One little thing? Not sure how little, but the lodge needs to merge with another lodge. There are several lodges within five minutes of each other, and they all should consolidate into one. There is no real good reason to have all of these lodges anymore.
The closest thing I can see to having multiple Lodges in a medium-sized area is to have a primary Lodge, a Daylight Lodge if the population base is large enough to support it, and possibly an affinity Lodge, like our railroad Lodge, LuzViMinda or William Upton Naval & military, as you know. Having multiple Lodges meet in a large city such as Seattle could make sense if there’s enough members to keep each of the Lodges strong. As we can see, that’s not the case in the past few decades, and the Lodges have consolidated accordingly.
But yeah, if you have Lodges in adjacent towns that are 10-20 minutes away from each other, each with their own buildings that only house that Lodge and sit empty the rest of the time, I see your point. Economics has been driving those building sales and consolidations a little at a time as well.
I don't believe W H Upton Naval & Military Lodge #206 is an affinity lodge, just a regular lodge. I only joined that lodge six months ago, but we don't require (as far as I know) any membership in any armed forces, or previous membership/veteran status. The Naval & Military part of the name is simply homage to it's past. At one point they had removed it, and then later it was stuck back in. The lodges I referred to, one shares the building, and another is literally 3 minutes away across a bridge.
That’s too bad that your Lodge 206 isn’t a Military Lodge – the reason why I say this is because I get calls from soldiers that get stationed here in JBLM, etc. who are looking for Miliary Lodges. I know there are Lodges like that in other Jurisdictions. While I know that Lodge 206 is a ways off from JBLM, and the old Henry Greene Lodge 250 in the Lakewood area has since merged, I can see a case for a Lodge becoming a Military Lodge, and it would get attendance from stationed soldiers, and in addition, it could also be a place where EA and FC soldiers could get courtesy degree work done while they were stationed in our Bases.
Now this is purely hypothetical, but if the Lodge that is 3 minutes away became a daylight Lodge, that would fit into my scenario. Whether it would work in your area, you would know much better than I would.
I've not thought too much about the Lodges in your area, but I have certainly thought about the buildings. I understand why two buildings were built so close together years ago, but now, with a modern transportation system, it doesn't make any sense. Why is the fraternity trying to support two buildings, when the Lodges could all move into one, cut expenses, and pool resources? That just seems to make a lot more sense.
I seem to recall that another Jurisdiction also has a building within a stones throw.
How much better it would be to only have a single building to support. And if Lodges don't want to merge, it seems that everyone would still be a lot better off keeping their Charters if they desire to, but divesting of some of the real estate that is clearly not needed and a financial drain.
We had a similar issue where I live until recently. Two major Masonic buildings, within perhaps 5 miles of each other, neither well off financially. It just doesn't make sense.
Ultimately, we need to regionalize our real-estate. We can do it, we have cars and freeways now!
A couple of years ago I saw a statistic that the Grand Lodge of California and the Metropolitan Grand Lodge in London had basically the same number of members, but there were ~5 times as many Lodges in London.
There are two sides to this, one; how much easier is it to build true fellowships and relationships with every member of your Lodge if your Lodge has ~30 members, and two; how much harder is it to support a building if you have~30 members in your Lodge.
I agree that we should not be supporting the vast swath of real estate we are if Lodges can have a functional shared space that works for all the Brethren to use (egos and pride aside) but I think that smaller, more intimate Lodge, potentially built around affinities even, are a concept that needs to be explored rather than just merging a bunch of smaller Lodges together into one Large one.
Semi related — a Daylight Lodge I think has high value, but almost no Lodge I’ve ever talked to about wants to switch to being that Lodge because they say “We don’t want to be the geriatric Lodge!”
As I've come to learn, mainly from Masons in London telling me why some of the ideas I post here wouldn't work in London, Freemasonry is quite a lot different there. The Lodges generally meet quite infrequently compared to Lodges in the US. That generally results in a lot more Masonic activity outside of one's home Lodge than most of us here experience. Most also don't own buildings, so ultimately their costs are higher on average, but they don't have the pressures associated with building ownership.
On the whole, I do believe that massive Lodges with huge numbers of Masons on the books are not good for Freemasonry. Lodges are better when they are small enough that all of the members have real opportunity to know each other and build friendships.
Given that, I'm not a fan of merging Lodges into regional Lodges. I am however a fan of Lodges sharing real estate. Regionalizing our real estate holdings.
Interesting observation on Daylight Lodges, because I wouldn't consider any of the three I know in our Jurisdiction to be geriatric. In fact, our most well known in Seattle is extremely young and progressive!
Hello I have just seen this post as my email went down. I am in the province of East Kent we tend to have centres where maybe up to 10 lodges meet and each pay the same
Hélo
Hello.
