A More Complicated Petition

Well, it should be no surprise to anyone who read my post yesterday that I didn’t make it to the lode last night as I was recovering from my second serious car accident in the past ten days. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working on a few things for the lodge. In fact, I have been working on a rather interesting petition as of late that has been an ongoing project since the last stated meeting. While most petitions are pretty straightforward, this one in particular has had a number of details that have made it a great learning process both for the petitioner and also for me.

The situation is rather simple in that the candidate already petitioned another lodge which presented said petition at their last stated meeting. Following dinner last month at my lodge, he expressed a desire to join our lodge which is more convenient for a multitude of reasons. Following that meeting and after confirming his intentions, I circled back with the original lodge in possession of his petition. This is when things really got interesting as having not found myself in this position previously, I made sure to copy both District Deputy Grand Masters. After all, I always want to make sure that decisions such as this are by the book and as transparent as possible.  

Fast forward and I now find myself in a friendly back and forth trying to confirm many of the details of the process and double checking the conclusions with both my District Deputy Grand Master and the petitioner. It has been a process to say the least but it has also been a great learning experience and we will have a solution to the situation in short order now that the broad strokes have been taken care of. However, the most important thing that I have made sure not to lose sight of is the simple fact that a good man has shown a desire to become a mason.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter where he receives his degrees (although I have my preferences), the important things is that the fraternity is gaining a solid member. Too often lodges lose sight of this fact and focus on what is best for their lodge. While the betterment of your home lodge is hugely important, we can all agree on that fact, the growth of our fraternity, of Freemasonry as a whole, needs to take precedence. We have to keep in mind what is best for the brotherhood and for the man who desires to become a brother. If we do right by these two, things have a way of coming back to us both as a lodge and as a mason. We must do what is right.

Stacking Meetings

This is what needs to be done every night I go to the lodge...

At the last stated meeting I made arrangements with the new Treasurer that we would meet every third Tuesday of the month. It is a schedule that works out for both of us as I am usually able to make it to lodge on those days and he has greater flexibility during the second half of the month. So, being that yesterday was the third Tuesday, we were both there to have our monthly discussion. However, that was only one of the meetings that I scheduled.

Before any of the other brothers arrived in Ardmore, I met with a new CPA who is also a brother of the lodge and was recommended by another brother with whom I have conducted some personal business. Frankly, I have become fed up with the previous CPA firm that we have been using as their prices are astronomical and there is no regularity from year to year. Basically, I have no idea who will be preparing our taxes. The connection we once had with the firm is long gone and the time for change is long overdue.

As expected, the meeting went very well and I am happy to hand off our taxes this spring to someone I can trust. Of course, by the time we were wrapping up our conversation, there were a few others that had arrived and just as we were about to part ways my next meeting quickly started. Having gone through the requests for information that the lodge has received recently, I scheduled some time to meet with another prospective candidate (I was originally going to meet with two prospects but there was some unavoidable family matter that came up with one of them). I prefer meeting in person and actually having a conversation rather than relying on email or phone conversations.

He may have been the youngest prospect that I have corresponded with so far but he was actually very well informed and we were able to answer many of the initial questions that he had for us about the lodge in particular and Freemasonry in general. Honestly, I am just glad that I was able to answer his questions as, despite recent interest, I have been a little rusty in handing such questions. In the end, honesty never gets old, and that is how I respond to queries that I receive. After the great introductory meeting, I gave him a quick tour of the building, and we parted ways with a plan on meeting again for dinner before the March stated meeting.

By this time the evening was already getting a bit long and it was time to sit down with the Treasurer, and a past Treasurer, to review the books. This is an ongoing issue lately as we want to make sure everything is in line for the current year especially with the audit deadline rapidly approaching. There was some clear progress that has been made and, after our most recent meeting, I am both thankful for all the help that we are receiving and confident that everything will be ready for submission by the end of next month.

By the time that we were all walking back to our cars I was exhausted but also satisfied with the work that I was able to get done both during the day and while at the lodge. We have a great group of brothers that come out on Tuesday nights and there is a lot that is being accomplished during these meetings. Now more than ever, I am looking forward to the progress that will have achieved by the end of the year and the positive changes that will have taken place (more than what already has transpired). Until then, we just have to keep getting our work done.

