D. W. Brown

Does Freemasonry in today current state meet your expectations?

__________________
Dale Brown, 32°
TBL Staff
__________________

Must Reads for Every Mason:

A Peculiar System of Morality | Laudable Pursuit | The Ancient Landmarks
The Truth About the Antients and the Moderns | It's About Time
__________________

Must Visit Links for Masons:

Grand Orient de France | Grand Orient of the United States of America
The Burning Taper | Halcyon Lodge | The Philalethes Society

Dawn Robel

If they open their doors to all humans, ok not "all" humans but at least the free thinkers and not just the stuffy old men.

D. W. Brown

I believe you are going to see a change here very soon.

__________________
Dale Brown, 32°
TBL Staff
__________________

Must Reads for Every Mason:

A Peculiar System of Morality | Laudable Pursuit | The Ancient Landmarks
The Truth About the Antients and the Moderns | It's About Time
__________________

Must Visit Links for Masons:

Grand Orient de France | Grand Orient of the United States of America
The Burning Taper | Halcyon Lodge | The Philalethes Society

AlabamaFreeMason

Free-Masonry in the current system has failed. The example of this is look at the membership decline that has occured in the last 40 years.

The Grand Lodges cannot blame anyone or any circumstances. If Free-Masonry had been intune with what their real mission is this would have not occured. The over emphasizes of the ritual work has been a major reason so many left Masonry. Yes the ritual is important but how many know why they do certain things? What does that phrase mean? What is the number 15 in the Master Mason Degree signifiy? What is the candidate obtaining by acting out Hiram Abiff?

1. Meeting, read bills, telling who is sick, who has died, running through degree work, having fund raisers that only fund keeping the lodge open and going home. All of this is meaningless, stale and no one comes away any better from it.

2. No education. Why? Because you have Masons deciding what is education and what will be taught when they don't even know what to have for materials.

3. GL permission to go to the bath room. There is nothing a lodge can do unless the GL says so. Even websites have to be approved from Daddy.

4. Many lodges do nothing and then whine about their membership dropping. Blaming TV, sports etc, etc. If these lodges did something that gave men reason to attend they would.

5. Red tape. Everytime something is done or planned it meets with the Masonic red tape and eventually it is killed.

So next time you want to complain about yor lodge attendance place the blame at the right place with the lodge.

G. David Cooksey PM
Master Pro-Tem
Temple of Regulus
Grand Secretary UNLofA

David Herman

I'm glad I'm not in your lodge, Brother Cooksey.

1. Our fund raisers are only for charity. While we do have minutes, bills, and sickness, we also have presentations each month which are open to the public.

2. We have educational presentations (usually masonic in nature) each month.

3. We don't requre GL permission for much. Even our webiste - just a motion in lodge.

4. We have outings, picnics, fishing trips, parties, and visits to other lodges, and sporting events.

5. I have seen some of our initiatives delayed - but never stopped - by red tape.

AlabamaFreeMason

I'm glad you have presentations but here we were not given that opportunity. We tried to have an educational series after lodge but some who attended only did so to stop it. The younger guys went away mad becasue no discussion took place only those attempting to kill it.

Many Alabama lodges have fund raisers and the money is to keep the lodge afloat which is decietful to say the least.

The list is long why I demitted and would take too long to list here.
I look to a bright future out of the old system.

D. W. Brown

I hate to admit it but this has been my experience exactly within my lodge and the ones in my area I have visited. There are some Sunday morning meetings where they usually bring in someone to discuss on some topic but to date it usually revolves around medical issues or religious propoganda.

Not long ago there was the same old topic of how to raise awareness brought up and a group formed to come up with ideas. When they presented their ideas I was amazed at the lack of "out of the box" thinking that had gone into their ideas. One was to pick an elderly person and clean their home, while this is an honorable thing to do it ranks low on attracting new members, the other was to place flags at the grave of vets, doesn't the VA/VFW/AL already do this? I had mentioned another idea to the committee before the meeting about something I was working on that is a national initative and involves partnering with Wal-Mart and a large non-profit foundation. The person making the presentation when he saw their ideas wasn't meeting well with the brothers, mentioned what I was working on as their idea. He got caught when he was questioned in more depth about it and I had to stand up and take over their presentation.

__________________
Dale Brown, 32°
TBL Staff
__________________

Must Reads for Every Mason:

A Peculiar System of Morality | Laudable Pursuit | The Ancient Landmarks
The Truth About the Antients and the Moderns | It's About Time
__________________

Must Visit Links for Masons:

Grand Orient de France | Grand Orient of the United States of America
The Burning Taper | Halcyon Lodge | The Philalethes Society