2018 Masonic Year Trestle Board
Our 281st Annual Communication of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Ancient Free Masons of South Carolina has come and is now in the rearview mirror. Brethren, we had a great session with positive reports, recognition and fellowship, most of all great fellowship! During the Grand Masters Address, I placed several initiatives on the trestle board for 2018 - 2019 year that I believe will continue to serve the craft and move our Lodge of the Future program forward. We will continue to focus on the primary initiatives
- Improved Ritual Work Quality – to increase new member engagement.
- Full Candidate Proficiency – to impress our lessons on new members.
- Improved Member Communication – Staying in touch with all members.
- Improved Masonic Education – Providing Quality Educational Programs.
- Improved Financial Management – Lodges taking ownership of Budgets
Brethren, those Lodges that are embracing these programs, through their hard work and effort, are seeing improved membership experience.
The new initiatives that your Grand Lodge officers are working to develop and introduce this year;
1. Address and formalize the onboarding process for new members to clearly define the requirements for membership in our Jurisdiction. This process is testing well with inquiries we get from our website. It will help our Lodges with retention and also with improved quality of applicants. It is designed to better prepare those new members coming into our fraternity with understanding of the process of membership.
2. Develop a District Realignment strategy. We currently have Districts with few as 5 Lodges and as many as 13 Lodges. We will structure so as to maintain 30 Districts but we will include Lodge input that is critical to this project.
3. Develop a Lodge of Excellence Recognition program to support our Lodges that are working to create the Lodge Membership Experience and move forward with the Lodge of the Future concepts. This recognition program will better define what successful Lodges are doing and sharing in the great results. More to follow in the coming weeks. 4. Develop and implement a Grand Masters Unity Project this year. This program is asking all Lodges and all appendant organizations of our fraternity to hold one fund raiser to support the Fraternity. Each group that participates will receive a share of the contributions to demonstrate the great impact of our fraternity. See the attached Lesson plan for details.
Gentlemen, we owe a great deal of thanks for the blessing we have in this Jurisdiction! It is by the hard work and teamwork of our members, that we see great success. We have many that worked so hard for our Grand Lodge and I want to publicly say thank you to the many on the Local Grand Lodge Committee and our Grand Lodge officers that worked on our Grand Lodge Session. Our local committee and their ladies did a wonderful job in making our members and guest feel so welcome.
Thank you to the local committee you make us so proud to be a South Carolina Freemason!
Fraternally
Michael D. Smith
Grand Master
Our 281st Annual Communication of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Ancient Free Masons of South Carolina has come and is now in the rearview mirror. Brethren, we had a great session with positive reports, recognition and fellowship, most of all great fellowship! During the Grand Masters Address, I placed several initiatives on the trestle board for 2018 - 2019 year that I believe will continue to serve the craft and move our Lodge of the Future program forward. We will continue to focus on the primary initiatives
- Improved Ritual Work Quality – to increase new member engagement.
- Full Candidate Proficiency – to impress our lessons on new members.
- Improved Member Communication – Staying in touch with all members.
- Improved Masonic Education – Providing Quality Educational Programs.
- Improved Financial Management – Lodges taking ownership of Budgets
Brethren, those Lodges that are embracing these programs, through their hard work and effort, are seeing improved membership experience.
The new initiatives that your Grand Lodge officers are working to develop and introduce this year;
1. Address and formalize the onboarding process for new members to clearly define the requirements for membership in our Jurisdiction. This process is testing well with inquiries we get from our website. It will help our Lodges with retention and also with improved quality of applicants. It is designed to better prepare those new members coming into our fraternity with understanding of the process of membership.
2. Develop a District Realignment strategy. We currently have Districts with few as 5 Lodges and as many as 13 Lodges. We will structure so as to maintain 30 Districts but we will include Lodge input that is critical to this project.
3. Develop a Lodge of Excellence Recognition program to support our Lodges that are working to create the Lodge Membership Experience and move forward with the Lodge of the Future concepts. This recognition program will better define what successful Lodges are doing and sharing in the great results. More to follow in the coming weeks. 4. Develop and implement a Grand Masters Unity Project this year. This program is asking all Lodges and all appendant organizations of our fraternity to hold one fund raiser to support the Fraternity. Each group that participates will receive a share of the contributions to demonstrate the great impact of our fraternity. See the attached Lesson plan for details.
Gentlemen, we owe a great deal of thanks for the blessing we have in this Jurisdiction! It is by the hard work and teamwork of our members, that we see great success. We have many that worked so hard for our Grand Lodge and I want to publicly say thank you to the many on the Local Grand Lodge Committee and our Grand Lodge officers that worked on our Grand Lodge Session. Our local committee and their ladies did a wonderful job in making our members and guest feel so welcome.
Thank you to the local committee you make us so proud to be a South Carolina Freemason!
Fraternally
Michael D. Smith
Grand Master
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