Seven is under threat. Not from anything dramatic. From rounding. From "about ten." From people who say "a week" when they mean seven days, as though the days were not each worth naming. From the slow habit of letting a number go unremarked until one morning nobody can remember why it mattered.
The Society exists to remark on it. We meet every seven days for seven minutes. We do not overrun. In forty-nine years we have overrun once (see The Schism of 1988), and we have kept the minutes of that meeting under glass, as a warning.
If you have come here because you like the number seven, welcome. If you have come here by accident, you are also welcome, and you have arrived in seven clicks or fewer, which we choose to count.
— Harold Pym, Recording Secretary since 1984
Article I. Meetings shall last seven minutes, timed by the egg timer bequeathed to the Society by its founder, Mrs. E. Dobrowolska.
Article II. Dues are seven cents, payable every seven days. Arrears shall be forgiven every seventh year.
Article III. Members shall not round. A member who says "ten minutes" when seven are meant shall be gently corrected, and then forgiven, and then corrected again if necessary.
Article IV. Quorum is seven. Where seven cannot be found, quorum is whoever is present, counted carefully.
Article V. The Society takes no position on the numbers six and eight, except as provided in Article VII.
Article VI. Officers serve terms of seven years and may be re-elected without limit. The Recording Secretary has been re-elected five times, unopposed, which he notes for the record and does not boast about.
Article VII. Members who departed in 1988 to form the so-called Eight Faction may return at any time, without penalty and without being asked to explain. They have not returned. Their chairs are kept.
On the 8th of August, 1988 — a date chosen, we now believe, deliberately — a member rose at minute six and proposed that the Society "consider broadening its remit to include the number eight, as a sort of sister number." The egg timer ran out during the debate. For the first and only time the meeting overran, by a full minute, to eight. Three members walked out at minute eight and did not come back. They are the Eight Faction. They meet, we understand, for eight minutes, somewhere with more chairs.
We bear them no ill will. We have kept their chairs. Article VII was written that night, by candlelight, during a storm, in seven drafts.
| The seven | Notes |
|---|---|
| The days of the week | Each one named. We name them at every meeting, in order. It takes eleven seconds. |
| The colours of the rainbow, as traditionally counted | There are arguments about indigo. We are not having them. |
| The seventh-inning stretch | Submitted by a correspondent, Mr. C. Dunmore, who also asked whether milk could be served at it. The Society takes no position on milk. |
| The seven-minute meeting | Ours. |
| Our chairs | Four occupied, three kept. Seven. |
We wrote to the gentleman who runs the Countdown to say that eleven reschedulings is a great many, and to suggest he might stop at a number we could support. He wrote back, very kindly, that he would add it to the checklist.
We also asked the Quist Institute to study whether seven is lucky. The finding was "insufficient data." Dr. Quist assures us this is the highest praise she gives, and we have framed it.
Membership is open to anyone who can count to seven and stop. To join, sign the Register below. Seven words, please. You may practise here first; nothing you type here is sent anywhere.
Seven-minute conversations about the Society are welcome in #the-institute, where they are measured, and on the forum, where they are not.