From the East
Hello Brethren,
Wow! This year went by extremely fast! I'm truly grateful and honored to have been given the opportunity to serve as Master of Friendship Lodge in 2008. This has been a wonderful and very rewarding experience. We have a fantastic lodge filled with active members that do want to make a difference and to make masonry a true part of their lives.
I would like to thank Worshipful Joe Alarcon for his many years of service to our lodge as our Officers Coach, Worshipful Joe has decided not to continue as our Officer Coach and he will be truly missed. Worshipful Joe is a Past Master of our lodge, has been our Treasurer since 2002, a Hiram award recipient in 2003 Received the cornerstone award this year and he currently is a lodge trustee. Worshipful Joe, thank you very much for all your support and leadership that you provide our Lodge!!
Community Service
Our Community Service project for October & November has been the Second Harvest Food Drive. Friendship Lodge made a donation for $200 along with our members to support this food drive for our community. Food donations are really needed in order to provide food for families in our community that are in real need of this assistance. Please go on-line at: http://www.2ndharvest.net/ to make your donation. On the home page of Second Harvest Food Bank, click on Donate Now and then click on Ways to Donate. Click on Donor Type and select Community Group, then click on Organization name and then select Friendship Lodge No. 210. There is a nice list of options for you as well. 96 cents of every dollar donated is used to feed hungry people in our community. We also have Food Barrels at our Masonic Center so you can bring food items and drop them into the barrels. We are also scheduled to sort and package food at their San Jose Warehouse on Tuesday night November 25th from 6pm to 8pm. Please contact me if you're interested in volunteering your time to help sort and package food at their warehouse.
Our Community Service Project for December is Sponsoring a Christmas Tree for Christmas in the Park in Down town San Jose. We will decorate this tree with our Masonic Lodge Logo and with Masonic Emblems as ornaments on the tree. We will involve the youth groups with tree decorating. This will continue to help get our name and fraternity out into the public!
Masonic Giving Fund Raising Drive: please remember to make a donation of any amount. Each Mason should give according to his own ability. You can direct your donation to the Masonic Homes and or the MSAP (Masonic Student Assistant Program) Program at any percentage you would like. Please go on the Grand Lodge Masonic Website http://www.freemason.org/ or mail a check to Grand Lodge today! I challenge you to find some thing to sacrifice for one week, e.g.: your Starbucks for a week, and send your donation in today.
We made tremendous progress on our goals for this Masonic year.
Status on our Goals for 2008
1) Survey Lodge members and Widows, find out what they would like to get from the lodge and masonry and what they would like to do and be involved with
We surveyed our members to find out more about them and what they are interested in. Our Mission Statement, our Vision, our Strategic Plan, Goals and our activities were all developed from our survey results.
2) Create Vision Statement, Mission & Values Statement and a Strategic Plans & Goals with Officers and Lodge Members
We created a Mission Statement, a Vision and a Strategic Plan for our Lodge! I shared these in a previous trestleboard and it's posted on our lodge website
3) Create & Manage within Budget, (not to exceed by 5%)
We did very well managing our expenses to our budget that the lodge approved at the beginning of the year. The Budget & Finance Committee met and reviewed and approved motions prior to presentation at our Stated Meetings. Our Treasurer gave quarterly status reports at our stated meetings as well.
4) Increase support, activities & involvement for Widows. Call and talk to all our widows, now and through out the year
We have established a Handyman Service, which is being utilized by our widows. I've called and talked with about 70 % of our widows.
5) Update Friendship Lodge's data base
Progress was made and we'll continue to verify and update our records.
6) Update Grand Lodge's data base
Progress was made and we'll continue to verify and update our records.
7) Provide Strong Communications through out the year - hold regular officers meetings (Monthly or at least quarterly)
We held regular meetings with the Wardens and Senior Deacon, Budget & Finance Committee and our Trustees.
8) Utilize the phone committee for all events
We utilized the phone committee for reminder notices to our activities. We bought an automated phone message software application to make this a very efficient and effective communication process. We can now send a message out to over 100 people within a couple of hours!
9) Create very active committees and have regular reports / updates given at our Stated Meetings
We had very active committees with committee chairmen giving a report at our Stated Meetings.
10) Progress all EA's & FC to MM's - Raise at least 5 MM's
We have Raised Seven Master Masons this year; our goal is to Raise Five. We will Raise at least five more next year too.
11) Increase our membership by 5%
Our goal is to increase our membership by 5% or 10 new members. We have Initiated 8 new members; we had two affiliations and just received a new application for a total of 11 new members this year.
12) Receive an A report card from our Inspector on the health of our Lodge - Understand the requirements and have the lodge focused on these requirements
We currently have a A-, we need to continue to improve in a couple of areas but I'm confident that by the end of the next year we'll receive an A.
13) Increase our activities, involvement and support for Charity & Community Service Events, activities planned every month
We have really increased our activities, involvement and support for Charity & Community Service events. Each and every month our lodge has been involved with a community service event. I truly believe we have made a difference in our Community and we should all be very proud!!
14) Increase the involvement of our members. Call and talk to all members, now and through out the year
I've called and talked with over 58% of members. Sent a birthday card with a note to 100% of our members. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone a little more.
15) Increase our support for the Masonic Homes, MOS, Masonic Charities (100% participation from our Officers)
Only 34% of our officers participated by making a donation and only 12% of our membership made a donation. Please try to make a donation of any amount! Each within his own ability.
16) Leverage Grand Lodge programs, On The Level, Pass it On & Mentoring Program. Develop a lodge Mentoring program
We have implemented Grand Lodge's program for "Pass it On" and have developed a mentoring program and we're utilizing some of the material from Grand Lodge's "On The Level Program"
17) Update our Lodge Web-site, past masters, Hiram award recipients, photos etc..
Worshipful Joe Martinez our Webmaster has done an outstanding job updating our website by adding our past masters including their pictures, adding our Hiram Award recipients, adding our Mission Statement, our Vision and our Strategic Plan & Goals. If you haven't looked at our website lately, please take a look!
http://www.friendship210.org/
18) Properly store, preserve and maintain Friendship Lodge's records, archives and artifacts, clean out & organize storage room
We have this project scheduled for December 6th.
19) Reconcile 25 & 50 year recipients
We Reconciled our 50 year recipients with Grand Lodge, but 25 year recipients are not recorded by Grand Lodge. If you are a 25 year or 50 year member and have not received your pin please contact me or our secretary Jim Greer and we'll look into it.
20) Encourage and support officers to attend and complete Grand Lodge's "Lodge Certification Program"
I completed five out of the six courses and our Wardens and Senior Deacon have also completed some of these courses. We will continue to complete the training courses as time permits and course are available.
As you can see we had an extremely busy and very productive year! Thank you all!!
I encourage each of you to come and support our lodge, try to attend our stated lodge dinners, stated meetings, degree conferrals and our lodge activities to enjoy the brotherly love and great fellowship! Please get involved and become an active member and enjoy masonry in action and help promote our youth groups!
Thank you again brethren for giving me this honor and privilege to serve you as Master for our lodge. The lodge is in very capable hands with Brother Randy Shelton Master-Elect, Brother Larry Muller Senior Warden-Elect, Brother Kirk Wells Junior Warden-Elect and all the other Officers. We continue to have a full line of officers that are committed and dedicated to our lodge success!
Sincerely and Fraternally,
Kendall Mills
Master