From the Deputy - November, 2020
My Brethren:
As I mentioned last month, our Chief Operating Officer, R.W. Bro. Lou Domjan, has spent a lot of time setting up a GoToMeeting account for each District to be
shared with each Lodge via the District Deputy Grand Master in order for each Lodge to schedule a monthly virtual meeting to keep the Masonic spirit alive in each member. The access information was sent to each District Deputy Grand Master who was charged with providing this to each of the Lodges in their respective District to share. It was suggested that a District schedule be created such that every Lodge can host a monthly meeting on their regular meeting night to communicate with their membership, cover any business that is permissible, provide some Masonic Education and generally, to take an accounting of the
health of their membership and Lodge.
Although this tool will never compare to a good old fashioned Lodge meeting with handshakes and bear hugs, it is being used by many individual Brethren,
Lodges and Districts to scratch that Masonic itch that we feel ‘once a month’ or more. Your Deputy Grand Master has been fortunate enough to have been invited to many of these video conference meetings to speak or to just enjoy the fellowship of the assembled Brethren. Some have been quite ingenious to improve the Masonic experience. I have experienced a Lodge banquet where each attendee was encouraged to bring their own dinner to enjoy together, singing together as if we were all holding hands around the banquet room,
and of course Masonic Education to keep our minds engaged and spirits enlightened.
Last week one of our Lodge video conference active Worshipful Master’s was telling me how difficult it was to get his members to present some Masonic
Education for these meetings. I told him about my Mother Lodge when I was just a young Entered Apprentice Mason where the Worshipful Master used
to just assign a Brother each month to do the Masonic Education for the next month. Being quite fresh to the Craft, it pained me for a month of empty preparation until my mentor told me it didn’t have to be me talking for fifteen or twenty minutes, it could be as simple as starting a discussion of all Lodge members with a simple question. Two days later, my EAMs simple question was why are the W.Ts. of an E.A.M. the 24 I.G., the C.G. and the C.? I gave my take for a minute and the rest of the members carried the conversation
for the next thirty minutes easily.
Our Grand Master is oft to greet a screen full of members to a video conference Masonic Education meeting with the comment of how fortunate we are during this time to be able to access the finest Masonic speakers around the world during this pandemic via a video conference and have no airline or hotel expenses to fly them in. There are many libraries of Masonic speakers who used to offer their services if their expenses were covered – makes it pretty easy now.
The hardest part now is to juggle the differences between time zones of your Lodge and their home base.
We have another resource bank right here at home, and you already know them. Your Grand Lodge Committee Chairmen are rightly proud of the work of their Committees and would be more than willing to get some free publicity for their programs by addressing your Lodge or District. They are always appreciative of
your feedback as a measure of compliance to our Strategic Plan.
R.W. Bro. James Broomhead at 1921glbgp@gmail.com would love to bring you up to date on all of the plans for accessing a library of Masonic Education on the Grand Lodge web site. He can also share the successes of the monthly Grand
Lodge Masonic Education virtual presentations on the first Saturday evening of every month.
Heard about The College of Freemasonry but don’t know where or how to get started? – R.W. Rick Cadotte does - rickcadotte@hotmail.com
Want to know how we prepare our District Deputy Grand Masters for the leadership of their District? Give R.W. Bro. Jamie Wark a buzz at jameso@bmts.com
Does your Lodge Condition of Masonry report need further explanations? R.W. Bro. Michael Locke is your guy at mjlocke@cogeco.ca He will even offer some tips for improvement to turn all the green lights on!
R.W. Bro. Howard Adams - hadams5@cogeco.ca - and the University Partnerships Committee have been leaders in the spreading of their message with the Sankey Lecture being delivered into our homes on Sunday, November 15. Howard and his team would be pleased to share their next project of developing University Clubs to get started on the fraternal development before joining.
We’ll continue with my Grand Lodge Chairmen recommendations for your virtual meeting presenters next month.
Stay well until then!
Thomas W. Hogeboom
Deputy Grand Master