Potential Freemasons
From a tentative email to a Raising
Some fellow emails your Lodge out of the blue. Say’s that he’s interested in becoming a Mason…
Or a name and phone number filters down to your Lodge from the Grand Lodge, with a message that the fellow reached out wanting to know more about Freemasonry…
All of our Lodges get these leads. These potential Masons.
Some of our Lodges, in more urban areas might get lots of them. Other Lodges might get them only on rare occasion, but we all get them.
How does your Lodge handle these things when they come?
Is it successful at it?
If so, how do you define that success? If not, how do you define that failure?
In some Lodges that I’m familiar with, most of these potential Masons come to the Lodge directly. In others, most of them come through the Grand Lodge somehow.
Does that Grand Lodge process, whatever it might be, work well for your Lodge?
Or should changes be made?
If the Grand Lodge office receives a call or an email from someone claiming to be interested in becoming a Freemason, how best should that be handled? What process would be best for your Lodge?
Or, maybe not only for your Lodge. What process might be best for the Lodges in your area collectively?
Based on no statistics, simply my experience, what I’ve seen through the years, some areas within my Jurisdiction seem to be more successful with this than others. Some Lodges are much more successful at it than their neighboring Lodges.
So, I know that there is much for us to learn from each other. We have a good deal of room for improvement.
I’m hopeful that we can discuss the ways we do it, so that we can learn from each other, and improve the chances of success for all of our Lodges.
What do you think?
Let’s chat about it in the comments below…
At the Lodge Leadership retreat, I taught a class on prospects and how to handle them.
In Washington state we have a fine prospect management system run by Grand Lodge via Grandview. Men wanting to join fill out an online form, that is routed to the district deputy that is within that person's home address. The deputy then determines which lodge is a best fit and assigns that prospect to that lodge. That prospect is issued a membership # in grandview, and the progress of his advancement is tracked there. Each lodge should have a prospect manager assigned, either a brother, or the secretary, who will initiate contact and let the man know when to come and meet with the brothers and get to know us, and vice versus.
During the class I asked how many lodges actually used the prospect management system, and only about half the hands went up. That is terrible, but in line with what Grand Lodge sees, a lot of lodges don't take advantage of the system, and those prospects are never contacted by the lodge. They are literally shooting themselves in the foot, while crying about membership losses.
We're not getting a lot of men coming into the lodge, but we're getting the ones coming in to petition. The system works, now lodges just need to take advantage of it.
Richland Lodge has a standing committee of 3 Master Masons who interview each potential candidate and provide materials (Approaching the Portal, A Brief Lodge history). After the first meeting the candidate is given time to study the reference materials and decide if he can dedicate the time to learn the posting lectures and complete the Masonic Development Program. If they feel confident that they can a second meeting is arranged with hopefully their significant other and at the conclusion he is given a petition if the committee feels he is worthy.