Keeping with a theme, what is the one thing that your Lodge does that you really don’t like, and that you wish would be done away with?
I know that we often don’t like to talk about the bad side of things, but I think that by combining the list compiled here, with the list of good things we started yesterday, a valuable product for our Lodges can be created. A product that can suggest to them some things that they might want to consider doing, and some things that they might want to consider doing away with.
If you didn’t put in your favorite thing about your Lodge yet, please do. Your input will help other Lodges, and every single Lodge we can help strengthens our Fraternity for the future.
This topic certainly has become relevant again. Last week the CDC came out with new mask and other guidance. I don’t know how most Grand Lodges have responded. The GL of Washington has not yet. The GL of Oregon has.
The topic is still open, if you want to add further thoughts there given the new guidance, please do so.
We’ve done a very poor job in retaining brothers from new initiates to MMs. There are all the same reasons that have been discussed and I am as guilty as any Master that has come before me. From failing to have a pre-arranged mentor to inconsistent education. I will say that in my “do over year”, our education has gotten better and more consistent.
We've discussed it before, but I hate introductions. HUGE waste of time. Outside of the GM, or the DDGM during his OV, or first time visitors, skip them. There is a tyler's register for a reason, if you're worried about getting it into the minutes. Everyone knows everyone, the only reasons I can think of why lodges still do it is vanity, and "that's how we've always done it". And especially getting introduced more than once. How silly. And I really don't need to be paraded around the lodge. If you have to introduce people, just have them stand up, say their name, chair (if any) and lodge. Clap clap clap, and be done with it. It also destroys that whole "on the level" thing we harp on. If we truly believe we're all brothers, titles and position should be meaningless, so why make a fuss over it?
Personally, I think because a lot of the membership are/were military veterans (especially after WW2), titles and position started to mean more as that military mentality of rank and position crept into the lodges. I think that the less that is made over such things, the better.
Says the guy with an over the top PM apron which I proudly and hypocritically wear.
During my term I requested the Brothers to pick up a small stuffed animal or popular toy (they have to be new or else the department cannot give them away) and after we collected them I contacted the local fire department and invited them to dinner on our stated meeting. After we return to lodge I am going to recommend we do it again. We have changed from Bikes to Books to kindles.
I agree with Glenn Geiss concerning introductions. As a District Deputy, I did my best to make every meeting in my district. (How else could I report to the Grand Master the state of Lodges in the district?) After the first round of introductions, it should have been obvious who I was and why I was there. Yet, every single meeting, I was "collected by the Senior Warden, paraded to the East, and introduced with Public Grand Honors. Over the two-year period of my tenure, I was introduced nearly 100 times! I would easily have settled for once at each Lodge, if even *that* was necessary.
My second big "do-away-with" is all the minutiae of business in the Lodge. The ever-lasting, ever-so-boring fine details of who paid their dues, what income from other sources, and which fund-raiser produced the most income. <SHEESH!>> Simply says how much income, and how much spent. Yes, business needs to be documented, but not necessarily read to the Lodge in microscopic detail.
My plug for Grandview......always had a dislike for reading the last months minutes in Lodge. Now available in Grandview for everyone's viewing pleasure. Paper copy kept at the Tyler's desk for those without computers.
Agree with other comments here, we need to keep our new members coming back and see what can bring the older members back.
On a similar note to what WB Glenn and VWB Tig mentioned concerning introductions, there is also the reading of the correspondence towards the beginning of the meeting. I know that anything official from the Grand Master must be read in open Lodge, but as for many of the other items, they can be posted on a board or shared in the E-mail reminder sent out a few days before the meeting. I remember sitting in a …I’ll be nice and not say whether it was an OES Chapter meeting or a Lodge meeting… and the secretary read all the correspondence word for word. And I mean, literally. Including the letterhead, address AND zip code of the Lodge/Chapter who sent the correspondence! Like a brat, I tried to get other Lodge Brothers (and we have Lodge Brothers in Chapter meetings, too!) to make side bets on how many zip codes the Secretary would recite in the Correspondence. The change in Secretary was the only thing that brought that 30-minute section of the meeting down to a couple of minutes at the most. Fortunately, that’s now a story of the past, but we can’t allow that to creep back into our meetings. Like WB Mike mentioned about the previous meetings’ minutes, these can be posted, and if a Brother wishes to bring one of the pieces up for conversation, that would be fine, particularly if one of those pieces of correspondence is a Youth Group fundraiser that the Lodge might contribute to. Or a holiday letter from a Brother who lives in another part of the country or world.
You have all taken care of my personal pet peeves quite well, but I'm going to hit you with one more.
Inaccessible Grand Lodge Officers.
I don't think that we have any of these in Washington now, and I don't think that we have had any in quite awhile. But we used to, and we don't want to have them again.
There's an old 'rule' in Masonry, that a regular Mason can't contact the Grand Master. If 'Sideliner Jim' wants to get in touch with the Grand Master, he needs to contact his Worshipful Master or Secretary, and they will contact the GM on his behalf if they deem his request valid.
To my mind, that used to make a lot of sense. It made a lot of sense, a lot of decades ago, when Freemasonry was huge. Without this gatekeeping function a GM or the GS would have been absolutely overwhelmed.
Well, we aren't huge anymore. Not in the United States anyway. A few Grand Lodges are still massive in this country, but a very few. For those of us that are not huge, the old rule no longer makes any sense.
