2026

Jon Gruebele's Mensa Bulletin Articles from 2026

February 2026 – Starting the Work

The bias towards action is palpable – and exciting! We’re making good things happen.

In December, your Board of Directors (AMC) established some aggressive deadlines to improve member value and increase membership. Just one month later, we met and approved several projects to help us lay the foundation for future success:

A deep dive into our organization chart to ensure we have resources in the right place to accomplish our priorities
A project to gather facts and data about when members interact with the national office, helping to pinpoint where improvements are most needed
Creation of detailed personas, the basis for understanding different existing and potential members. These can help us to create programs to add value for members and put our marketing dollars where they’ll do the most good

Other projects include:

A task force chaired by RVC4 Beth Weiss creating a local group toolkit, focusing first on membership
A team of American Mensa and Mensa Foundation representatives led by former AMC Chair LaRae Bakerink working on a project called “Better Together.”

Better Together is exploring ways American Mensa and the Foundation can partner to further the goals of both organizations. We’ve often pursued independent goals. Some of this is needed to preserve our IRS statuses. We nevertheless believe that more cooperation can benefit us both. Working with the Foundation can help our members be proud we’re helping to deliver good works. From the Foundation’s perspective, almost all its volunteers judging scholarships come from Mensa – as do its donations. We need to build on each other’s strengths. We expect the team’s recommendations in March.

Speaking of member value, we have several upcoming national events to consider:

Mind Games®, April 16-19 in Herndon, VA. This is a four-day, board-game-judging event where we award seven new-to-market board games the coveted Mensa Select® seal. Come join your fellow members in playing and evaluating games you may have never seen before.
CultureQuest® XXXVII, April 26, a chance for your team of up to five members to answer some really pesky trivia questions, win cash prizes, and earn valuable bragging rights.
Annual Gathering, July 1-5 in Fort Worth, TX. We’ll have hospitality, speakers, tournaments, and much more – including the opportunity to reconnect with friends and make new ones.

As always, this is your organization, so your opinions matter. Please let us know your thoughts!

January 2026 – It's Our Turn

Past American Mensa leaders and volunteers have done some rather remarkable things.

Eighty years ago, two guys on a train conceived of Mensa: an organization where intelligence could find community. Our predecessors:

Grew American Mensa membership over fifty-fold from just 50 in 1960. Worldwide, membership exceeds 160,000 and is still growing.
Empowered Local Groups through national office support, Regional Vice Chairs, funding, and leadership development. SIGs deliver so much value that some members say they wouldn’t renew without them.
Launched Annual Gatherings. This year we welcomed 1,736 attendees.
Built a professional staff to support and strengthen our operations.
Led us through the leap from snail mail to the internet, creating our web presence and moving to digital communications.
Evolved the Mensa Bulletin into a publication consistently rated by our members as a top benefit.

This is the legacy we inherit: generations of innovators who turned nothing to something genuinely remarkable.

Yet not all is well in the Mensaverse. We’ve lost over 20% of our members over the past fifteen years. Some members distrust our Board of Directors (AMC) members. Our online communities aren’t always welcoming – undermining member confidence. That’s our reality, and our call to action.

Now, It’s Our Turn.

At the December AMC meeting, the newly reconstituted board confronted these hard truths. We didn’t always agree, but we always listened. We worked together, found common ground, and committed individually and collectively to meaningful change.

Our top priorities included:

Improving Mensa’s culture – in person and online
Developing “personas”: profiles of our key member types. They will help us tailor offerings to improve member value, assist us in reaching potential new members, and guide our digital marketing presence.
Updating our strategy to reflect the post-pandemic world and plan for our future

We also need progress in other areas, notably gifted youth. These members are our future.

To succeed, we need your voice, your ideas, and your energy. It’s your organization. Volunteer. Speak up. Encourage a friend. Attend a Gathering. Contribute to a SIG. Together, we can go beyond what our predecessors built for us. We can reinvigorate our community, redefining what Mensa means – for this generation and the next.

It’s Our Turn – and I’m deeply exited to see what we’ll build together.

Comments? Email me at chair@us.mensa.org. Thanks!