They might be the most famous of special Degree Teams, but they certainly aren’t the only ones. Yesterday I was talking with a Grand Secretary who mentioned that in his Jurisdiction members of the State Police have their own Degree Team, and I seem to remember some time in the past a Degree Team composed of Royal Canadian Mounted Police conferring a Degree at our own Masonic park.
It makes me wonder if we shouldn’t do more of that kind of thing in our Craft. I took the Cowboy Degree last year at our Lodge in Naches, and that was awesome.
Maybe 15 or 20 guys could get together and form a Cowboy degree team? Or a sailors Degree team, or a Loggers Degree team? Branch of military service? Maybe even reach into our other Masonic groups, a Scottish Rite Master Mason Degree team? York Rite? Shriners?
Teams that could truly perfect doing the work together, with a theme, and take that theme and their team on the road. Helping Lodges and providing truly special Degrees.
I am kind of against a degree team using costumes to confer a degree. It draws attention away from the candidate and puts it on the players. Fun degrees like a loggers degree, that isn’t a masonic degree are fine, as they are there to entertain and raise money for the lodge.
But I would like to see a degree put on by the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen.
I am actually in the middle of putting together a degree team for my Lodge. Our goal is to be as true to the founding members of our Lodge as possible. We will dress in period appropriate clothing from 1850 as determined by an old Lodge picture and to be extremely proficient in the ritual our Lodge has passed down.
I don't think this is a bad idea but I would be concerned that it might dissuade some lodges from doing their own degree work (as do things such as the dreaded One Day Class) if there were just degree teams they could dial up.
Under approval of then Grand Master John Naquin, I started a State Police degree team in Maryland in 1998. Since then I have added police officers of any agency and firefighters. We confer the degree in full police uniform and confer the MM degree upon invitation of the Lodge W.M.
In addition, we have been invited to exemplify the MD MM degree in numerous other states, such as Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
During my term as Grand Master I had a multi state degree conferral and invited the Country Boys of Oklahoma and the MWPHGL of MD - great day was had by all.
Throughout the years we typically raised 15 to 20 MD Masons a year.
The most impressive degree team I have ever seen was the RCMP degree team. Awesome degree work done by them.
Probably one of the most unusual occurrences during one of our conferrals was a good friend from London Metropolitan Police Dept. was visiting me at the time and during our ride to a lodge several hours away, I taught him a small part and he did an absolutely splendid job.
In fact, I will be attending a 3nd degree conferral tonight done by the Arizona Military Degree Team - another very sharp team.
I think that would be a great idea. We have a couple of Degree teams in the state.
I am kind of against a degree team using costumes to confer a degree. It draws attention away from the candidate and puts it on the players. Fun degrees like a loggers degree, that isn’t a masonic degree are fine, as they are there to entertain and raise money for the lodge.
But I would like to see a degree put on by the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen.
I am actually in the middle of putting together a degree team for my Lodge. Our goal is to be as true to the founding members of our Lodge as possible. We will dress in period appropriate clothing from 1850 as determined by an old Lodge picture and to be extremely proficient in the ritual our Lodge has passed down.
I don't think this is a bad idea but I would be concerned that it might dissuade some lodges from doing their own degree work (as do things such as the dreaded One Day Class) if there were just degree teams they could dial up.
Under approval of then Grand Master John Naquin, I started a State Police degree team in Maryland in 1998. Since then I have added police officers of any agency and firefighters. We confer the degree in full police uniform and confer the MM degree upon invitation of the Lodge W.M.
In addition, we have been invited to exemplify the MD MM degree in numerous other states, such as Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
During my term as Grand Master I had a multi state degree conferral and invited the Country Boys of Oklahoma and the MWPHGL of MD - great day was had by all.
Throughout the years we typically raised 15 to 20 MD Masons a year.
The most impressive degree team I have ever seen was the RCMP degree team. Awesome degree work done by them.
Probably one of the most unusual occurrences during one of our conferrals was a good friend from London Metropolitan Police Dept. was visiting me at the time and during our ride to a lodge several hours away, I taught him a small part and he did an absolutely splendid job.
In fact, I will be attending a 3nd degree conferral tonight done by the Arizona Military Degree Team - another very sharp team.
I now live in Arizona.