That's really interesting, and a wonderful way of doing it; sadly in my jurisdiction (and I believe across UGLE, as I've been to meals down in the Old Smoke), each brother pays for his own meal; in my jurisdiction of the Nottinghamshire Province a two course meal is roughly £12-15, and a 3 course £18-20.
Down in town the lodge I visited at Great Queen street had a regular dinner cost of £50, so unless a brother were to request relief, the cost may be prohibitive to him getting a square meal
Our Lodge is in a college town, and we receive a lot of new Masons from the campus.
We haven’t charged for a meal in a decade for two reasons. 1) the dinners help us draw potential candidates, and 2) we send uneaten food home with th he v CB ollege kids.
I've long held that dues should be high enough to provide a festive board once a month in concurrence with the fellowship meeting. That meal should be catered by professionals providing adequate options for dietary restrictions but mostly be a shared menu like having Thanksgiving with your family. There should be enough ordered to cover all lodge members and enough extra for potential visitors. If a brother from another lodge is visiting he will have his meal provided regardless of his status of distress. No donations needed ever. Take home as many leftovers as you want. As for organic members of the lodge in distress, I have specified in my treatise on lodge duties that the chaplain is responsible for decisions related to which members may be temporarily or permanently relieved of their financial obligations to dues and assessments.
There's a lot of angles to look at this. For years I've heard that how much a lodge gets as donations for the meal is immaterial, it's the fellowship that is important. OK. And if a brother can't afford to pay, or can only donate a dollar or two, I can see that.
Where my gripe arises is that the members of the lodge still think this is 1957, and a cup of coffee costs a nickel, and a steak dinner is $2.50. Tossing in $5 dollars into a donation jar, especially now with inflation so bad, doesn't cut it anymore. A conscientious JW is mindful of costs versus "income", especially for struggling lodges that can't afford nice meals. And then, to have brothers complain about the quality of the meal...ugh.
So then, we get to lodge dues. We charge a criminally low annual fee to attract new members, but that structure isn't enough to pay the bills. A lot of lodges rely on income from investments to bridge that gap, but when there's a bad economic year or three, then what?
We ask men petitioning to join the lodge if the fees and dues we charge are going to be a hardship on them.
And then you have jurisdictions outside of the US. Ask a brother from the Philippines sometime just what does it take, money wise, to join a lodge there. In Australia there are lodges that charge $60 dollars a dinner. It's an expectation when you join a lodge that you can afford that, or go hungry.
I don't disagree with the idea of if a brother can't pay for dinner that it's overlooked. There has been more than one occasion where I forgot to stop at the bank and get some cash. Our society more and more is becoming a cashless one, and we're still stuck in the 20th century of writing checks and mailing dues reminders. That's where I like the idea of having the food change as part of the annual dues, but then how do you treat visitors?
My old lodge in NM required that you purchase a ticket for a meal. Most meals would be 10 bucks. You would buy your ticket from the treasurer when you walked in and provide the ticket to the steward to get your plate.
If you couldn't pay, you spoke discreetly to the WM and Treasurer, and almost always, it was covered. If the meal was a nicer meal, then it would be a 20 ticket. This was all communicated in advance so brothers knew. Visiting brothers and candidates were not asked to pay.
Further, we had Rainbow girls who would serve 1 meal a month, and part of the proceeds went to them.
This hits close to home for me. My wife and I are facing the huge costs for adoption. Everything we have goes towards it, so little is left to go out with friends. Knowing that I will not heckled or judged at my Lodge when we have a meal and I only put $5-$10 in the basket, nourishes the soul as well as the body.
In return, when I can donate time, I do. When a Brother calls and asks for help, I run. In my mind, this does well to explain who we are. When men on the outside look in a Lodge and see a Brother struggling, but see that his Brothers surround him with shields up, that is powerful. Its also how we grow.
That's really interesting, and a wonderful way of doing it; sadly in my jurisdiction (and I believe across UGLE, as I've been to meals down in the Old Smoke), each brother pays for his own meal; in my jurisdiction of the Nottinghamshire Province a two course meal is roughly £12-15, and a 3 course £18-20.
Down in town the lodge I visited at Great Queen street had a regular dinner cost of £50, so unless a brother were to request relief, the cost may be prohibitive to him getting a square meal
Our Lodge is in a college town, and we receive a lot of new Masons from the campus.
We haven’t charged for a meal in a decade for two reasons. 1) the dinners help us draw potential candidates, and 2) we send uneaten food home with th he v CB ollege kids.
I've long held that dues should be high enough to provide a festive board once a month in concurrence with the fellowship meeting. That meal should be catered by professionals providing adequate options for dietary restrictions but mostly be a shared menu like having Thanksgiving with your family. There should be enough ordered to cover all lodge members and enough extra for potential visitors. If a brother from another lodge is visiting he will have his meal provided regardless of his status of distress. No donations needed ever. Take home as many leftovers as you want. As for organic members of the lodge in distress, I have specified in my treatise on lodge duties that the chaplain is responsible for decisions related to which members may be temporarily or permanently relieved of their financial obligations to dues and assessments.
There's a lot of angles to look at this. For years I've heard that how much a lodge gets as donations for the meal is immaterial, it's the fellowship that is important. OK. And if a brother can't afford to pay, or can only donate a dollar or two, I can see that.
Where my gripe arises is that the members of the lodge still think this is 1957, and a cup of coffee costs a nickel, and a steak dinner is $2.50. Tossing in $5 dollars into a donation jar, especially now with inflation so bad, doesn't cut it anymore. A conscientious JW is mindful of costs versus "income", especially for struggling lodges that can't afford nice meals. And then, to have brothers complain about the quality of the meal...ugh.
So then, we get to lodge dues. We charge a criminally low annual fee to attract new members, but that structure isn't enough to pay the bills. A lot of lodges rely on income from investments to bridge that gap, but when there's a bad economic year or three, then what?
We ask men petitioning to join the lodge if the fees and dues we charge are going to be a hardship on them.
And then you have jurisdictions outside of the US. Ask a brother from the Philippines sometime just what does it take, money wise, to join a lodge there. In Australia there are lodges that charge $60 dollars a dinner. It's an expectation when you join a lodge that you can afford that, or go hungry.
I don't disagree with the idea of if a brother can't pay for dinner that it's overlooked. There has been more than one occasion where I forgot to stop at the bank and get some cash. Our society more and more is becoming a cashless one, and we're still stuck in the 20th century of writing checks and mailing dues reminders. That's where I like the idea of having the food change as part of the annual dues, but then how do you treat visitors?
My old lodge in NM required that you purchase a ticket for a meal. Most meals would be 10 bucks. You would buy your ticket from the treasurer when you walked in and provide the ticket to the steward to get your plate.
If you couldn't pay, you spoke discreetly to the WM and Treasurer, and almost always, it was covered. If the meal was a nicer meal, then it would be a 20 ticket. This was all communicated in advance so brothers knew. Visiting brothers and candidates were not asked to pay.
Further, we had Rainbow girls who would serve 1 meal a month, and part of the proceeds went to them.
This hits close to home for me. My wife and I are facing the huge costs for adoption. Everything we have goes towards it, so little is left to go out with friends. Knowing that I will not heckled or judged at my Lodge when we have a meal and I only put $5-$10 in the basket, nourishes the soul as well as the body.
In return, when I can donate time, I do. When a Brother calls and asks for help, I run. In my mind, this does well to explain who we are. When men on the outside look in a Lodge and see a Brother struggling, but see that his Brothers surround him with shields up, that is powerful. Its also how we grow.