Reboot Your Lodge Meetings, Part 1 (Ridding the Masonic Experience of the Mundane By Mikel Stoops, DSM, Grand Senior Warden
As I discussed in my last article, “Time Off or Time to Reboot?” (Kansas Mason Pulse, April 2020) most of our Lodge meetings are no longer the excellent Masonic experiences they once were. They fall short of meeting the expectations of most members and certainly fall short of the expectations of most new men coming into our Fraternity. Too often, I attend meetings where the bulk of the content consists of reading minutes of the last meeting, hearing about the standard bills of the Lodge, discussing who is going to do the monthly cleaning and maintenance of the building, and deciding what the menu will be for the next meal. This mundane business of the Lodge does not enhance the Masonic experience. I agree that minutes must be approved, bills must be paid, maintenance, cleaning, and meals must be scheduled, but all these tasks combined can be accomplished in less than sixty seconds. Distribute the minutes so that those attending the meeting can review them before the meeting. This distribution can be done electronically, in printed form, or both, as acceptable to your members. If distributed this way, you do not have to read them aloud during the meeting. Then, a motion to approve the minutes “as distributed” takes care of their approval. Additionally, I find that many members not able to attend some meetings appreciated being included in receiving the minutes via email so that they can stay connected with what their Lodge was doing. Approve an annual budget for the year, which includes paying all the ordinary and customary bills of the Lodge. You will notice that in the recent Edict from our Grand Master, he had to include verbiage allowing the “…financial lodge officers the authority to pay ordinary and customary bills to sustain their lodge.” Neither of my Lodges needed
this portion of the Edict because we had already approved an annual budget that authorized the payment of those reoccurring bills. With an approved budget, there is no need to read and pass items such as utility bills, which we all know are going to arrive every month. Set up a schedule for cleaning and maintenance that covers the entire year. A schedule not only helps spread the load, but it removes the need to discuss these tasks. Assign one officer to oversee meals. In most Lodges, this is the Junior Warden. After that, let him perform that task, there is no need for a discussion during the meeting. The assigned officer can plan and recruit assistance as he needs without taking up valuable meeting time. When I see reports of why Lodges are not doing the things I have discussed, I see one word used repeatedly, “TRADITION.” The phrase, “That is the way we have always done it,” also comes up time and time again. My response to both of those is simply, “No, it is NOT.” It might be all we have in the living memory of our members, but it is neither tradition nor the way we have always done it. Our tradition is that Lodges are places where we become better men through the philosophical, moral, and spiritual lessons of Freemasonry and where we become even more well-educated through intellectual and thoughtful presentations and have discussions on the topics of the Arts and Sciences. Being boring and mundane is not our tradition, and it is not the way we have always been.
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