If we are going to direct Freemasonry into a bright future, we are going to have to all work together on that goal. We are going to have to collaborate, and learn from each other. We are going to have to help each other.
Grand Lodge Officers that are too aloof, inaccessible to the membership as a whole, are just not going to be able to get the support or do the work needed to keep Freemasonry moving forward.
We must all be in the quarry together. From the GM to the newest EA.
We’ve done a very poor job in retaining brothers from new initiates to MMs. There are all the same reasons that have been discussed and I am as guilty as any Master that has come before me. From failing to have a pre-arranged mentor to inconsistent education. I will say that in my “do over year”, our education has gotten better and more consistent.
We've discussed it before, but I hate introductions. HUGE waste of time. Outside of the GM, or the DDGM during his OV, or first time visitors, skip them. There is a tyler's register for a reason, if you're worried about getting it into the minutes. Everyone knows everyone, the only reasons I can think of why lodges still do it is vanity, and "that's how we've always done it". And especially getting introduced more than once. How silly. And I really don't need to be paraded around the lodge. If you have to introduce people, just have them stand up, say their name, chair (if any) and lodge. Clap clap clap, and be done with it. It also destroys that whole "on the level" thing we harp on. If we truly believe we're all brothers, titles and position should be meaningless, so why make a fuss over it?
Personally, I think because a lot of the membership are/were military veterans (especially after WW2), titles and position started to mean more as that military mentality of rank and position crept into the lodges. I think that the less that is made over such things, the better.
Says the guy with an over the top PM apron which I proudly and hypocritically wear.
During my term I requested the Brothers to pick up a small stuffed animal or popular toy (they have to be new or else the department cannot give them away) and after we collected them I contacted the local fire department and invited them to dinner on our stated meeting. After we return to lodge I am going to recommend we do it again. We have changed from Bikes to Books to kindles.
I agree with Glenn Geiss concerning introductions. As a District Deputy, I did my best to make every meeting in my district. (How else could I report to the Grand Master the state of Lodges in the district?) After the first round of introductions, it should have been obvious who I was and why I was there. Yet, every single meeting, I was "collected by the Senior Warden, paraded to the East, and introduced with Public Grand Honors. Over the two-year period of my tenure, I was introduced nearly 100 times! I would easily have settled for once at each Lodge, if even *that* was necessary.
My second big "do-away-with" is all the minutiae of business in the Lodge. The ever-lasting, ever-so-boring fine details of who paid their dues, what income from other sources, and which fund-raiser produced the most income. <SHEESH!>> Simply says how much income, and how much spent. Yes, business needs to be documented, but not necessarily read to the Lodge in microscopic detail.
//END RANT//
My plug for Grandview......always had a dislike for reading the last months minutes in Lodge. Now available in Grandview for everyone's viewing pleasure. Paper copy kept at the Tyler's desk for those without computers.
Agree with other comments here, we need to keep our new members coming back and see what can bring the older members back.
On a similar note to what WB Glenn and VWB Tig mentioned concerning introductions, there is also the reading of the correspondence towards the beginning of the meeting. I know that anything official from the Grand Master must be read in open Lodge, but as for many of the other items, they can be posted on a board or shared in the E-mail reminder sent out a few days before the meeting. I remember sitting in a …I’ll be nice and not say whether it was an OES Chapter meeting or a Lodge meeting… and the secretary read all the correspondence word for word. And I mean, literally. Including the letterhead, address AND zip code of the Lodge/Chapter who sent the correspondence! Like a brat, I tried to get other Lodge Brothers (and we have Lodge Brothers in Chapter meetings, too!) to make side bets on how many zip codes the Secretary would recite in the Correspondence. The change in Secretary was the only thing that brought that 30-minute section of the meeting down to a couple of minutes at the most. Fortunately, that’s now a story of the past, but we can’t allow that to creep back into our meetings. Like WB Mike mentioned about the previous meetings’ minutes, these can be posted, and if a Brother wishes to bring one of the pieces up for conversation, that would be fine, particularly if one of those pieces of correspondence is a Youth Group fundraiser that the Lodge might contribute to. Or a holiday letter from a Brother who lives in another part of the country or world.
You have all taken care of my personal pet peeves quite well, but I'm going to hit you with one more.
Inaccessible Grand Lodge Officers.
I don't think that we have any of these in Washington now, and I don't think that we have had any in quite awhile. But we used to, and we don't want to have them again.
There's an old 'rule' in Masonry, that a regular Mason can't contact the Grand Master. If 'Sideliner Jim' wants to get in touch with the Grand Master, he needs to contact his Worshipful Master or Secretary, and they will contact the GM on his behalf if they deem his request valid.
To my mind, that used to make a lot of sense. It made a lot of sense, a lot of decades ago, when Freemasonry was huge. Without this gatekeeping function a GM or the GS would have been absolutely overwhelmed.
Well, we aren't huge anymore. Not in the United States anyway. A few Grand Lodges are still massive in this country, but a very few. For those of us that are not huge, the old rule no longer makes any sense.
If we are going to direct Freemasonry into a bright future, we are going to have to all work together on that goal. We are going to have to collaborate, and learn from each other. We are going to have to help each other.
Grand Lodge Officers that are too aloof, inaccessible to the membership as a whole, are just not going to be able to get the support or do the work needed to keep Freemasonry moving forward.
We must all be in the quarry together. From the GM to the newest EA.