The Tyler's Register
It is a powerful tool
Last week Substack, the company that provides the platform on which Emeth lives, introduced a new ‘dashboard.’
This new dashboard doesn’t provide any more or different information from the old one, but Substack believes that it highlights the most important information for writers to use when evaluating the health of their projects on this platform.
Looking at it, I can see how many people subscribe to Emeth, and how that has changed over time. I can see how many have purchased paid subscriptions to Emeth, and how that has changed over time. I can see how many people have read each post here, how many have commented on each post, and shared each post. These things change from time to time, post to post. Did 1000 people read a post, or did 3000 people read it. It also tells me where in the world these people live, and how they found the post.
By looking at these things, I can see trends. I can see what topics are of more interest to Masons, and what topics are of less interest to Masons.
I can for example know that if I post on Monday, people are more likely to read whatever I post on Tuesday than they would be if there was no post on Monday morning. I find that interesting. Instructive as well.
I’m writing this, explaining it, because in our Lodge we have a tool very similar to this dashboard.
It’s the Tyler’s register.
Let me give an example from an actual Lodge that I’m familiar with:
If we consistently had 20 or so Masons attending our meetings over a period of months and then suddenly had 10 or less Masons attending our meetings over a period of months, we should be able to check the Tyler’s register and figure out at what meeting we went wrong. If we then consider that meeting, we should be able to discern what suddenly soured the Masons who had been attending.
Once we had that information, we could address the issue and get our Lodge back on track.
That example is true, but it is also extreme. It is uncommon for a single thing in a single meeting to have such a negative impact.
But the lesson of this example holds true.
If we hope to lead our Lodge well, our Tyler’s Register can help us do just that.
How many are attending our Lodge at each meeting? Is attendance trending up or down? Are we flush with visitors, but our members and officers are staying away? Or are visitors just never coming? Do we have a good balance of the two? If our trendline is up or down, how steep is it? Or are our attendance numbers bouncing up and down with no rhyme or reason?
If we can answer these questions, and we can very easily answer them by looking at our Tyler’s Register, we can either prove to ourselves that we are on the right track, or we can figure out where improvement is needed.
The Tyler’s Register is a powerful tool. We do very well to use it.
Re: Scheduling conflicts
It seems to me that in general, Masons strive to be extremely polite towards each other. Oftentimes a Mason will stop attending Lodge, and if asked, declare it to be a scheduling conflict, when in fact it is a disagreement with something happening in the Lodge. It is I think rare that someone will express actual conflict, most often they will just find a reason to not attend.
Most especially if the Worshipful Master, or other officers are not willing to hear concerns with grace, and act upon those that are found to be legitimate.
Being a data driven decision maker, I can appreciate the use of the Tyler's Register.
As with any data source human scrutiny must be employed. In order to discern whether schedule conflicts are negatively impacting attendance, or is it because of lodge education or lack thereof? What about time of the year. How many new EA's are getting on board and staying engaged? Does an EA's attendance fall off after they become a FC? Is the age demographic a factor, especially at certain times of the year?
All of this information is in there, but requires some coaxing for the register to let go of its secrets.