Showing posts with label Masonic Con New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Masonic Con New York. Show all posts

Saturday, January 25, 2025

‘Success: Masonic Con New York!’

    
Not everyone, but many who attended Masonic Con New York last Saturday at Masonic Hall in New York City. Our closing presentation took us to the Corinthian Room on the eighth floor.

Time for a recap of Masonic Con New York last Saturday at Masonic Hall in Manhattan? Sorry to say I cannot give much of a review because I didn’t get to see much of it.

I elected to remain at the check-in desk anticipating problems, mainly guests insisting they had paid for admission but whose purchases during the five months of ticket sales were not completed for vexing reasons. Actually, there were a few of those headaches, but only a few and they were easily remedied, so I missed the event for no urgent reason.

But the feedback is 96 percent encouraging! I am surveying our speakers, a segment of the vendors, and a large sampling of those ticket-holding guests to ask what they liked, didn’t like, and for improving suggestions, etc.

Don’t get me wrong. I will not be chairman of any Masonic Con planning committee again. I’ll attend Masonic Cons. I’ll even speak if invited (Hudson Valley Masonic Con in June), but I haven’t the desire or time either to be involved in future events to this extent or to be active in the Grand Lodge structure. I’m going back to my research lodges.

Warner Bros.


Strong thanks to our speakers: Dr. Heather Calloway, MW Akram Elias, RW Bull Garlington, Maj. Gen. Bill Green, W. Jim Ponytail(!), and RW Michael LaRocco.

To our vendors who snatched up the twenty tables we could fit into the second floor dining rooms.

To the planning committee empaneled eighteen months ago: Arthur, John, Lorenzo, Michael A., Michael L., Nathan, Piers, Rafael, and Sam.

To the advertising/production team: J.W. and his crew, Ryan, and Zach.

The Trustees of Masonic Hall, represented by RW Michael, made important things happen, to say the least. Also to the building staff, security, and other helping hands on site.

Mariners Lodge 67 is celebrating its bicentennial anniversary and made its Beefsteak Banquet and Maritime Festive Board the start of Masonic Con New York on Friday night.

To Webmaster Extraordinaire Ken.

Essential expertise also provided by Anis, Asly, Bill way up in the north country, Daniel, Todd, and Wil.

To VW Joel (building tours) and RW Jerry (cocktail hour).

To Joan and Loraine at The ESM magazine, and to the Craftsmen Online podcast. Also to Chris at Freemasons for Dummies for his October 31 post.

Convention Committee: Chairman Don, Angel, Don G., Greg, Juan, Trent, and Walter. I’d still be at the registration table if not for you.

And, of course, to Most Worshipful Grand Master Steven Adam Rubin.

Most especially to the 150 of you who supported the Grand Lodge of New York’s first Masonic Con by purchasing tickets—even if you gave me agita by waiting until after the event began!

(If I forgot you, please pardon the unintentional discourtesy, but let me know. I’m reviewing 200 old emails and 100 illegible pages of a Top Flight Wired™ Chub to get this right.)
     

Friday, January 17, 2025

‘The Masonic Con with a mission’

    

The Grand Lodge of New York’s first Masonic Con arrives tomorrow, and you still can buy tickets and join about 125 of your brethren from New York and elsewhere around the Northeast.

Masonic Con New York will examine Freemasonry in the 21st Century: Self and Society—a look at where our fraternity should go as modern America suffers from an epidemic of male loneliness, as documented in the recent study from the U.S. Surgeon General.

Click here.

Freemasonry, as a path of self-development, as a social network, and as an influential and history-making institution, bears the potential to remedy the crisis facing so many American men. Come here our speakers discuss the ideas behind this Masonic Con with a mission:

Keynote Speaker
Maj. Gen. William Green, Jr.
Chief of Chaplains
U.S. Army

—with—
 
Dr. Heather K. Calloway
Executive Director
Center for Fraternal Collections
and Research, Indiana University

MW Akram Elias
Past Grand Master
Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia 

Bro. Bull Garlington
Author and Attorney

Bro. Michael LaRocco
Executive Director
Chancellor Robert R. Livingston
Masonic Library

Bro. Jim Loporto
On “The Elephant in the Room”

This day of Masonic and social studies is open to the public, except for Bro. Loporto’s presentation at day’s end, which will be restricted to regular Freemasons, with an emphasis on seating Apprentices, Fellows, and new Master Masons.

Mariners 67

The weekend will begin tonight with the famous Mariners Lodge 67’s Maritime Festive Board and Beefsteak Banquet. That’s a separate ticket for a magnificent meal in an unforgettable ambiance of feast and song. This is the kick-off of the lodge’s bicentennial celebration.

The speakers program awaits you on Saturday, also featuring tours of Masonic Hall, plenty of vendors, and other attractions.

Click here.

Afterward, the 1781 Society welcomes you for cocktails and socializing with our speakers and with Grand Master Steven A. Rubin and our Grand Lodge leadership. (Sorry. Sold out.)

There are group rate hotel accommodations (sold out) and special rate parking as well.

Questions? Contact me here.
     

Sunday, October 13, 2024

‘Do you know about the 1781 Society?’

    

New York Freemasonry has a corps of philanthropists who commit to support our Brotherhood Fund which aids distressed brethren and their families in times of need. I was late in learning about this, but it has appeared on my radar because a 1781 Society cocktail hour will cap our Masonic Con weekend in January.

(Tickets to Masonic Con New York can be had here, and there is an option to also buy tickets to the after-Con cocktail party. I’ll have much more on Masonic Con very shortly, but we have six amazing speakers booked, plus other major attractions.)

Anyway, the 1781 Society welcomes contributions of many denominations but, as the Society says: “This isn’t just a donation—it’s an invitation to become part of something truly special. Join the 1781 Society and add your name to this list of those preserving the legacy of Freemasonry in New York!”

Read all about it here.