SLC Visitation October 22, 2005

Most Worshipful Grand Master Ridge, Most Worshipful Past Grand Masters, Right Worshipful Deputy Grand Master and Grand Wardens, Worshipful Grand Lodge Officers, Worshipful Past Masters, Worshipful Masters, Wardens, Brethren, and Ladies. My talk this evening is entitled “What Have We Learned?” This being your homecoming visitation, Most Worshipful Ridge, I thought it might be instructive to look back over the year thus far and consider what we have seen and what it means. In talking with Brethren in the lodges, it has become rather clear that most Brethren don’t know what the Grand Lodge is, who are its members, and what is its purpose. The Grand Lodge Free and Accepted Masons of Utah is the governing body for Masons in Utah. Based on ancient and accepted usage that a grand lodge is the sovereign Masonic body in a jurisdiction, which in the United States has become the individual states, our grand lodge charters and governs all lodges located in the State of Utah. Its members consist of the elected officers of each lodge, all Past Masters of Utah lodges, Past Masters of lodges in other jurisdictions we recognize as regular and with whom we have ongoing fraternal relations who are members of Utah lodges, all present and past elected grand lodge officers, and all Past Grand Masters. Its purpose is to prescribe the rules for the operation of the grand lodge, rules for operation of the individual lodges, and to help, aid, and assist constituent lodges in carrying on their work. The grand lodge prescribes the ritual for the jurisdiction, the qualifications required to become a mason, the duties of grand lodge and constituent lodge officers, etc. In addition to these “thou shalt’s,” the grand lodge works very hard to assist the constituent lodges in developing programs to educate the brethren, teach leadership skills, provide charity options, and lend a helping hand wherever and whenever necessary.
Another thing we have learned is that open houses to attract new masons really work. At the Price International Festival this past July 30, Carbon Lodge No. 16 and Joppa Lodge No. 22 joined together to sponsor an open house. I note that during that weekend El Kalah Temple and the Grand Lodge, as well as these two lodges, participated in the International Festival Parade on Saturday morning as a precursor to the open house following the parade. Additionally, the lodges sponsored a welcome booth at the International Fair. As a result of these actions, nearly 100 people toured the Price lodge hall that day. On Father’s Day, June 19, Uintah Lodge No. 7 assisted Bonneville Lodge No. 31 with an open house held in conjunction with their Fifth Annual Father’s Day Picnic. The event was not widely advertised, but it still resulted in ten people touring the Bountiful temple. On Wednesday, June 15, in the middle of the week, El Kalah Shriners hosted an open house in this temple. They used advertising and a hamburger picnic as a drawing card. It worked; over 400 people toured the temple that evening. On Friday, April 29, Wasatch Lodge No. 1 held another open house similar to those they have held over the past several years. Wasatch Lodge has learned the secret of advertising in the downtown area. They advertised in the Salt Lake City Weekly, a free newspaper distributed downtown, in the Heritage Foundation and Cultural Alliance newsletters, and made presentations in each of the Salt Lake City Council districts. They requested that people make reservations to attend the open house. As of Friday afternoon, they had about 150 reservations, about what they had come to expect. Then people started arriving, and they kept arriving, and arriving, and arriving. The lodge had to recruit additional brethren to conduct tours and act as greeters. They filled the auditorium to the top of the seating area, opening the curtains that normally cover the upper six rows of seats and the three row balcony. Over 500 people attended that open house, enjoying the presentation about masonry, the tour of the building, asking many questions that stretched the brethren to answer. So . . . it is clear to me that if we put forth the effort, open houses will attract the public, help to form a more positive image in their minds, and eventually result in new members.
It is one thing to recruit and initiate, pass, and raise new brethren. It is a more difficult thing to nurture and retain these new members. Thanks to Brother Drew Andrews, Senior Warden of Wasatch Lodge No. 1, we have learned that masons over the last 10 years have joined our gentle craft for philosophical reasons. This means that they expect to learn about the philosophy and the great lessons behind our ritual, our tools and implements of masonry and symbolic emblems most expressive. Hence, in order to serve our customers, these new masons, we need to redouble, triple, even quadruple our educational efforts in our lodges. A quick start is to use the alternate proficiency questions as educational features in lodge. This is particularly effective in a round-robin format where lodge brethren attempt to answer the questions before being told the “school solution.” A second possibility is to schedule special “educational” meetings during which a Masonic subject is examined in some depth. These meetings can last an hour or so – sufficiently long to thoroughly cover the subject at hand. They are also an excellent device for bringing the brethren together in a more relaxed setting than a regular meeting or a degree meeting. A time for male bonding, if you will, a time for the social aspect of masonry, a time to get to know one another better and find those similarities of interests that cement our brotherhood. A third possibility is another example from Wasatch Lodge, a suggested reading list of Masonic literature. This can lead to a book report session, a discussion of the book session, etc. Remember, the object here is to involve the brethren in learning about the philosophical underpinnings of masonry because that is what they really desire.
Brother Drew also found that the second most prevalent reason that men become masons is for fraternity. To me, fraternity means associating with those who share a common core of beliefs. That would be us, the masons. As I have been stressing this year, there are six things you know about a mason before you know his name.

1. He believes in God.
2. He believes in the immortality of the soul.
3. He offers himself in the service of God.
4. He strives to live a moral life.
5. He believes in charity toward all mankind.
6. He has pledged to assist and protect his Brother Masons.

This is a great foundation upon which to build lifelong friendships. We need to make sure that we provide the time for our brethren to get to know each other well enough that the sense of fraternity takes hold. We do that by providing frequent opportunities for brethren to come together: regular and special meetings, book reviews, coffee klatches, in-depth educational presentations, etc. Oh, and by the way, if your regular meeting lasts longer than an hour, you need to fix that. The feeling of fraternity is not enhanced by listening to the secretary read the minutes of the last regular and all subsequent special meetings. Work on the fraternity part; publish the minutes and let the brethren read them. Spend that extra half hour or hour un-tyled. Let the brethren talk to each other about whatever subject they choose.
Finally, Brother Drew also discovered that participation by two-thirds of new masons decreases after about six years. The reason they give is that there are not enough opportunities to serve the lodge as they would like. Have we been asleep at the switch? Don’t we have about 10 dozen jobs that need doing in our lodges? I guess we better get on the stick and write down what those 10 dozen jobs are, ask for volunteers to head them up, assign jobs to everyone, have them report their progress at each meeting. You read in the self-help books about the importance of goal setting; the same applies to our lodges. Set goals, involve everyone, have a vision. When everyone understands the vision, knows the goals, and works towards them, magic happens. Bring the magic back to your lodge, get everybody working. Don’t be the lodge that doesn’t provide the opportunities for the brethren to serve as much as they would like.
And so, Most Worshipful, as I said at the beginning, we’ve learned a lot this year. In my opinion, these are four of the most important things we’ve learned. I hope you will agree.