1/Fri­day

• February ChiMe Activ­ity Bulletin Dead­line. Last day for these submissions to the February ChiMe. Interested in organizing and hosting a virtual or in-person event? There’s bound to be an activity or a restaurant you want to try, but you just want some other people to experience it with you. So invite your fellow Mensans. Find out how by visiting our guide to hosting events.

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

5/Tues­day

Zoom Lunch

• Zoom Lunch 1 PM. Perhaps Mensa's longest running event anywhere, Chicago’s Downtown Lunch is now on Zoom and open to Mensa members everywhere. It's held every week, alternating between Tuesday and Thursday. Join us for conversation, laughs, and whimsical solutions to the world's problems past and present. The Zoom id is 836 1178 6315 and the passcode is 190710; it is also included as part of your host Jon G.’s contact information if you prefer a link. Questions? Contact Jon via email or call/text him. We’d love to have you join us!
  Virtual Event!!

7/Thurs­day

• Conversation with London Mensans 8 AM. Join a video chat with our kin from across the big pond in London at 2 PM BT. RSVP to local host Carey S. to receive the Zoom sign-in information. The London host is Ian David Moseley.
  Virtual Event!!

8/Fri­day

• Rock­ford-Area Lunch Noon. Join Dave and other Rockford-Area Mensans for lunch at The Machine Shed, lo­cated at 7475 E. State St. in Rockford (on the southwest corner of State St. and Bell School Rd.). To RSVP , for more information, or to get on our email list, contact Dave L., our Rockford-Area Coordinator . RSVP required in case of cancellation, time, or venue change. This event usually recurs on the second Friday of the month.
  Time Change!!

Poetry SIG

• Poetry Dis­cus­sion 7 PM. Our poetry group is using Zoom for meetings. Please send a poem or two to Joe D. by Monday, January 4th. Interested persons who are not currently members of the poetry group can contact Joe D. , and he will email the poems to be discussed. Contact Bill K. for the Zoom links or any help you might need. This event is usually held on the evening of the second Friday of the month.
  Virtual Event!!

13/Wednes­day

14/Thurs­day

16/Satur­day

• Conserv­atives Lunch 11:30 AM. Join other members of the Mensan cell of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy for lunch and civilized un-PC conversation. No forbidden questions, no unchallengeable answers. This lunch happens on the third Saturday every month. The venue will be The Patio, 2780 S. Highland Ave. in Lombard (NW corner of Butterfield and Highland, but you can enter only from Highland). RSVP by emailing Jim Z. the event coor­di­na­tor. Open to non-Mensans; bring a curious friend.

• Beverly Area Saturday Salon (B.A.S.S.) ~Noon. Spontaneous conversation in far SSW Chicago, approx­i­mate vicinity of 107th St. & Western Ave. Please contact Rick E. the Beverly Area Coordinator , for this month’s lo­ca­tion and the exact time as well as more information; if emailing, put “BASS” in the subject line. This event usually recurs midday on the 3rd Saturday of the month.

18/Mon­day

• Irish Mensa Lecture and Discussion: TBA 1 PM. Irish Mensa meets virtually on the third Monday of each month at 7 PM Irish Time; a discussion then follows the lecture.
  Virtual Event!!

• 

  Martin Luther King Jr. Day

19/Tues­day

• 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 Event.
  Virtual Event!!

21/Thurs­day

• 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 Event.
  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 Event Calendar. Provided you register for the live talk, you will receive a link to a recording of the event. Closed captioning enabled.
  Virtual Event!!

26/Tues­day

• Break­fast in Mount Pros­pect 10 AM. Breakfast or lunch and conversation at Jelly Café lo­cated at 1784 W. Golf Rd. in Mount Pros­pect (northwest corner of Golf Rd. and Busse Hwy.), featuring a large and diverse menu. Sepa­rate checks are available. RSVP to Ken L. via email. Your reservation is not confirmed until you receive a confirmation email.

28/Thurs­day

• New Zealand Sunday Seminars: The Science Behind the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics - How Experiments on a Chip Revealed Quantum Physics Acting on a Macroscopic Scale 5 PM (Sunday noon NZT). The 2025 Physics Nobel Prize was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis—three experimentalists who demonstrated quantum behavior in an electric circuit. The prize recognizes the important achievement of taking quantum phenomena out of the realm of atoms and elementary particles into the macroscopic world, which enabled current progress in quantum computing and quantum information as part of the second quantum revolution.

  In this seminar, Uli Zuelicke professor of physics at the School of Chemical and Physical Science, Victoria University of Wellington, will discuss in a broadly accessible way the basics of macroscopic quantum tunneling, how it was observed by the Nobel laureates, and why this observation eventually enabled the design of working quantum bits (“qubits”).

  For more details, including how to register, visit the American Mensa Event. All attendees must preregister.
  Virtual Event!!

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1 February/Mon­day