As far as political leaders in our community, we only have one male, the others are all women. The one male has been to our lodge, he was at our consolidation ceremony a few years ago. Nice guy, but didn't seem interested in joining. Our local former sheriff is a member of the fraternity, but never attends any meetings that I am aware of.
We have had several local business owners join, but it turns out they were all looking for networking more clients, not the fraternity. Once they found out that it actually takes some dedication and time to become a MM, they stopped coming.
I don't necessarily look down upon this line of thinking, after all we've had (and still do) have members of our fraternity make a tidy profit from it's members. Nothing wrong with capitalism. But when we have businessmen come and want to join, I am always a little leery of their true motives.
But you're right, the fraternity used to feature the movers and shakers of the community. When we look at the portraits of past masters on our wall, quite a few names jump out as recognizable names from around town. Community centers, street signs, etc all make appearances. I'm sure that is true in all lodges.
You are certainly right that we need businessmen in our Fraternity who join it because they want to be Masons, and not because they are solely looking for business contacts. I think that we will always have some of the latter, but we need to do what we can to avoid it as a part of our efforts to Guard the West Gate. I imagine that after a few experiences like you mention, we probably get better at spotting the signs of someone trying to join for the wrong motives.
As far as political leaders in our community, we only have one male, the others are all women. The one male has been to our lodge, he was at our consolidation ceremony a few years ago. Nice guy, but didn't seem interested in joining. Our local former sheriff is a member of the fraternity, but never attends any meetings that I am aware of.
We have had several local business owners join, but it turns out they were all looking for networking more clients, not the fraternity. Once they found out that it actually takes some dedication and time to become a MM, they stopped coming.
I don't necessarily look down upon this line of thinking, after all we've had (and still do) have members of our fraternity make a tidy profit from it's members. Nothing wrong with capitalism. But when we have businessmen come and want to join, I am always a little leery of their true motives.
But you're right, the fraternity used to feature the movers and shakers of the community. When we look at the portraits of past masters on our wall, quite a few names jump out as recognizable names from around town. Community centers, street signs, etc all make appearances. I'm sure that is true in all lodges.
You are certainly right that we need businessmen in our Fraternity who join it because they want to be Masons, and not because they are solely looking for business contacts. I think that we will always have some of the latter, but we need to do what we can to avoid it as a part of our efforts to Guard the West Gate. I imagine that after a few experiences like you mention, we probably get better at spotting the signs of someone trying to join for the wrong motives.