1/Mon­day

2/Tues­day

Zoom Lunch

• Zoom Lunch 1 PM. Perhaps the longest running Mensa event anywhere, Chicago’s Zoom Lunch (formerly known as the Downtown Lunch) is held every week, alternating between Tuesday and Thursday. Join us for conversation, laughs, and attempts to define words you’ll never use again. 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. You may also RSVP via Meetup. We’d love to have you join us!
  Virtual Event!!

• AML Leadership Workshop: Level Up! Lead With Relationship 7 PM. We all experience work like a relationship. That means we crave the same things from work that we do any important relationship in our lives: acceptance, appreciation, and commitment. Through this eye-opening talk, Jason Lauritsen delivers an experience that helps leaders put an end to any outdated ways of managing people, so they can instead liberate employees to deliver their best.

  A dynamic keynote speaker, Jason Lauritsen is a true thought leader in the world of work and employee engagement who is dedicated to revolutionizing the way we Lead With RelationshipTM. He fearlessly challenges traditional norms to reshape the employee experience by consistently placing authentic human connection at the heart of leadership. Jason is the author of two books, Unlocking High Performance and Social Gravity. His thought leadership has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Talent Management magazine, HR Executive magazine, and SHRM publications.

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

4/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 (via Meetup preferred) to local host Carey S. to receive the Zoom sign-in information. The London host is Ian David Moseley.
  Virtual Event!!

• Raising Gifted Children in the Age of AI 3 PM. Artificial intelligence is transforming how children learn and create. Gifted kids can push boundaries in ways that both excite and concern us. More importantly, gifted kids face unique challenges with AI that the generic “teach critical thinking” advice doesn't address. Their advanced cognitive abilities, intense curiosities, and asynchronous development create specific considerations. The AI landscape is changing rapidly, and there are no definitive answers yet to how we need to respond as parents. But we need to start this conversation as a community.

  Tune in for our upcoming webinar as an expert panel, featuring an educator, psychotherapist, and a gifted student herself, join together in a candid conversation about navigating the age of AI when it comes to gifted kids. By the end of this session, parents will:

  • Understand why talking about AI needs to be part of your gifted child's learning journey
  • Learn practical strategies for supporting gifted kids in using AI thoughtfully
  • Have conversation starters and talking points for discussing AI with their gifted kids
  • Hear multiple perspectives on the opportunities and risks specific to gifted learners

  This event is free and Mensa membership is not required to attend. Register here.
  Virtual Event!!

10/Wednes­day

11/Thurs­day

12/Fri­day

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, March 8th. 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. Do NOT RSVP via Meetup. This event is usually held on the evening of the second Friday of the month.
  Virtual Event!!

13/Satur­day

• Rock­ford-Area Lunch Noon. Join Dave and other Rockford-Area Mensans for lunch at the Tavern on Clark, lo­cated at 755 Clark Dr. in Rockford (just east of Bell School Rd., three blocks north of State St.). 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. Do not RSVP via Meetup. This event usually recurs on the second Friday of the month.
  Schedule Change!!

14/Sun­day

• SFRM : Flying for the CIA's Air America, Pablo Escobar, and Jimmy Hoffa 4:30 PM. In 1964, Captain Neil Graham Hansen embarked on a journey that would become the adventure of a lifetime. He hired on as a pilot for Air America—the CIA's airline that operated during the Vietnam era and the “Secret War” in Laos and Cambodia—officially neutral countries, but the scene of countless U.S. covert operations. Even though he had already been a pilot for more than half his life, had worked as now-disappeared Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa's private pilot, and later ran drugs for the Colombian cartels, flying for the CIA's secret air service was the pinnacle of Hansen's career—a dream come true that eventually turned his life into a nightmare. Air America's operations were unknown. Its schedules were irregular. Its pilots were shadow people, whose personnel, Hansen says, “cannot be filed neatly under anything resembling normal sanity.” It was the world of spooks, covert air ops, and adventure!

  Captain Neil Hansen received a commercial pilot's license in high school before he even had a driver's license. He spent more than a decade in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War era as a captain for Air America, accumulating more than 29,000 hours of flight time, 9,000 hours in a combat zone. He served as an advisor to the director of the 1990 movie Air America starring Mel Gibson and Robert Downey, Jr. Gibson's character in the movie was patterned after Hansen's “antics” reported in the Christopher Robbins book of the same name. Hansen's book FLIGHT: An Air America Pilot's Story of Adventure, Descent and Redemption was published by History Publishing Company. His writing has also appeared in various other publications, and he has been a frequent guest on the interview and speaker circuit. He makes his home in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

  For more details, visit the SFRM Zoom RSVPs FB Group or the SFRM List of Presentations. To register, visit San Francisco Regional Mensa (SFRM)’s registration signup for this event.
  Virtual Event!!

