Well, yes and no. We do have a decent set of bylaws—good enough for the easy stuff, such as what the terms of office are, or what the officers' duties are, or even how you go about amending the bylaws. However, there are lots of gray areas and loopholes in our bylaws as well.

Let's face it—our bylaws, like the U.S. Constitution, are meant to be a living document, not one easily changed but able to be changed when we are faced with changing conditions. And like the Constitution, the Bylaws (which, after all, were written back in 1969) were never meant to cover every last detail or predict what the society would be like decades down the road. By their very nature, the Bylaws are made to be amended. There are three main schools of thought about amending the Bylaws.

There are those who believe we should leave well enough alone and stop this constant amending, and there are those who believe that each time a problem arises, an amendment to correct it should be put to a referendum. Each group does have a valid point. There will always be times when the bylaws should be amended—when the problem could have serious, long-lasting effects on how the society operates. But there must also be a careful review of the problem before deciding the only solution is Bylaws amendment. Is the nature of the problem so serious that the society's operations are in jeopardy? If not, the solution is best left as an ASIE, which by its nature is meant to be constantly reviewed and easily changed (or abolished) as necessary.

One big problem with the points of view of the two groups mentioned above is their tendency toward a lack of peripheral view. By this is meant that there is a failure to see how a new amendment meshes with the Bylaws as a whole, and with Mensa's other governing documents as well. The third school of thought takes this into consideration by saying that instead of making frequent, piecemeal changes to the Bylaws, the time has come to study and rewrite the entire document, making sure it is not only internally consistent but also in harmony with the ASIEs and the Constitution of Mensa.

The one constantly stated objection to this idea is that the members would be sure to reject an entire set of bylaws because of individual objections to one section or another. There are many ideas about how elections should be run, or the number of voting officers, or how the internal grievance system should operate: How could it be expected that two-thirds of the voting members would ever approve such a sweeping document? The answer comes from Benjamin Franklin. In urging his fellow delegates to ratify the newly written Constitution, he stated that although he himself found sections with which to disagree, he would be inclined to distrust his own judgment in favor of the collective wisdom of the convention. Should Mensans be expected to do less, for an organization about which so many of its members feel so passionately?

So, to return to the question in the title—why futz with the Bylaws?—the answer is that they were made to be futzed with, and there will always be times when they need to be futzed with. After 33 years, though, the time has come to stop the constant futzing. It's time to give serious thought to the document as a whole, to decide what is important enough to merit inclusion, and to see that it meshes with Mensa's other operating documents.

— Allen Neuner