Special Saturday Edition
Change Is Coming To Emeth's Zoom Gathering
I’ll freely admit it, I’ve never been a technology guy. I’m a luddite, and have always been proud to be a luddite.
But when the pandemic hit, and I attended my first Masonic Zoom meeting, I realized that video conferencing offered the greatest tool ever for continuing Masonic education.
I’ve always felt that Masonic education is the key to making Freemasonry meaningful to Masons, and I’ve always done my best to try and provide it. I always tried to provide it when I was Master of my Lodge. I don’t think that I’ve ever turned down an invitation to give a presentation to a Lodge, and I’ve tried to create educational events outside of Lodge Stated Meetings.
In my view, this last, educational events outside of Stated Meetings, has the chance to be extremely rewarding, but given the difficulties of travel, reaching a spread out audience is just about impossible.
Video conferencing solves that problem.
As I mentioned, I realized that the very first time I sat in on a Masonic Zoom meeting. I think that the vast majority of Masons had that same realization. We have seen a true wealth of speakers and presentations on the Zoom platform as our Lodges have been shut.
I didn’t do anything with this realization, simply because I didn’t need to. Masons everywhere jumped aboard and started creating their own virtual Masonic experiences.
Through my years as a Freemason, I have come to believe that the very best form of face to face Masonic education is that which is interactive. In which we all learn from each other. I think that it is much more impactful than lectures or presentations, and I think that we all know a lot more than we think we do and have much to teach our fellow Masons. Zoom is perfect for that.
From Emeth’s very first days, some people were signing up for paid subscriptions. That led me to considering ways in which I could provide something extra, as a way of saying thanks, to those who did.
I ended up selecting three.
I’d seen the idea behind the weekly Live Open Threads on other newsletters, and they seemed to be extremely popular, so I started doing them here too. They have indeed proven to be popular and well liked by Emeth’s subscribers.
I love the idea of a real, genuine, in person Emeth gathering once a year. We are going to start with an Emeth reception in Puerto Vallarta this upcoming December, and we will grow and expand things from there. Please keep an eye out for details.
Lastly, I started incorporating a weekly Emeth gathering over Zoom. To be honest, I didn’t really know what to do with the thing. All I knew was that Masons everywhere were burned out on Zoom, and that above all else, I didn’t want to be the guy who hosted dull Zoom meetings. So, I slapped an unmovable 40 minute time limit on them by creating them with a free Zoom account. We would get cut off from time to time, but when I would check in with those who were participating, feedback I received was to stick with the hard limit. I agreed, and did so.
But, things are changing now.
Grand Lodges, including my own, are allowing our Lodges to re-open. In person Masonic labor is beginning once again.
This of course means that the use of Zoom by our Lodges is rapidly dropping off, and that trend will continue over the next months.
As a result, Zoom burnout is coming to an end for many Masons.
Given these changing circumstances, and at the request of Emeth’s subscribers, I’m expanding our Zoom gatherings, starting this Sunday, into something much more real, and without artificially imposed limitations.
The first thing I’m doing is changing the name. Masonic Zoom, Zoom Meeting, Zoom Gathering. Yuck to all such terms!
We shall call it ‘Rummer & Grapes’ in honor of one of the four founding Lodges of the world’s first Grand Lodge. I’ve always loved the name of Rummer & Grapes, and some years ago I hosted a small educational event by that name. So, I’m pleased to be able to bring it back, as a part of the Masonic education efforts here at Emeth.
All participating are of course very welcome to be true to the name, and toast with a fine port contained in a rummer glass, but I imagine that despite the name, I’ll have to stick with whiskey in a cannon.
We will continue with the same loose and informal format as we have used in previous weeks. Talking about whatever was discussed on Emeth the week before, whatever we would like to see discussed on Emeth in the future, or of course, whatever else anyone wants to talk about. We can all learn a great deal together, from each other, using this rather round robin format.
But, we will do it without artificial time limits.
Two things though, that I think are really important.
First of all, if you can only make it for a little while, please do sign on and join us. Just feel free to sign off whenever you need to do so. Don’t feel like you need to hang around longer than you feel like you can, should, or want to. Make it work on your schedule.
Secondly, let us never forget to toast each other! Let’s celebrate life, and all the good things in our lives! That is I think very important.
Also, please remember that the Masonic discussion and education offered by Emeth can go a long way towards improving our candidate’s and new Mason’s Masonic experience. We can get the candidates and new Masons in our Lodges all of the benefits of a paid Emeth membership, including these improved Zoom gatherings, without any cost.
The offer, and instructions for doing it are here:
There you have it. A reborn Zoom experience here on Emeth, with a new name to boot. Every Sunday evening at 7:30 PM, Pacific Time.
I hope that you will join us for Rummer & Grapes No. 1, and all of those to follow. I think that it is going to be great!
If you would like to join us on Zoom, but need to upgrade your subscription in order to do so, you can do it by hitting the Subscribe button.