ChiMe Activity Bulletin Deadline. Last day for these submissions to the February ChiMe. Interested in organizing and hosting a virtual or in-person event? Find out how by checking out our guide to hosting events.

ChiMe Editorial and Ad­ver­tising Deadlines. Last day for editorial submissions to the February ChiMe. Please submit original ar­ticles, insights, puzzles, brain teasers, or short poems. Your fellow Chicago Area Mensa members would love to hear from you.

SFRM: Why Everyone Should Read Science Fiction 4:30 PM. Science fiction is not what you think. Since the dawn of the genre, SF has been at the forefront of social-justice debates. If you suppose you know what science fiction is all about because you've seen Star Wars, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning bestselling author Robert J. Sawyer who will show that Star Wars isn't science fiction, and introduce you to real SF.

Robert J. Sawyer—called “the dean of Canadian science fiction” by the Ottawa Citizen and “just about the best science fiction writer out there” by the Denver Rocky Mountain News. He has won all three of the world's top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year: Hugo (which he won for Hominids); Nebula (for The Terminal Experiment); John W. Campbell Memorial Award (for Mindscan). He also won the Robert A. Heinlein Award (2017) ( for Quantum Night). Internationally, he the top SF awards in Japan (three times), Spain (three times), France, and China; and a record-setting seventeen Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (“Auroras”).

For more details or to register, visit the SFRM List of Presentations.
Virtual Event!!

Armchair Conversation: Immigration 6 PM. Northern New Jersey Mensa's Armchair Conversations are a friendly environment for serious conversations. This conversation will be about immigration. Visit their website, to view their House Rules, other Armchair Conversations, and for the Zoom link.
Virtual Event!!

AML Leadership Workshop: Level Up! Engineering Empathy In Your Organization 7 PM. We value our employees and we embrace our values. Wait? That's not the challenge! The challenge is that living these values is tough when everyday things get in the way of the leadership basics. Today's leaders make hundreds of decisions that often affect thousands of people daily. These decisions are coupled with developing partnerships, leadership coaching, cost targets, quality expectations, team meetings, project work, and engagement survey action plan deliverables. Given the magnitude of these daily responsibilities, rarely are decisions aligned in a concrete way to the mission and vision of the organization. This lack of focus results in tons of initiatives, much burnout, and marginal results.

Dr. Nicole D. Price believes two things: 1) If work is anything, it's personal; and 2) everyone can be great at what they do. Her session participants give glowing reviews and often request repeat appearances. She'll make you laugh; she'll make you think; she'll make you better. Want to learn more? Visit Lively Paradox.

For more details, visit the AML Event which includes the Zoom link for this event.
Virtual Event!!

SFRM: Plants Misbehaving 4:30 PM. Once upon a time, “weird” referred to the supernatural—anything eerie, fantastic, or mysterious. Today, most plants are viewed as anything but. They are conventionally perceived as passive organisms that serve us as ornamental components of gardens and homes, or as crops that yield food, textiles, medicines, and shelter. But even the most demure, thoroughly domesticated plant is capable of magical behaviors, and nature abounds with truly strange plants that defy our expectations of “vegetation.” Discover some of these weird and wonderful denizens of the plant kingdom.

Sandy Masuo is an editor, educator, author, and conservationist on a mission to enlighten and to inspire wonder in the world around us. She currently serves as the botanical content specialist at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Prior to that, she was the associate editor in the Los Angeles Zoo publications division for 18 years. In 2016, she published her debut novel (as Rosana DuMas) titled Unnatural Selection: Life and Death on the Paper Trail, the story of a horticulturist/detective investigating the dubious death of a zoo docent. She has taught fiction and business writing as well in a variety of classes from succulent gardening to bird watching at local community colleges. She holds a BA from Brown University and an Ed. M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

For more details or to register, visit the American Mensa website.
Virtual Event!!

Irish Mensa Lecture and Discussion: How Women Made the Global Economy 1 PM. Irish Mensa meets virtually on the third Monday of each month at 7 PM Irish Time; a discussion then follows the lecture.

Economic history has been written by men, for men and about men, giving the impression that—until recently—the economy was “just for men”. This lecture rescues from obscurity the many female producers, bankers, and economic revolutionaries who, over the course of human history, have transformed our economic fortunes. It reveals how as women's economic opportunities have ebbed and flowed, so too have the fortunes of nations, providing a fresh perspective on the “rise and fall” of civilizations and illuminating our own prospects for the future.

