Scottish Mensa Committee

In the mid 1990s the Scottish Mensa Committee was formed by British Mensa to manage Scottish Mensa's internal affairs in a system of partial devolution, following a system adopted for Irish Mensa. This was implemented under Local Groups Officer Dave Lally.

The committee comprised of ten members elected by a formal postal ballot of all members. Few members voted, and few members in a largely social organisation were interested in being on a formal committee with lengthy meetings. It has been argued that the SMC's downfall was that it became dominated by members who were interested in being important rather than those who actively participated in the Mensa group. Political infighting between the 'doers' and the 'talkers' ensued, until in 1998 the BMC intervened to scrap the SMC, giving Scottish Mensa a single Regional Officer instead.

The LGO (by now this was Chris Docker) appointed former SMC member and active Mensa organiser Jim Kinnell as the RO, and after some calm was restored Jim stood down in an election which saw Rowena Love installed as Scotland's long-serving RO. Rowena had not been a significant party to the previous political fighting and for the past decade Scottish Mensa has been largely happy and politics-free.