Mensa Official Opening - Thursday, 6 October 2016

Oct 3, 2026

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Official opening speech for Mensa’s 70th birthday celebrations in Hobart, held alongside Mensa Children’s Conference and the Adults’ Conference. The address highlights Mensa’s mission to recognize intelligence as a gift and provide social, educational, and mental stimulation for members from ages 6 to 85. It includes acknowledgements to Tasmanian gifted community partnerships, details about leadership backgrounds, grants for gifted students, and support for intelligence research, followed by information on public IQ testing and qualification criteria.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages1

Reading Time2 min

AccessFree to download

Official Opening

Conference Welcome and Purpose

Leadership Introductions and Mensa Growth

Grants, Research Support, and International Events

Public IQ Testing Session and Qualification Criteria

| | Official Opening
Thursday, 6 October 2016 7:00 pm sharp Goulburn Room, Best Western Hotel, Hobart | | --- | --- | Mrs Sue Hickey Lord Mayor of Hobart Mensa is a well-recognised organisation. In fact, it celebrates its 70th birthday this year—to be celebrated at this weekend’s conference. Mensa is an organisation that recognises that intelligence is a gift, not a hindrance, and encourages those that are gifted with it, to seek their potential and find their way in the world for the benefit of all. I am very glad be here today to welcome Mensa to Hobart. I think we can all agree that Hobart is a ‘smart-city’ where we can respect and cultivate intelligence. I am especially glad to acknowledge the Mensa Children’s Conference, which is run in conjunction, and held simultaneously with, the Adults’ Conference, so that all members from 6 years to 85 years old can benefit from the social and educational gifts this conference offers. I applaud the initiative of Mensa to invite and include members of the Tasmanian Association for the Gifted, so as to offer more opportunities for education, funding and development in Tasmania’s intellectual reservoir and future growth. I welcome Australian Mensa and their Australian Mensa Conference to the City of Hobart! Dr Kymberley Wilson Chair of Australian Mensa Kymberley has a PhD in Mathematics and runs her own software development company. She played hockey for Western Australia and Australia as a veteran before retiring through injury and now plays golf on a singlefigure handicap. She has held the position of Chair of Australian Mensa for five years and, during this period, the membership has grown from just over 1,000 to over 1,550, with the fastestgrowing section being child members. Australia was oneof the first-ever countries to open a Mensa chapter and celebrated its 50th anniversary in Melbourne two years ago. The major events in Australia are the Australian Mensa Conference and the associated Kids’ Conference. Mensa offers its members a chance to interact with their peers and providesan environment for mental stimulation, social activities and support. Overseas travellers have a ready-made network and often meet up with local members in the countries they visit. Each year we award a number of grants to gifted students and in 2015 the total distributed was $18,000. We also support research into intelligence, with a research grant of $5,000 each year for a PhD student or postdoc researcher. Therese Moodie-Bloom Director of Administration Mensa International Ltd Therese has been a member of Australian Mensa for over 25 years. She has held most offices in Australian Mensa, including Chairman and CEO and several in Mensa International, including editorship of the Mensa International Journal. She is currently Director of Administration for Mensa International—a global community with over 133,000 members in 100 countries—and which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. Mensa International events available to members include the Asian Mensa Annual Gathering which was just held in China in September 2016. Next year it will be hosted by Australian Mensa at the Gold Coast, Queensland. Therese grew up in Sydney, but dropped her studies to do two tours of Vietnam during the war as a musician. Since then she has lived and worked in the USA, Europe and the Middle East. While in Tehran, Therese taught English at the Imperial Iranian Air Force, preparing student pilots for the linguistic and cultural problems they would face during their aviation training in Texas. Upon her return to Australia, Therese completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and Politics. She now writes a weekly column for The Weekend Australian newspaper, aimed at keeping readers’ minds active and healthy. Ivan Zelich Student and Mathematical Inventor Being a part of Mensa helped me in a multitude of different ways. I was always bored at school. Everyone there was groomed to be at the same level and

FAQs

When and where is the Mensa official opening held in this document?

It is held on Thursday, 6 October 2016 at 7:00 pm sharp in the Goulburn Room, Best Western Hotel, Hobart.

What is the purpose of the Mensa Children’s Conference mentioned here?

It runs in conjunction with the Adults’ Conference so members aged 6 to 85 can benefit from the conference’s social and educational offerings.

What is the qualification criterion for joining Mensa as described in the text?

Qualification requires proof of an IQ in the top 2% of the general population, provided through an accepted psychologist-supervised test or by taking the Mensa supervised test.

Oct 3, 2026

Upload by noah