‘On the Digital Square’

     
The Digital Square Club of New York will meet again at Grand Lodge’s St. John’s festivities at Utica. Very valuable instruction to be gained.

     

‘Amity for Masons wherever dispersed’

     

Saturday brought the long-awaited and highly anticipated Webmasters Conference at Masonic Hall in New York City. Brothers Ken, Stephen, and Brad provided a great experience where dozens of attendees learned about the practical thinking that goes into the great responsibility of hosting a website for a Masonic lodge, or district of lodges, or other Masonic group. This was a Digital Square Club event.

Diverse matters, varying from how to create a website, to what Grand Lodge expects of those websites operated by its constituent lodges, to cyber-security, with breakout sessions on public relations and social media, were hungrily received by the audience. Grand Lodge VIPs, including the Grand Treasurer, provided insights into GLNY’s specific requirements on sometimes misunderstood aspects of media management, such as photography inside the lodge room. Having a background in media myself, I don’t benefit from the Masonic Public Relations Handbook provided there as much as I do from hearing from Bro. Ed, chairman of the Technology Committee, about the Grand Lodge’s best practices on website maintenance. Some of it is common sense (e.g. no political endorsements), but some of it is not so obvious to those, like me, who are new to New York Masonry. (The Magpie Mason is not an official New York Masonry website. I’m not sure it’s on their radar screen.)

But one particular revelation from the day stands out for me. Two Freemasons have designed an app that puts considerable information power in your pocket. Named Amity, this technology is highly secure, available free of charge, and can provide global connectivity for brethren wherever dispersed over the face of the earth and water.

From communication needs of the lodge secretary to security assistance for the tiler, Amity can add a new dimension to lodge governance while also helping sojourning Masons locate meetings of regular lodges anywhere.

Read all about it here.
     

‘Metro Masonic webmasters conference to be planned’

     
The Digital Square Club of New York enjoyed a successful conference during St. John’s Weekend in Utica last month. Masonic webmasters and other online publishers met in person and by teleconference to learn from each other about the nuances of online communications.

Courtesy Thomas J. Fuzia

I wasn’t there (I don’t know if bloggers meet the criteria), but it seems the real highlight of the meeting was the presentation of the new Digital Cornerstone Award to RW Ron Steiner, who has labored long in helping New York Freemasonry with both public relations and encouraging the use of the web years ago, when hardly anyone in the fraternity knew how to maintain a competent web presence for their lodges. Congratulations, Ron!


Ken Stuczynski, webmaster of Grand Lodge and chairman of the Communications Committee, reports the likelihood of another conference in the Metro area later this year or early 2017 specifically to help the region in most need. (You’d think lodges in the media capital of the world would be more hip, but maybe that’s not the case, although Stuczynski does praise “incredible, cutting-edge work” being done here.) Stuczynski and Grand Master Jeffrey Williamson will speak. I’m sure others will too. I will attend that one.

The Digital Square Club website is being revamped too.


EDIT OCTOBER 7: We could be looking at a Saturday, January 21 meeting for the Metro lodges.
     

‘Digital Square Club of New York Conference’

     

The Digital Square Club will host its 2016 conference in June, during the St. John’s Weekend events at Utica, New York. This will be Saturday, June 25 at 4 p.m. in the Meditation Room at the Masonic Care Campus (2150 Bleecker Street).

On the agenda:

• Presentation of donations to Masonic Care Community
• Speakers: tentative topics—photography, calendars, and optimizing websites for mobile devices
• Award of Official Grand Lodge District and Lodge Webmaster Pins

Seating is limited to forty (40) and attendance is open to wives.