It All Begins With A Discussion

Since I had to leave the lodge earlier than expected last Thursday I was unable to sit down and get to know a petitioner that I had arranged to meet with during dinner. Thankfully things have since calmed down and the evening worked in everyone’s schedule so I was able to set aside the time last night and finally have a great conversation with our new petitioner. This is the first step, the most important step in my opinion, which is too often overlooked which is a shame because for me it is the most enjoyable part of the process. There is nothing like seeing that fascination and anticipation in the eyes of a candidate.

That was only the first of many productive conversation that I was able to have last night with various brothers as attendance at this particular fellowship was the highest that it has been in some time and a welcome sight for sure. Once the candidate was on his way, I soon transitioned to coordinating a few items with the Worshipful Master. There are a number of additional items that need to be included in the notice and some paperwork that needs to be prepared for the next meeting that I really don’t want to fall behind on. Ten minutes of productive dialogue is sometimes all it take to ensure that projects will be done on time.

And while it was great to meet with a candidate and have a petition in hand to read at the next stated meeting, I was greeted with an additional surprise when a seconded completed petition was discovered in my folder. However, this one came with a few questions and so my next conversation was with the first line signer of the petition. There are a few questions that still remain but there is a plan in place to address any and all concerns that I have moving forward so while there may be an additional step in the process it is a rather simple solution.

My final interjections for the evening was with a few of the other brothers who had convened to discuss the upcoming building committee meeting. There are a lot of projects that need to be undertaken both immediately as well as a few years from now and the list that was reviewed reflected exactly that dilemma. It will actually be interesting to see how this upcoming meeting is run as the roles overlap significantly with some of the other responsibilities of other brothers in the lodge namely the Trustees. I am hoping that this can be resolved quickly so that each can move in the right direction… the same positive direction that the membership is moving in.

So, while I may have missed the stated meeting last week and there are undoubtedly a number of things that I am still missing, I managed to get up to speed on just about everything that needed to be taken care of this week. It won’t be long now before the next meeting is upon us and then it will be back to the monthly routine. In the meantime, I am sure that there will be plenty of discussions, debates, and projects started. It is going to be a busy year but the good kind of bust this time around.

Late To Lodge

As I wrote yesterday, time has not been kind to me and last night was the perfect example of that. For an extra meeting I usually try to get out of the office between 5:30 and 6 but with a major presentation scheduled for Thursday, I was in the midst of a meeting throughout the afternoon and into the early evening. 6 o’clock came and went soon followed by 6:30. When I walked out of the door at 6:40, with a pile of work that needed to get done later that night, I knew that I was going to be cutting it close for the 7:30 meeting so I texted the Worshipful Master and let him know of my delayed arrival time.  

Pulling into the parking lot there was only a minute left before things where scheduled to get started and I still had to get in the door, head downstairs to my office, change, and grab a Bible. I have missed a couple of meetings in the past, only one since becoming Secretary, but this was going to be the first time that I would be arriving late. So I prepared as fast as I could and made my way up the stairs and continued resisting the urge to reply with “land shark” from behind the closed door.

Thankfully, when I knocked into the meeting the candidate had yet to enter and I was granted a few minutes by the Worshipful Master to collect myself and get situated at my desk. As soon as I sat down, we officially started the degree portion of the night. I am glad that my brothers waited a little as the candidate last night is someone that I was looking forward to seeing take the next step. Many of us have been impressed with both his eagerness to learn and his ample participation thus far (even before he officially became a mason). I look forward to seeing him thrive in the lodge and in Freemasonry in general.

The evening came to a close with the brethren converging on the newly raised Mason to congratulate him and sign his Bible. Soon after many sought me out to remind me of a variety of things that needed to be taken care of and ask for my assistance with others. At this point I have pretty much gotten used to this routine after meetings. However, as we walked down the stairs one of my brothers, knowing all that I am juggling at this time, made good on his countless offers and removed one of the small but still time consuming tasks from my list. Yes, I actually took him up on his insistence this time.

We all went our separate ways once we ventured back out in to the bitter cold. A few headed off to the brewery across the street, several went home to enjoy some down time with family, and I made my way back home to tuck my wife and son into bed and get a few hours of work done before passing out. By the time I went to bed it was 2 in the morning which was only made worse by the fact that the week wasn’t even half over. Just one of those weeks but at least I was able to forget all of that for just a little bit last night.