Post meeting follow up

Recruitment and Retention follow up.

Brothers,

I hope your fairing this weather well. It has been a wild two weeks for the weather up here. Our meeting was sparsely attended to due the bad weather but we still talked some about this topic. We only had 7 Brothers present and they are all regularly attending so not much could be learned from our newer Brothers or those who have recently come back.

Throughout the meeting the stock answers kept showing up to our questions on both the recruitment and retention discussions. I realized that we seem to be stuck in a rut in our thinking and involvements.

The first questions asked were related to our visibility around the state and the links in our local community. The sponsoring of Tiger's baseball and Red Wing hockey came to mind quickly as well as the billboard campaign that is concentrated in the major cities. Locally we could only come up with our efforts in getting MiCHiPs off the ground, the earlier attempts to get the beacon project in the schools, our pancake breakfasts and our spaghetti dinners that we hold for those in need and as fund raisers to help with school trips. Other things that came to mind were the commercials for the shriner's hospitals, the parades and the yearly circus that we send the 8th grade class too. These last examples are all Shrine related, it is good advertising, but doesn't cover the Blue Lodge itself.

Locally we have also joined our chamber of commerce as a way of attempting to build name recognition throughout our area. We hold a circus every other year on our property, as a small fund raiser as well as a chance to bring families onto our site.

The next question was "Can our members explain what Masonry is, what we stand for and what we do at a local and national level." This garnered the biggest discussion and left us short of our goal of having an 'elevator speech'. Through our next couple meetings and our membership committee, we hope to come up with at least a basic response and hope to work on refining it to reflect what we do in our community.

We next spoke about retention, keeping our current members active. Looking through program variety, activities and needs of our current members show that we really haven't been offering much outside of a straight business meeting and not many other social activities, whether they be a night for cards and friendship or outings for dinners or events.

As for the next set of questions, referencing our new Brothers and how welcome we make them feel, utilize them in roles in the Lodge, and use our mentoring program. Our newer members we not in attendance that night so we will have to add this to a further discussion.

Our final questions we related to ritual (too much or not enough emphasis). A whole agreed need to spend more time on ritual. Hopefully with one of us taking a DDI spot, we will spend more time in our ritual and hopefully be able to spread our knowledge through our sister Lodges. The final question was do we make efficient use of our members time in our meetings. We have started to include something extra in every meeting, be it reading a short talk booklet, a reading of a Masonic letter or poem, watching a video related to the Craft or a power point or other presentation.

We have identified some areas where we could make ourselves more known. Hopefully we can motivate most of our Brothers to step up and assist in our attempt to renew our Lodge in our community and make Masonry more appealing to those looking who have been thinking of joining and those who are looking for something to enhance their lives.

Let's hear your short speeches on what Masonry stands for and what we do. Post your comments.