Here we will list some of the other awesome organizations who are busy pursuing someone similar goals than the CMSA.
- IAM – The International Association of Memory – The rebel alliance of the memory world. They are busy promoting memory sports and organizing competitions all over the world. Competitors and organizers communicate with each other largely in this Facebook group and this one. The beyond amazing records that are regularly set in their competitions are listed here.
- Memoriad – The closest thing in the world right now to an international Olympics for mental sports.
- The USA Memory Championship – We love the unorthodox and attention-grabbing memory events they are showing to the world. Too bad foreigners aren’t allowed to compete!
- Canadian Cubing – Canada’s foremost speedcubing association. The list of competitions they hold each year is quite impressive.
- World Cube Association
- Cubing Out Loud – The best site to buy different types of cubes and timing equipment in Canada.
- Canadian Mathematical Olympiad and Canada Open Mathematics Challenge – While our National Mental Math Championship is all about fast mental calculations, those two other competitions are about everything related to mathematics and problem-solving. That may sound similar, but it’s completely different. We think what they’re doing is pretty damn cool, although it’s less accessible for most people.
- Canadian Math Kangaroo – Another awesome mathematics/problem-solving competition for young students. Amazingly, this one is happening every year simultaneously in more than 50 (!) Canadian cities.
- UCMAS – Mental math competitions for young students.
- The Chess Federation of Canada – If chess wasn’t already quite popular, the CMSA would have no doubt included it among the “mind sports” that we’re promoting.
If one way or another your organization is working toward the same goals as we are and you think it should be listed here, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’ll be happy to add you if your events might be of interest to Canadians. We don’t care whether or not we’re technically supposed to be “competitors”. Even if you were to decide to copy us and form a similar memory or mental math organization, we’ll be happy to promote and even attend your events. Also be sure to click on this link if you’re based in Canada and you’d like to form a CMSA affiliated organization.
Sponsors and friends: Darren Michalczuk and Drewe MacIver have been helping us in different ways so we’re of course biased in their favor, but that doesn’t change the fact that there isn’t a single word here that doesn’t represent our honest opinion. Some kids manage to learn to manipulate numbers with relative ease, but that’s not the case for the majority of young students. For all those who struggle with basic math, learning the times tables with the help of a series of fun stories can be exponentially faster and easier. It allows them to gain in self-confidence and subsequently focus their attention on more difficult problems. Skepticism is understandable, but our friend Darren Michalczuk can back up all his claims. He has more than a decade of experience using those methods with hundreds of kids and we’ve been amazed by what he and his young students have been able to achieve. He and Drewe MacIver of Brainmagic.ca are now developing an extremely promising product that may end up helping thousands of kids all over the world. It’s taking a while to get it done, but we know it will worth it. See for yourself.
Note: You may ask yourself why we aren’t including the “World Memory Sports Council” (WMSC) and the “Canadian Memory Championship” (CMC) in the list above. Our decision not to do so may seem trivial, but it certainly wasn’t an easy one to make. First we would like to emphasize that we’re very thankful for the pioneering role that those organizations have played in the past. The WMSC created the very first memory competition back in 1991 while the CMC introduced the sport in Canada in 2012. If the CMC hadn’t been created first, today the CMSA might not exist. However, things have changed. On the world stage, the International Association of Memory (IAM) was founded in reaction to the abuse of the WMSC leadership. If you’re curious, you can read more about what led to this split here and here. Outside of China, IAM seems to have the support of the vast majority of international competitors.
As there has been a split on the international stage, there has also been a split on the national stage. But it’s another story and the causes are completely different. From the outside it may seem like some silly infighting among a bunch of nerds, but we can assure you that this isn’t the case. Or at least that’s not the whole story! We have no desire to be in conflict with anyone. If you read our page about the CMSA organizers and competitors, you will notice that most of us used to compete in and/or help organize and promote Canadian Memory Championship (CMC) events. We had no plan to stop doing so and we wish we could continue to attend and promote those events, but there have been too many strange, unpleasant, unexpected and reprehensible episodes. Not just with us, but also with many of our friends. For legitimates reasons that we’ll avoid mentioning publicly, the CMSA Board members are sad to report that we can’t support the CMC anymore. However, we completely understand if others don’t wish to follow our example. And we will continue to applaud and recognize as valids all the memory feats performed at past and future CMC events. We only ask that you treat with some healthy skepticism what you may end up hearing or reading about this issue.
If the CMC founder and president ends up reading this, rest assured that despite everything, I (Francis Blondin) at least do honestly wish you the best in your personal life. My open invitation to meet me in person and discuss everything calmly and for as long as necessary will remain valid indefinitely.