‘A valediction at The ALR’

    

And speaking of newsletters (see post below), the June issue of The ALR Today, the trestleboard of The American Lodge of Research, was disseminated this week. Amid the coverage of the previous meeting, a preview of the next meeting, and publicity for new books and podcasts and Grand Lodge’s Masonic University and more is the outgoing Worshipful Master’s message. Excerpted:

“Don’t let me in the East of any more Masonic groups. I barely know what I’m doing!”

In a more analytical disposition, he advances a few ideas to reform the lodge’s operations.

➤ Regarding the annual book of transactions, he points out The ALR hasn’t gone to press in a decade and a half for want of material to publish. The presentations in lodge mostly are PowerPoints, which are useless in book publishing. The Master suggests switching to a digital magazine format, be it annual, semi-annual, or quarterly.

➤ For membership, he proposes discontinuing the trigradal form (Corresponding Membership, Active Membership, and Fellowship), and offering plain Membership, with election to Fellow reserved to the few “who have made a difference in Masonry.” The logic is, without books to mail to Corresponding Members, what exactly is the correspondence? I don’t think this anarchist realizes how difficult, legally, that one will be to achieve because of Grand Lodge law.

➤ On the slightly less perilous side, the Worshipful Master pitches a revamp of the lodge’s meeting schedule. The current (and maybe original since the launch in 1931) scheme has three Stated Communications and other occasional events on weeknights throughout the year. By switching to Saturdays (like many—maybe most?—research lodges in the country), the brethren can enjoy more time together. Or maybe make a combination of Saturdays and weeknights. This might be a hard sell too. Everyone is accustomed to coming to Masonic Hall on weeknights for all their meetings, and it’s hard to assess a group willingness to be cleaved from family, religious custom, and recreation for another Masonic meeting, but, as noted, it works elsewhere.

➤ Perhaps more easily achieved could be his idea to lengthen each term from one year to two, and to open four meetings each year instead of the three. He reasons:

“We reorganize the officer line every year—that is, after every three Stated Communications. This is difficult because, naturally, we need a reliable stream of industrious future officers which we do not have. My idea is to embrace the schedule many research lodges across the country keep: the two-year term, with four meetings per year... Instead of having to find a new officer or two after three meetings, we’d have eight meetings. There are more opportunities for more brethren to get involved.”

➤ More ambitiously, he pitches an idea gleaned from a research lodge in another state that travels and devises weekend getaways around its meetings. That lodge visits historic sites, enjoys meals together, and does other things before and after its Saturday morning tiled/tyled meetings. The ALR has legal permission to travel about the State of New York already. It’s merely a question of logistics to plan the occasional weekend trip to someplace, combining the lodge meeting with a thematic visit to a relevant locale.

The Master also offers a list of frustrating tasks he’ll keep working at, one of which is the not-so-simple procurement of a box. The lodge needs a durable container for the paraphernalia used during the meetings. It needs to be both large enough to hold the stuff, and small enough—that’s the rub—to fit into our storage locker. So, something 17 inches wide and 17 inches deep is being sought, but is maddeningly elusive. “In this search, I am become Ahab,” he confesses. I share this detail to enlist your help. Please leave a comment below if you have any leads.

The ALR’s Annual Meeting will take place on Monday the 30th at 7 p.m. in Masonic Hall. RW Bro. Yves Etienne will be installed in the Solomonic Chair, so come out and cheer him on. The all-star installation team—the Harlem Globetrotters, the 1927 Yankees, the ’94 Rangers of installation teams—will be MW Bill Sardone, RW Paul Huck, and RW James Gregg.