• Vitual St. Paddy’s Day Celebration 6 AM. Join this 12 hour celebration via Zoom featuring Mary Reilly from Ireland. Feel free to drop in and out anytime. Get the Zoom info on the AML website.
  Virtual Event!!

• Irish Mensa Lecture and Discussion: Why Are Cities Going Bankrupt? 8 AM. Irish Mensa meets virtually on the third Monday of each month at 7 PM Irish Time; a discussion then follows the lecture. In the late nineteenth century, Joseph Chamberlain transformed Birmingham with municipal enterprise and urban improvement. However, in the last few years, it has faced the equivalent of bankruptcy, alongside other large British cities. This lecture asks, why have cities lost the confident civic pride of the Victorian era and now struggle to provide basic services from a limited financial base? Most importantly: what can be done to regenerate them?

  Professor Martin Daunton is Visiting Gresham Professor of Economic History. He is a British academic and historian. He was Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, between 2004 and 2014. He is Emeritus Professor of Economic History at the University of Cambridge. He has written two books on the history of taxation in Britain—Trusting Leviathan: The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1799–1914 and Just Taxes: The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1914–1979, and co-edited with colleagues in Berlin a volume of essays on the political economy of public finance in leading OECD countries since the 1970s. His book The Economic Government of the World, 1933 to 2023 was published by Allen Lane in 2023. 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 the Zoom link before the session starts (check back here for that link on Tuesday, March 16th).
  Virtual Event!!

16/Tues­day

• Zoom Lunch 1 PM. See Tuesday, March 2nd.

• Armchair Conversation: Free Speech, Fighting Words, and Violence 6 PM. Northern New Jersey Mensa's Armchair Conversations are a friendly environment for serious conversations. Visit their website, to view their House Rules, other Armchair Conversations, and for the Zoom link.
  Virtual Event!!

• Monthly ExComm Virtual Business Meeting 6 PM. Held via Zoom. Our ExComm and any other interested members discuss various topics and issues as well as GOBS requests. Members are welcome to attend and voice their opinions, but only the five elected members of the Executive Committee can vote. The Zoom login info can be found on our Contacts webpage. The business meetings recur on the third Tuesday of the month.
  Virtual Event!!

Northern Exposure

• Northern Ex­po­sure Dinner 6:45 PM. Celebrating the Ides of March… under ten feet of snow? Then you should have dinner with us. Join us for dinner at a venue TBD in Lake County. Recurs quarterly on the third Tuesday of the month.

17/Wednes­day

• MWW : Nonfiction Book Discussion 4:30 PM CST. Please join us in discussing March (Omnibus edition) by John Lewis. 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.

  Can't make it this month? The next books will be The Technological Republic by Alexander Karp (April 15), Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity by Peter Attia (May 20), and Fixing Fairness: 4 Tenets to Transform Diversity Backlash into Progress for All by Lily Zheng (June 17). See the full write-up and find contact info on the American Mensa Event.
  Virtual Event!!

18/Thurs­day

20/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. You may also RSVP via Meetup. 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.

• 

  Northward—Vernal in our hemisphere — Equinox

• SFRM : Unraveling Distant Worlds: From Cotton Candy Planets to Ocean Worlds and the Search for Life Among the Exoplanets 4:30 PM. The discovery of exoplanets has revealed a cosmos teeming with strange and diverse worlds—some scorched by their stars, others light as cotton candy, shrouded in thick atmospheres, and a few that might resemble Earth. From molten lava planets to giant super-puffs and water-rich mini-Neptunes, exoplanets defy expectations at every turn. Join us for a deep dive into the cutting-edge science of exoplanet exploration. How do we detect their atmospheres? Could they support life? And do they offer clues about Earth's own formation? With new data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and upcoming telescopes, we are beginning to piece together the story of planetary evolution—unlocking the chemistry of these distant worlds and rethinking the very definition of habitability.

