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 Who were the early members of your Lodge, and what did they desired its own temple, and sometimes because an existing facility
do in your community? was destroyed by a fire. In either situation, the Lodge members
 What was the high point in the history or your Lodge, and why? became more dedicated to the craft, there was a burst of growth, and
 What was the low point in the history of your Lodge, and why? friendship and brotherly love prevailed.
 What is the current status of your Lodge? In contrast, the low point in the Lodge’s history always came
 What are your Lodge’s strengths? during the period between disasters. This is when the Lodge
 What are your Lodge’s weaknesses? became complacent, and members stopped participating. There
 What is the vision for the future of your Lodge? was nothing to keep them interested.
 What is your plan to achieve this vision? Now, brethren, I am not advocating that every few years you burn
down your Lodge. What I am telling you is that your Lodge was
While these questions were designed to help me identify trends formed to meet the needs of a particular interest group and became
that our Grand Lodge Elected Officers can use in their decision strong because it had a cause. When the time came when that
making process, they were also intended to help the leadership of interest group was no longer there, and there was no longer a cause
our various Lodges 1) learn the history of their Lodge; 2) evaluate to serve, the health of the Lodge began to fail. Like the coral, a
the Lodge’s current situation against that history; and 3) use both the Lodge that is not challenged, becomes weak and finds its survival in
Lodge’s history and evaluation of the current situation as a guide for jeopardy.
long term planning. The second point I want to make is that, as the saying goes,
Although only a handful of Lodges responded, when I combined history has a way of repeating itself. Studying the history of our
those responses with the histories I received from other Lodges, they Lodges gives us a sense of who we are as a fraternity and where we
told an interesting story: have come from. When properly applied, history provides the tools
to identify and choose the best course of action for future events.
Each of our Lodges was formed because of one of two purposes;
the first was that Masons living in a particular geographic area The mistakes of the past don’t have to be the mistakes of the future,
and the positive accomplishments of the past can be built upon in the
wanted to be a part of a local Lodge, generally coinciding with the
founding of a new community; the second was because members of present to create a glorious future.
one or more Lodges decided to form a new Lodge that would focus
on the interests of their particular age, professional, or social group. MW Michael Sanders, Past Grand Master
The early members of our Lodges tended to be a mixture of both
blue-collar and white-collar workers, but almost always had some
members who were well known and respected in the community. VWB Clayton M. M. La Vigne - Long-Range
The community leaders often, but not always, provided the
leadership the Lodge needed to become organized and functional. Planning
However, their real value to the craft came from the fact that others Long-Range Planning: We’re attaining a clearer path forward!
in the community would see these community leaders participating in
Masonic Lodge activities and would conclude that the Lodge must be Since the last article I authored a couple of months ago, our
good and worth associating with. Fraternity has made significant progress in our methods of
The high point in the Lodge’s history always came as a result of communicating with each other. We are still in the middle of the
the members having to pull together for a common goal or in
response to a disaster. A common event was the construction of a pandemic, and it appears that it will be a while before we begin to
new Lodge building. Sometimes this happened because a Lodge meet in our buildings as we did at the beginning of this year. We’ve

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