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[dryfoo]

The lodge raised three new Master Masons on Wednesday night. We balloted on four applicants. Last month we balloted on two. And as I was settling in at the Secretary's desk (I'm learning that getting there merely a half-hour early isn't enough time) I was handed five more applications to read this month

Comments

[baron_steffan]

Well, new applicants being considered a Good Thing (except, yeah, if you're the Secretary), I suppose this is one of those "be careful what you wish for" situations. Congratulations. And condolences.

I've never been a Secretary and never want to be, but merely being a seat-warming Master was enough to show me who really keeps lodges together and running.

[dryfoo]

You've never been a lodge secretary, but you did spend a spell as Brigantia Herald, didn't you? So you've already done your term in Bureaucrat Purgatory ("bureaugratory"?) Not to mention all your Adventures in Pharmacyland.

With this many new members (nearly all grad students) we're hoping that some fraction of them will actually setting in greater Boston after graduation. Our usual experience has been better than most lodges in getting our new members into the momentum of the lodge, interested and active. But then behold what havoc the scythe of Graduation makes among them, as they follow job offers to the far corners of the Earth. I can't tell you how many years I have seen a full and happy lodge in May, only to re-open in September with the sidelines and officers stations nearly bare again.

We'll see how things turn out, but in the meantime, I'm continually inventing and refining the paperwork flow to reduce duplication of effort and make it easier to track and generate all the right info. Back to it...

[baron_steffan]

When I was Brigantia, my territory ran from Pittsburgh to Berlin and Reykjavik to Hilton Head, and this was before computers. Yet I recall my tenure as being rather less tsuris than being Master of a Lodge, and I know that being Master is nothing compared to being Secretary.

McLaurin Lodge's situation reminds me of the Carolingia boroughs: you get an influx of enthusiastic kids and a few years of flourishing, then everyone graduates, going on to get knighted in Corpus Christi of found a barony in Oregon, and the borough lies dormant until the next boom cycle.