Dr. Victoria Bateman is an economic historian and author of books including Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth and Power (Headline Press, August 2025), Naked Feminism: Breaking the Cult of Female Modesty (Polity, 2023) and The Sex Factor: How Women Made the West Rich (Polity, 2019). She has twenty years experience teaching economics and economic history at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts. Dr. Bateman was resident economic historian for BBC Radio 4's Understand: the Economy and has written for Bloomberg, Times Higher Education, The Guardian, CapX and The Telegraph, offering longer-form perspectives on history and the economy. In addition to her writing, Victoria works behind the scenes as a historical consultant for period dramas.

For the full write-up and to join, visit the American Mensa event. One does not have to register early for the event—simply click on this Zoom link about 15 to 30 minutes before the session starts to both register and join.
Virtual Event!!

GOBS Request Deadline Noon. Today is the last day to submit a request for GOBS funds to be approved at this Sunday’s virtual Business Meeting for any planned, eligible event, activity, or class taking place after Sunday, January 25th through the end of February and, optionally, later; to be eligible, events involving CAM members must be published in the issue of ChiMe corresponding to the month in which they occur.

Hyper Brain, Hyper Body – British Mensa Edition: Unlocking the Mind-Body Connection 1:30 PM. Join us for a special webinar where British Mensa unveils the findings of our most recent research—a UK-based replication of the ground-breaking Hyper Brain, Hyper Body study. Originally published in the journal Intelligence, the study of over 3,000 American Mensa members identified, for the first time, a potential relationship between high IQ and a higher prevalence of certain physiological (e.g. asthma) and psychological (e.g. depression, ADHD) conditions. We have now analysed the results of our British Mensa study, and you'll hear about them all in this webinar, hot off the press!

Architect of the original study, Ruth Karpinski, will be joining us to explain exactly how the study was designed, why the results of our British study are so fascinating, and what they mean for high-IQ communities. Alongside statistician Audrey Kolb and British Mensa Research Officer Dr. Elesa Zehndorfer, you are invited to find out more about the results, ask questions, and engage with the researchers in what will, no doubt, be a fascinating event!

For the full write-up, registration instructions and how to become a guest on the British Mensa website, visit the American Mensa event.
Virtual Event!!

MWW: Nonfiction Book Discussion 4:30 PM CDT. Please join us in discussing Change the Recipe by José Andrés. We generally discuss what we liked about the book or found challenging. We also discuss what we would like more or less of, what format we read the book in, and whether it was a recent read.

See the full write-up and find contact info on the American Mensa Events website.
Virtual Event!!

Inquiring Minds: Dreaming of Better Health 1 PM CT. Dr. Michael Mak is a sleep medicine specialist and staff psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He is a recognized expert on the effect that poor sleep has on mental health (such as depression, anxiety, and trouble thinking and focusing) and on serious physical conditions such as cardio-vascular problems, obesity, and high blood pressure. He has three objectives for this talk to Mensans:

1. Review the relationship between insomnia and mental/physical health disorders
2. Examine the threats to health from obstructive sleep apnea
3. Understand the risks of complex nighttime sleep behaviours

Dr. Mak is a sleep medicine specialist and staff psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He was inducted as a Fellow of the Canadian Psychiatric Association in 2022, inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine in 2024 and is a standing member of the Royal College AFC Committee in Sleep Disorder Medicine.

See the full write-up and find contact info on the American Mensa Events website.
Virtual Event!!

Theodore Talk: Narrative War: The Philosophy of Social Conflict 2:30 PM. Brian L. Steed, PhD, Associate Professor of Military History at the US Army Command and General Staff College, and author of Narrative War: The Philosophy of Social Conflict, will discuss the six big ideas associated with narrative war and the basic strategy and critical questions necessary for understanding, conducting, and ideally winning narrative war.

Narrative War was born out of Steed's personal experiences dealing with 9/11, serving within and with Arab armies, and planning for the Battle of Mosul to defeat ISIS. His book has been almost 25 years in the making, with 10 years dedicated to thinking, planning, teaching, speaking, and advocating for a new approach to war—narrative war—against groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.

The events of 2020 and 2024 in the form of elections, COVID-19, protests and marches, and violent actions against government events and buildings, led him to understand that narrative war is more than military war; it is a philosophy that explains all forms of social conflict. The big ideas, basic strategy, and critical questions necessary for understanding, conducting, and ideally winning narrative war are part of what is inside. Narrative War also provides a philosophical understanding of narrative war ideas and concepts using multiple examples of its conduct in the real world.

The list of all the Theodore talks will be on the American Mensa Events website. Provided you register for the live talk, you will receive a link to a recording of the event. Closed captioning enabled.
Virtual Event!!