The latest harassment tactic —

was a long list of charges (13 originally) claiming that, in the final analysis;

my starting the Minnesota Mensa website,
keeping it going for over four years,
dealing with the embarrassing creations of an inept webmaster wannabe,
signing a written settlement agreement with Minnesota Mensa reinstating me as Webmaster,
and steadfastly fulfilling my obligations under that agreement to maintain our website for another 4½ years (and counting);

were acts inimical to Mensa.
 

Index of Complaint and Exhibits:

Page 1, Page 2 Memo to Dave Remine from Guy Conti
Page 3 Exhibit A cover sheet
Page 4 Exhibit A: Letter dated 11/8/02 from Pam Donahoo to Al Heigl
Page 5 Exhibit B cover sheet
Page 6 Exhibit B: Letter dated 12/27/04 from Pam Donahoo (& DeDe Tredinnick) to Al Heigl
Page 7 Exhibit C cover sheet
Pages 8-11 Exhibit C: Draft letter dated 6/__/04 from Andrew Price to Al Heigl
Page 12 Exhibit D cover sheet
Pages 13-19 Exhibit D: E-mail dated 6/23/04 from Andrew Price to Pam Donahoo
Page 20 Exhibit E cover sheet
Pages 21-26 Exhibit E: E-mail dated 7/19/05 from Clifton McCann to Pam Donahoo
Page 27 Exhibit F cover sheet
Pages 28-29 Exhibit F: Printout of Minnesota Mensa website home page printed on 4/7/2006, 12:10 PM
Page 30 Exhibit G cover sheet
Pages 31-43 Exhibit G: Printout of table of relevant board meetings printed on 4/7/2006, 12:00 PM
Page 44 Exhibit H cover sheet
Page 45 Exhibit H: Printout of scan of 8/10/02 signed, written settlement agreement between
 Minnesota Mensa and me, reinstating me as Webmaster, printed on 4/7/2006, 12:19 PM
Page 46 Exhibit I cover sheet

Original Charges:

Commentary on the Exhibits

Rebuttals to the charges

Hearing Charges:

Letter from Dave Remine listing the four chosen charges (MS Word - 22KB)

The Minnesota Mensa Webmaster's formal response (MS Word - 233 KB)


To summarize (again), after Minnesota Mensa and I signed a Written Settlement Agreement on 8/10/2002 reinstating me as Minnesota Mensa Webmaster, I was subsequently charged as follows:

  1. That I "did and is illegally using Mensa's trademark and AML copyrighted material" on the Minnesota Mensa website.  (I'll bet some other Local Group Webmasters are doing exactly the same thing.)
     
  2. That I am "illegally using members' copyrighted material from Mensa publications" on the Minnesota Mensa website.  (Seems to me that our website is a Mensa publication, and I can hardly believe that I am the only Local Group Webmaster using printed newsletter material as source material for a Local Group website.)
     
  3. That  I have "wrongfully held forth that his website is the official website of Minnesota Mensa."  (It's not "my" website, it's Minnesota Mensa's website, and I hold forth on that because of the Signed Written Settlement Agreement reinstating me as Webmaster.)
     
  4. That my "illegal actions regarding the mnmensa.org (sic) domain name cost American Mensa a considerable amount of money."  (It was actually the minnesotamensa.org domain name, and what this charge refers to is that somebody within American Mensa apparently blew around $17,000 of our dues money on a WIPO action in which American Mensa ended up suing itself (really!) to confiscate a Local Group's domain name — over which it already had control — and park it, thus forcing everybody to change their bookmarks to get to the new domain name for our website.)

You may want to express your opinions on this to some of the people involved:

Hearings Committee:

Dave Remine
4 Gander lane
Manalapan, NJ 07726-4202
"Dave Remine" <hearings@us.mensa.org>
"Dave Remine" <dremine@optonline.net>

Jean Becker
2699 Jennifer Dr.
Brighton, MI 48114-8938
"Jean Becker" <pastchair@us.mensa.org>

Bob Beatty
3755 Wenwood Dr.
Hilliard, OH 43026-2489
"Bob Beatty" <pastpastchairman@us.mensa.org>
"Bob Beatty" <bobbeatty@columbus.rr.com>

 

Mensa Advocate:

Guy Conti
c/o Barr, Anhut & Associates, P.C.
105 Pearl Street
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
 "Guy Conti" <Advocate@us.mensa.org>
 "Guy Conti" <gconti@gmail.com>

Mensa Ombudsman:

Eldon Romney
"'Eldon Romney'" <Ombudsman@us.mensa.org>
"Eldon Romney" <eldon@rrenviro.com>


Since growing publicity about expelling a member for the crime of serving as a Local Group Webmaster can be reasonably projected to have a serious negative effect on volunteer recruitment and retention (as well as Mensa recruitment and retention), you might also want to make your feelings known to:

AMC Membership Officer

Heather Miller
"Heather Miller" <membership@us.mensa.org>

Mensa Membership Director

Paige Faulkner
817/607-0060 ext. 5521
"Paige Faulkner" <
MembershipDirector@americanmensa.org>

 


Two things to remember --

One - If they can do this sort of thing to me, they can do it to you.

 

Two - the famous quote:

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

 

What if you're a Local Group volunteer, and they come after you?

Please speak out.

 

(Diversion: read what Isaac Asimov had to say about Mensa.  [Link])

[Home]