Prague hosts European Mensa meeting

Prague, July 29 (CTK) - Prague hosts the five-day European Mensas Annual Gathering 2010 (EMAG) on July 28-August 1 attended by 400 members from 28 countries of four continents, Czech Mensa president Tomas Blumenstein has told CTK.

The European meeting of Mensa, the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world, is held in the Czech Republic for the first time.

Among the delegates are Mensa chairmen emeritus Chris Leek, from Britain, and Jim Werdel, from the United States, Mensa honorary chairwoman Abbie Salny, 80, American psychologist who devoted her life to the education of talented children, and current Mensa International Chair Willem Bouwens, from the Netherlands, along with heads of the Mensa national organisations.

A number of participants are top experts in IT, mathematics, economy, management, public relations, astronomy, psychology and education.

The EMAG programme offers over 50 lectures and workshops, for instance, on the origin of the financial crisis, on factors influencing the voters' behaviour and successful negotiations and on the role of women in mathematics development.

The delegates can also learn basics of the Czech language and Chinese calligraphy, the organisers said.

The meeting will pay high attention to the education of especially talented children and its specific features and the international programme of development of pre-school children's intellectual powers, Blumenstein said.

The Czech Republic will present the project of the Budanka Mensa grammar school in Prague that focuses on very talented students.

Mensa was established in Oxford in 1946. It has about 110,000 members from 100 countries. Its aim is to associate highly intelligent people regardless of their ethnicity and religious conviction and support intelligence research and development.

The Czech Mensa with some 2000 members follows up the Czechoslovak organisation established in 1989.