There was an excellent Lodge in my home town in Canada. A fellow (a doctor and a lawyer) went in as Junior Warden (elected) and right off the bat the Lodge did a Degree... he had lots of time to memorize the Jr. Warden's Lecture... he got the Sr. Warden to do it for him as he had just stepped up. His openings and closings were wretched as well. This fellow missed almost half of the meetings, never did learn his Ritual parts.
A very popular and active participant in Degree work was nominated for Sr. Warden the following year and although the vote numbers were not divulged... he won and was Sr. Warden and also a very active WM the following year... the doctor/lawyer who didn't attend very well anyway demitted... no loss when an "apron chaser" demits in my mind!
Here in Mexico the Constitution of one of the G. L.'s in my state (that's a little different too! lol) has the following in it (if you can believe this and like it... I have a bridge for sale in the Sahara Desert!)... This says and I quote, "Nominations and Campaigning are a Masonic Offence"!!! Little blank pieces of paper are distributed and the only thing said is that the man elected as WM must have sat in at least one Warden chair.
The IPM received 11 out of 12 votes and he was on a cruise for a month at the time... the Secretary mentioned to the group that he would accept the post if elected... if that wasn't campaigning I guess I don't know what campaigning is!
It is amazing to me just how quickly a single bad WM can destroy the progress a Lodge worked really hard to make over the course of many years. I've seen it happen more than once, and it is always really sad.
As a past master of a lodge that let's people go round when it's their turn. When it was my turn to be WM
I asked the officers of the lodge if I was good enough to go into the masters chair if not I would make way for the next guy.
I think we all know what we can do and not do and we should stand up and say so. Our new WM stopped the SD from moving up to JW because he could not do the SD work and always came in late or never even turned up. Now I feel one should be stopped from going round but if you are having a problem learning your words for any job then it's up to the lodge to help you out by putting time in to help you learn the job.
I agree that the Officer Line is a great way for a man to learn the skills of leadership. And certainly we need to make ourselves available to help teach a man who wants to learn. Most often, I actually think that it works out that way over time.
But, there are men who either don't want to learn, won't devote the time to learn, or think that they don't need to learn. And those men unfortunately can't be taught. They are the ones that can end up doing tremendous damage to a Lodge.
There was an excellent Lodge in my home town in Canada. A fellow (a doctor and a lawyer) went in as Junior Warden (elected) and right off the bat the Lodge did a Degree... he had lots of time to memorize the Jr. Warden's Lecture... he got the Sr. Warden to do it for him as he had just stepped up. His openings and closings were wretched as well. This fellow missed almost half of the meetings, never did learn his Ritual parts.
A very popular and active participant in Degree work was nominated for Sr. Warden the following year and although the vote numbers were not divulged... he won and was Sr. Warden and also a very active WM the following year... the doctor/lawyer who didn't attend very well anyway demitted... no loss when an "apron chaser" demits in my mind!
Here in Mexico the Constitution of one of the G. L.'s in my state (that's a little different too! lol) has the following in it (if you can believe this and like it... I have a bridge for sale in the Sahara Desert!)... This says and I quote, "Nominations and Campaigning are a Masonic Offence"!!! Little blank pieces of paper are distributed and the only thing said is that the man elected as WM must have sat in at least one Warden chair.
The IPM received 11 out of 12 votes and he was on a cruise for a month at the time... the Secretary mentioned to the group that he would accept the post if elected... if that wasn't campaigning I guess I don't know what campaigning is!
I demitted from the Lodge on the spot.
It is amazing to me just how quickly a single bad WM can destroy the progress a Lodge worked really hard to make over the course of many years. I've seen it happen more than once, and it is always really sad.
As a past master of a lodge that let's people go round when it's their turn. When it was my turn to be WM
I asked the officers of the lodge if I was good enough to go into the masters chair if not I would make way for the next guy.
I think we all know what we can do and not do and we should stand up and say so. Our new WM stopped the SD from moving up to JW because he could not do the SD work and always came in late or never even turned up. Now I feel one should be stopped from going round but if you are having a problem learning your words for any job then it's up to the lodge to help you out by putting time in to help you learn the job.
I agree that the Officer Line is a great way for a man to learn the skills of leadership. And certainly we need to make ourselves available to help teach a man who wants to learn. Most often, I actually think that it works out that way over time.
But, there are men who either don't want to learn, won't devote the time to learn, or think that they don't need to learn. And those men unfortunately can't be taught. They are the ones that can end up doing tremendous damage to a Lodge.
My mentor of 10 years tells me some people just want to know the hand shake and pass word. I'm sure we all know people like that in our lodges
Yep, I've kind of always thought of them as 'Ring Masons.' (Masonic rings are super popular here.)