  Caroline Piaulet-Ghorayeb is an astrophysicist specializing in exoplanet characterization and atmospheric studies. Her research explores the diversity of distant worlds, from super-puffs—enigmatic low-density planets to water-rich sub-Neptunes and temperate exo-Earths that challenge our understanding of planetary habitability. She has worked with cutting-edge space telescopes like JWST, TESS, and HST. Passionate about science communication, she founded a NPO, InitiaSciences, to open the doors of scientific research labs to high-school students. Caroline is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago, contributing to the next generation of exoplanet discoveries. She received her PhD in Physics (Astrophysics subject) from the University of Montreal, Canada and is an E. Margaret Burbridge Prize Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago.

  For more details, visit the SFRM M-Wisely's Cafe.
  Virtual Event!!

• SEMM : Al Capone, Stories My Grandmother Told Me 6 PM. Al Capone was one of the most well-known, some would say “bigger than life” figures of the twentieth century. He was also Diane Patricia Capone's Grandfather. His name is still known and talked about around the world almost eighty years after his death. Why the insatiable curiosity? Was he a cold-blooded villain? Was he a kind-hearted “Robin Hood”? He has been called Public Enemy Number One, the quintessential American “rags to riches” phenomenon, the most famous gangster of all time, a conundrum, and, by his grandchildren, “Papa”. What was he really like?

  Join us to hear Diane's personal recollections of her grandfather and learn what it was like to grow up as a Capone. Diane was born in Miami Beach and raised in Miami Shores. She attended St. Mary's Catholic School and then Notre Dame Academy for Girls before moving to Palo Alto, CA, in the early 60s, where Diane graduated from Palo Alto High School. She married, completed college, and raised her family in the San Francisco Bay Area communities of Sunnyvale, Cupertino, and Los Altos. She worked in administration in high tech and venture capital before completing a Master's in Counseling. She then became a Counselor at Mission College in Santa Clara for twenty years, and retired to the Sierra Nevada Foothills.

  See the full write-up and find contact info on the American Mensa Event. All attendees must preregister by visiting the SEMM Monthly Gathering page and choosing "March 21, 2026 5:30 pm" from the dropdown. Due to rising Zoom costs, SEMM asks for a $5 donation, if you can afford it.
  Virtual Event!!

22/Mon­day

• Theodore Talk: Dudley Clarke: The Genius of Deception 2:30 PM. Can one man change the course of a world war? From 1941, working from rooms over a Cairo brothel, British officer Dudley Clarke conceived a new way of fighting the Nazis: using the tools of the mind. Deception in war isn't a new idea, but this eccentric colonel realized that global conflict offered the chance to carry out deception on a global scale. Instead of getting the enemy to put a battalion at the wrong end of the line, he would persuade them to put whole armies in the wrong country. His tools were a limitless imagination and a talent for stagecraft. But his eccentricity would end up nearly destroying everything he'd built.

  Robert Hutton, author of The Illusionist: The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler, spent years in Britain's archives digging out Clarke's amazing story; now you will learn it as well.

  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!!

• SFRM Webinar : Gifted Is Just One Piece 3 PM. Giftedness presents in many different ways. These different presentations lead to misunderstandings and misdiagnoses. In this presentation and discussion, explore all the factors contributing to the many faces of gifted and how to support your children.

  Melody Lowman has been working with gifted children and families in education and psychology for over 50 years. As a Behavioral and Educational Consultant she helps families research and apply to schools and colleges. As SFRM's Gifted Youth Resource Coordinator, she is offering a free, one-hour program for parents and guardians of Mensa’s Gifted Youth.

  For more details, visit the American Mensa Event.
  Virtual Event!!

23/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. Use Meetup, but if not on Meetup, RSVP to Ken L. via email. If you RSVP by email, your reservation is not confirmed until you receive a confirmation email.

• MEANS (North Suburbs) Dinner 6:30 PM. Join Mensans Eating Around North Suburbs (MEANS) at Hackney’s on Lake located at 1514 E. Lake Ave. in Glenview. Free parking. Separate checks available. Limit 12. Please RSVP via Meetup (preferred) or email Brent B. Recurs on the 4th Tuesday of the month.

25/Thurs­day

27/Satur­day

28/Sun­day

29/Mon­day

30/Tues­day

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1 April/Thurs­day

• May ChiMe Activ­ity Bulletin Dead­line. Last day for these submissions to the May 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.

• May ChiMe Editorial and Ad­vertising Dead­lines. Last day for editorial submissions to the May 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.

• 

  Pass­over begins