Page 18 - August 2018

The Stated Meeting
Dan Bartlett, , y R.W. Grand Secretary, Grand Lodge of Maine
,
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There has been an ongoing discussion around lodges, You have read it here before…all Masonry is local.
districts and Grand Lodges about the Stated Meeting The lodge is where it all happens. It’s where new
for a long time. And many of you that take the time to Masons are made. It’s where we fi nd fellowship with
read this article are suffi ciently interested in our Craft our Brothers. It’s where we enlighten our minds and
to the point where you have heard these discussions or care for each other. None of that happens at Grand
been an active participant. Lodge. We at Grand Lodge are here to provide support
and assistance to you. So, it is in your lodge where this
We have some lodges that are engaged in productive change in the Stated Meeting needs to happen.
and worthwhile Stated Meetings, and we can
honestly say worthwhile because they have Brethren We have all heard the Closing Charge…We are about
attending the meetings and leaving with a sense to quit this sacred retreat of friendship and virtue… Is
of accomplishment and satisfaction that it was an your lodge a sacred retreat of friendship and virtue? It
enjoyable evening. More importantly, they come back needs to be. In colonial times our Masonic forefathers
for the next one! met at lodge because it was a retreat where they could
speak freely, conciliate true friendship, enlighten their
I recently was appointed to the Masonic Renewal minds as well as provide support and care for each
Committee of the North American Conference of Grand other.
Masters. The Committee’s purpose is “to facilitate
innovative endeavors of Masonic Jurisdictions as they “Times have changed, and lodge systems have not
strive to move the Craft forward.” progressed with the times. Members are no longer
content to sit upon the benches and listen to the ritualistic
One of the projects of the Committee is the Stated ceremonies, and ordinary lodge routine-they must be
Meeting Project. We need to take a good look at entertained. If they do not fi nd the entertainment at
and rethink how our Stated meetings are conducted. the lodge, they will fi nd it elsewhere. It devolves upon
A hundred and more years ago a Stated Meeting the lodge and upon the offi cers thereof to make the
was a time of teaching the ideals of Freemasonry, meetings suffi ciently interesting so that the individual
involvement in the welfare of our Brethren and their member will say, ‘I’m glad I came, I had a good time,
families and enjoying the company of our Lodge and I want to come again.’ George H. Fuller, a Past
Brothers as well as doing the business of the lodge. Grand Master and Grand Secretary of the International
Order of Odd Fellows said this in 1929! And here we
Over the past 100 years, many of our Stated are nearly 90 years later, and it is just as applicable.
Meetings have slowly become nothing more than
reading the minutes, paying the bills, maybe vote on Is it time to be the agent of change in your lodge?
an application and schedule a degree if you have a Numerous writings and conversations have told us
candidate and a quorum, have some refreshments and what a Brother’s desired expectations are when going
head on back home. We hear it time and time again; to lodge. Fun, fellowship, interesting, inspiring,
the Stated Meeting is boring. Many great and well- entertaining, doing something positive are among those
known men joined our Fraternity, and they joined it expectations. It takes time and a repeated eff ort, but it
for many of the same reasons you and I did. It wasn’t does work. There are lodges in Maine who have found
to listen to minutes of the previous meeting being read success when they have added to the Stated Meeting a
to them. program that fulfi lls some of those expectations. And
now they regularly have two and three times as many
After all, is said and done; more is said than done. If Brethren at a Stated Meeting as they had before.
the lodge is meeting once a month and that’s what it’s
like each time many members, especially the newer Here is an example of a new order of business: Ritual
ones are voting with their feet and not coming back. opening and Pledge (creating the Sacred Retreat),
I can’t blame them. There is a responsibility to come Welcome, Business (minutes, bills, reports, Petitions,
to lodge and take care of the business, but when there old and new business), Meeting our Obligations
is nothing else beyond that it is a short trip to “why (enlightening the mind, caring for each other’s welfare),
bother”? Making good men better (conciliate true friendships,
Page 18 Montana Freemason August 2018