Not Too Early

Last night, still enjoying the satisfaction from the previous meeting, many of us convened at the lodge last night to discuss our plans for 2016. We are fully aware that we haven’t even made it to the half way point this year but the planning needs to happen now for the following year. There are a lot of things that still need to happen this year and a number of initiatives that we want to get started in 2016. All of these take time to accomplish and having a good roadmap is essential to being successful... in this instance you can call it a Masonic GPS. 

From what I have heard, this is about the same time of year that other lodges put together there programs for the following year. With a new Worshipful Master in the east, we want as much time as possible to go over the schedule and the details for each event and figure out to whom many of the tasks will be delegated. The timeline for this planning also allows for input from various brothers of all different levels of experience. While I would have liked to have seen a few long standing brothers and a few past masters in attendance, sometimes there are other commitments that need to be taken care of.

However, the round table discussion was full of quality ideas and valuable input especially from the newer members. The ideas kept flowing and the various interests of the brothers present were shared. By the end of the evening, we had a long list of options both for meetings and beyond the confines of the stated. More so than years prior, we had a long list of public events and community projects that we hope to hold next year both at the lodge and in the community.

From education and appendant bodies to fundraising and masonic charities, from dinners to blood drives, from family night to ChIP, from guest lectures to past masters night, and a well-rounded host of other evenings and events that we would all like to see. While I don’t see everything taking place, it will be interesting to see how many of these ideas we can cram into the calendar. But the calendar wasn’t the only thing that we discussed last night.

There were other ideas that were bandied about from awards to building improvements. However, all the conversations that took place in the hall centered on the same objective of making the lodge and this fraternity as a whole better than it is. It is part of the stewardship of freemasonry. In the short term, we hope to have the lodge better off when we leave office than when we first took our place in the chairs. In the long term, when the day comes when we are called off from labor, we hope that we are leaving a stronger fraternity behind us then when we were raised. That goal requires nights like last night as well as the motivation and determination to follow through.