The Last Word. InterLoc Editor Carol Metzger has resigned. So far, there has been no public notification about the editorship of our `biz' newsletter; on the other hand, there was a new Executive Editor on the latest issue's masthead: Timothy Folks. After the last bit of InterLoc color (glossy covers with splashes of green — did that symbolize dollars spent on it?), the Finance Committee has recommended that American Mensa's "Communication Link" be reduced to six issues per year.
Purr-oxy. Proxy Quest is over three-quarters of the way to its goal! The program is moving along with the coordination of a sleek cat, but the American Mensa kitty is getting creamed from this massive PR effort. Letters, blast e-mails, almost an entire dedicated issue of InterLoc — not a good feline when economic times are tight. Let's get this finished and take the cat off Mensa's hot tin roof.
Seats of Contention. The Nominating Committee kicks off at the Las Vegas AG. In the last election, many AMC races were uncontested, and one seat was filled only because a person stepped in at the last minute. That is not healthy for the future of Mensa. No matter how good a specific candidate is, every race should give members a choice. The time to start looking for candidates is now — not after campaign season begins. Contact Stormie Kullman, NomComm chairman, or Steve Burnham if you are willing to stand for election or know someone who would like a seat on the AMC.
SIGnature. Is AMC about to put its imprimatur on a new SIGs policy? After a risk management study was completed, the SIGs program was deemed a potential risk — along with other functional aspects of Mensa. The AMC has three options: leave things as they are; embrace the SIGs, bringing them under more official scrutiny; and distance Mensa from the SIGs. Look for several viewpoints on this topic elsewhere in this issue of Going Forward.
Two Too Much. Congratulations go to Charlie Bruce, Regional Vice Chairman (RVC), for leading Region 3 in an exciting, positive campaign for obtaining proxies to change our Articles of Incorporation! Eight of the other nine RVCs followed Charlie's energetic, optimistic lead. One RVC, however, chose to turn an administrative challenge into an ugly situation, prototypical of bureaucratic hyperorthodoxy — the antithesis of a Round Table society.
In Mensa's all-volunteer society, this RVC directed in writing that all regional Executive Committees would be required to hold phone trees as Proxy Quest continued. On the Region 2 e-board — owned by American Mensa — the RVC published a "Hall of Shame" on which he listed the names and titles of all regional officers who had not yet cast their proxies. The posting ended with a finger-wagging "Shame on you." When taken to task for his tactics, the RVC tried to squelch disagreement with his ideas by mandating that direct postings would be prohibited, that he would assume review authorization and change postings as he deemed necessary. Several officers resigned from the e-board, but were forcibly re-subscribed. It took consultations with attorneys and a reading of the federal Can Spam law to convince RVC 2 that he could not impose his will in that manner. Still, the saga of vote coercion continued when the RVC contacted LocSecs and recommended that dissenters be replaced, removed from local group office — including the editors of two large groups.
This blatant assault on the freedom of the Mensa press, the principles of volunteerism and the spirit of Mensa has not been addressed officially by the AMC — RVC 2's peers and those very people in charge of Mensa's path. A forced vote is not a vote at all, and this needs to be recognized, along with a rebuke for and public rejection of authoritarian methods. What will it take for the AMC to act officially and tell this RVC and the members that this RVC's actions are not tolerated in Mensa, that they are way Two too much?.