entries by Mr Doetzkies (2nd place) and Mr Pinheiro Freitas (3rd place) will be featured in the January 2018 issue of the MWJ.
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The winning entry, the star owl, submitted by Ms Mutsumi Iijima, of Mensa Japan. (The image has been slightly modified for publication.)
MENSA WORLD JOURNAL – International International Photo Competition The IPC 2017 winners have been selected, and were presented at the IBD in Nice in October. The theme was "BORDERS". Mensa embraces all cultures, countries, religions, languages, races and great minds. There is one special place where all of these converge — the art of photography. A true meeting place of minds, a
common language we can all share. Since 2004 the Mensa Convergence Project has sought entries from around the Mensan world for the International Photocup competition. It is anticipated that over time participation will increase to embrace all national and emerging Mensa chapters as well as direct International members, so the winner will merit the title "Mensa International Photographer of the Year."
1. NORWAY: Border Wall - Dag Thrane
2.SOUTH AFRICA: Detour – Christian von Wechmar
3.SERBIA: The Border of Hearing - Ranko Đurović
4. FRANCE: Fly, you fools - Lucas Vayre
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MENSA South Africa – Mensan’s Musings The mathematics of society Steven Silbert Has the heading filled your heart with dread or delight? Either way, I trust that for some, it might be interesting to review how mathematics fulfils a functional need in our daily lives. From co-ordinating traffic lights to calculating your pension fund pay-out, knowing how the 'system' works, can give you the edge. It can make you happier and richer; if it doesn't, you can blame your bio-rhythms, which is also mathematically calculated. In the "good old days" i.e. up to the first few years of the twentieth century, governments as a rule, kept their noses out of people's business and pockets. But then something happened, which has left our world changed forever. It was a small gesture by a compassionate government. Or a ruthless reality check by a bunch of thugs, take your pick. Modern society has never recovered, and to this day we pay for it more and more. I refer to The UK's Old-Age Pensions Act of 1908, which forced workers out of factories at the age of 70. The logic was to remove "old mens’ shoes" and get younger men into employment. Some 596,038 initially qualified, including women. The cost was partially borne by the now gainfully employed, younger workers and the pensioners were expected to retire quietly to the seaside to await their inevitable demise.* Pensions were then, what t-shirts are to the ANC: a way to (very subtly) win votes. Taking pensions away is a sure way to lose the next election - ask any politician and you will get a long-winded monologue about 'social values'. So, the rush was on to both buy votes and somehow fund it all; all the while putting on the face of compassion. Pensions, maximum working hours, minimum hourly pay, trade unions, state-run medical facilities and legalised credit all have their roots in the not-so-distant past. Followed closely by taxation, that insidious form of forcing us to pay for everything ourselves and then voting for the party who promises to be the most efficient administrators of our own money. My work encompasses the numerical analysis of linear and non-linear models such as pension schemes and home loans. I call it "scenario planning". Page 8 THE CHRONICLE January 2018
To consider first pension funds, the initial logic was sound, and it worked. Actuaries worked out, based on massive blocks of mind-numbing statistical data, what your life-expectancy would be or more specifically, "what day are you likely to die". They then determined, working backwards, what you must contribute into a pension plan for 40 years or more and at what annual return to have a decent monthly pension after retirement. That was called "defined benefit" because you put in the required amount and it magically appeared again several decades later, as a ... well, defined benefit.
This was the model for many decades until it stopped working. The reasons were varied, but experts agree on at least two main causes: longer life expectancy and inflation had the effect of needing much more money than there was in the pot to fund everyone's retirement payments. The clever actuaries who originally made their calculations were pushed aside. The new buzz-word became "defined contribution", which put undue pressure on ordinary folk to make investment decisions that they were simply not capable of making. The right response to this crisis should have been to dramatically increase the pensionable age and curb government spending, which might have been possible in a reality where pigs could fly. Home loans work the other way around. You take out a large loan and pay it back with added interest until the loan is reduced to zero. What the smiling Loans Manager at your bank doesn't tell you, is that you better not become unemployed, or long-term sick and it’s safer not get divorced and lose your partner's income. If you are - over the lifetime of your bond unable to make your bond payment for a continual period, the bank could decide to call in your loan and sell your property. It's their legal right even if they offer leniency. Should you pay your very last instalment well done! - they will thank you by charging you an arm, leg and a few internal organs extra to close off the account. It seems that no matter what you do, you are going to lose. But there are ways to re-evaluate. To win. To understand the rules of the game and to make appropriate decisions. "Scenario planning" involves
modelling a linear or non-linear event upfront to understand the consequences of going off-course, before you go off-course. Let’s look at a simple example. There are car manufacturers out there, who will glorify their stats. Zero to 100 km/hr in 5 seconds is a typical claim and a very impressive technical achievement it is too. What they neglect to mention, is that from a dead start to roaring down the road at top speed, you can cover several hundred metres faster than children can get out the way. Add the cost of a few years of jail and loss of earnings to the price of the car and you should understand what I mean by "going off-course". Numerical analysis isn't exact; nor do we expect it to be. What our goal is, is to achieve an approximate solution while maintaining a reasonable bound on the error margin. To put it simple language, if we are modelling released prisoner rates of re-incarceration, our objective is to determine how many years of initial jail-time is "enough" for them to learn their lesson and keep out of trouble. Our concern is what an appropriate sentence should be, not the exact amount of days spent behind bars Linear models assume a consistency of flow. In the home loan example, a one million Rand loan, over 20 years at 9% interest will cost R8,997.26 monthly. Non-linear models have all sorts of unpredictability about them. I modelled the same loan, with a single R50,000 additional payment in the 100'th month (8 years, 4 months) of the loan. That brought the ongoing repayments down to R8,419.17, being a saving of some R578 monthly for the rest of the loan-term, or a total R80,920. That balloon payment then, paid for itself and saved R30,920 of interest over the life of the loan.