One little thing? Not sure how little, but the lodge needs to merge with another lodge. There are several lodges within five minutes of each other, and they all should consolidate into one. There is no real good reason to have all of these lodges anymore.
The closest thing I can see to having multiple Lodges in a medium-sized area is to have a primary Lodge, a Daylight Lodge if the population base is large enough to support it, and possibly an affinity Lodge, like our railroad Lodge, LuzViMinda or William Upton Naval & military, as you know. Having multiple Lodges meet in a large city such as Seattle could make sense if there’s enough members to keep each of the Lodges strong. As we can see, that’s not the case in the past few decades, and the Lodges have consolidated accordingly.
But yeah, if you have Lodges in adjacent towns that are 10-20 minutes away from each other, each with their own buildings that only house that Lodge and sit empty the rest of the time, I see your point. Economics has been driving those building sales and consolidations a little at a time as well.
I don't believe W H Upton Naval & Military Lodge #206 is an affinity lodge, just a regular lodge. I only joined that lodge six months ago, but we don't require (as far as I know) any membership in any armed forces, or previous membership/veteran status. The Naval & Military part of the name is simply homage to it's past. At one point they had removed it, and then later it was stuck back in. The lodges I referred to, one shares the building, and another is literally 3 minutes away across a bridge.
That’s too bad that your Lodge 206 isn’t a Military Lodge – the reason why I say this is because I get calls from soldiers that get stationed here in JBLM, etc. who are looking for Miliary Lodges. I know there are Lodges like that in other Jurisdictions. While I know that Lodge 206 is a ways off from JBLM, and the old Henry Greene Lodge 250 in the Lakewood area has since merged, I can see a case for a Lodge becoming a Military Lodge, and it would get attendance from stationed soldiers, and in addition, it could also be a place where EA and FC soldiers could get courtesy degree work done while they were stationed in our Bases.
Now this is purely hypothetical, but if the Lodge that is 3 minutes away became a daylight Lodge, that would fit into my scenario. Whether it would work in your area, you would know much better than I would.
I've not thought too much about the Lodges in your area, but I have certainly thought about the buildings. I understand why two buildings were built so close together years ago, but now, with a modern transportation system, it doesn't make any sense. Why is the fraternity trying to support two buildings, when the Lodges could all move into one, cut expenses, and pool resources? That just seems to make a lot more sense.
I seem to recall that another Jurisdiction also has a building within a stones throw.
How much better it would be to only have a single building to support. And if Lodges don't want to merge, it seems that everyone would still be a lot better off keeping their Charters if they desire to, but divesting of some of the real estate that is clearly not needed and a financial drain.
We had a similar issue where I live until recently. Two major Masonic buildings, within perhaps 5 miles of each other, neither well off financially. It just doesn't make sense.
Ultimately, we need to regionalize our real-estate. We can do it, we have cars and freeways now!
Ultimately, we need to regionalize our real-estate. We can do it, we have cars and freeways now!
And egos and feelings.
Ah yes, those can get in the way!
A couple of years ago I saw a statistic that the Grand Lodge of California and the Metropolitan Grand Lodge in London had basically the same number of members, but there were ~5 times as many Lodges in London.
There are two sides to this, one; how much easier is it to build true fellowships and relationships with every member of your Lodge if your Lodge has ~30 members, and two; how much harder is it to support a building if you have~30 members in your Lodge.
I agree that we should not be supporting the vast swath of real estate we are if Lodges can have a functional shared space that works for all the Brethren to use (egos and pride aside) but I think that smaller, more intimate Lodge, potentially built around affinities even, are a concept that needs to be explored rather than just merging a bunch of smaller Lodges together into one Large one.
Semi related — a Daylight Lodge I think has high value, but almost no Lodge I’ve ever talked to about wants to switch to being that Lodge because they say “We don’t want to be the geriatric Lodge!”
As I've come to learn, mainly from Masons in London telling me why some of the ideas I post here wouldn't work in London, Freemasonry is quite a lot different there. The Lodges generally meet quite infrequently compared to Lodges in the US. That generally results in a lot more Masonic activity outside of one's home Lodge than most of us here experience. Most also don't own buildings, so ultimately their costs are higher on average, but they don't have the pressures associated with building ownership.
On the whole, I do believe that massive Lodges with huge numbers of Masons on the books are not good for Freemasonry. Lodges are better when they are small enough that all of the members have real opportunity to know each other and build friendships.
Given that, I'm not a fan of merging Lodges into regional Lodges. I am however a fan of Lodges sharing real estate. Regionalizing our real estate holdings.
Interesting observation on Daylight Lodges, because I wouldn't consider any of the three I know in our Jurisdiction to be geriatric. In fact, our most well known in Seattle is extremely young and progressive!
Hello I have just seen this post as my email went down. I am in the province of East Kent we tend to have centres where maybe up to 10 lodges meet and each pay the same
How are you