Changing the balloon payment to, for example a month later, changes the repayment to R8,416.81. This marginal difference is put down to having less of a loan to repay, over a marginally shorter period. We can apply the same logic to multiple extra payments, interest rate changes, regular annual increases or in fact anything else that makes sense. What else is mathematical in our social order? Well, almost everything really, from elections to government grants for children (don't exceed six before 18, if you can work that out). If all else fails, you have 10 fingers and 10 toes. * Life expectancy of a factory worker in the UK in 1908 was 67.
Hal Swindall, who writes the Mensa World Journal (MWJ) book reviews is encouraging authors to send in their books for reviewal in the MWJ. The MWJ book reviews are not per force limited to English books (see for example the review of Savioz in the MWJ September issue), although this is the language of preference, and all books reviewed in the MWJ are by Mensan authors. Send your book for review to mwjreviews@gmail.com. You must be a member in good standing; please include your membership number and national Mensa in all correspondence with Hal.
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MENSA South Africa – Mensan’s Musings Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Erik Lear Here are some thoughts that cover a wide range of topics, from economics, politics, ecosystems, motivations, intelligence and wars, to medicine and those little critters that cause health problems. I have recently taken an interest in the topic of Neglected Tropical Diseases. NTDs affect over a billion people world-wide, costing millions in public health care, and creating a negative impact on a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The impact of NTD to families, communities and countries is huge, yet there seems to be too little attention given to these diseases. Of course one has to ask “Who has the nerve to neglect a disease once it has been identified as a big problem?” Part of the answer is that other diseases and health concerns are bigger than NTDs - who would want to be the first to take responsibility for initiating a massive task when other tasks are even bigger and attract more attention? Private companies invest into things that create positive media attention and public organisations tend to focus on the causes of negative public sentiment. Perhaps I’m being a bit biased in my views, but it is true that the neglect is no fault of any single organisation, political, private or otherwise. I have personally seen how people are affected by some of the better known tropical diseases. I have often wondered why authorities don’t do more to reduce the effect of these diseases. Then I remind myself that if it was an easy problem to solve, then somebody would have done so already. I decided to research this online a lot further, and I found that this problem is truly multi-faceted. One of the frustrating things that I found is that global health is measured by the number (or percentage) of deaths in different age categories. So that means that the effects of a disease like bilharzia are not receiving much attention (because bilharzia does not cause death.) Therefore, the investment of billions of dollars required to deal with the disease is not available. Page 10 THE CHRONICLE January 2018
Measures of the Burden on the Health System are difficult to obtain, but these statistics have been created on occasion in some geographic locations. They show the amount of cost and time involved in treating patients with NTDs. However, the burden on our health systems does not indicate what the toll NTDs are having in communities and families. It would be more helpful but it is almost impossible to obtain statistics that reflect the negative impact to a country’s GDP due to sickness. For example, there is a parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus which is transmitted by the black fly and can cause visual impairment or blindness. This impairment is a handicap which would prevent a man from fishing and providing for his family. However, this loss to productivity is seldom attributed to a NTD. Many of these parasites spend years in their host (often in babies or even in utero) and retard the host’s development. Many children are developmentally stunted and are unable to complete school. A poor education results in a poor economy. In turn countries with poor economies are typically the countries which cannot afford to address their education or health problems. If there is a way to reduce the infection rate and increase the treatment rate of these diseases in children, then there will be a greater mental capacity at schools. The cycle of poverty and of poor health will be broken. I recently enrolled on a short course called Global Health: An Interdisciplinary Overview by University of Geneva. I have found it compelling and recommend it to anybody who is interested in this topic. The problems of efficient diagnosis, safe treatments, vector elimination, political will, funding, research, transport, and safety all become evident. I write about all this doom and gloom, but I’m sure that there will be a good story to tell. It is my intention to be one of the people telling the good story.
MENSA South Africa – Letters
MENSA INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2017 Competition - Winners announced in Nice, France 58 countries (the most entries yet!) were represented during this year's Mensa International Photographer of the Year Competition and the winners were announced during the Mensa International IBD being held in Nice, France. We are proud to announce that Christian von Wechmar from Stellenbosch's picture "DETOUR" won second overall prize and we want to congratulate Christian on this remarkable achievement!
We truly are very proud of Christian, a Mensa Winelands member. Our Chair, Simoné DeyzelO'Brien, who was representing us during the IBD, could not wait to let the Executive know. The theme for 2017 was “BORDERS” and we chose our top three entries from Christian, Daleen Haigh and Paddy Langguth to represent Mensa South Africa. You can refer to our September Chronicle for more info on our other entrants. Warm Regards
Christian von Wechmar
Shaun Heunis National Marketing Officer Mensa South Africa
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