From the Worshipful Master

The importance of Masonic Family, is very important.

We must support one another in our meetings, and in charitable activities for our communities. The Masonic family is broad and very diverse but all with the same common goals. Along with making good men better, and helping our youth becoming the leaders of the future.

We must all do our parts, in helping one another. We must strive each and every day to help and encourage our brethren to be their best.

In service to the craft
Ken Olsen
Worshipful Master

From the Senior Warden

Masonic Family:

This month, we’re writing about masonic family. We all know that after the three degrees of Masonry, we can choose to move on to some appendant bodies like the York Rite, Scottish Rite and the Shrine.

We can get our wives involved as well through Eastern Star, Amaranth and others. As a father of someone in each of the youth organizations I’ll focus this writing on how we as a lodge can grow by supporting the youth appendant bodies.

The major youth organizations are Demolay, Rainbow Girls and Job’s Daughters. We’ve seen these young men and women grow into leaders. I’ve found the skills learned in these organizations truly prepare our kids for leadership roles in life.

Supporting these groups is also a major way we as a Blue Lodge can attract more men and bring more men into our fraternity. We see from Demolay a number of young men in Arizona joining lodges – one of whom we just passed to the degree of Fellowcraft ourselves. Obviously a group for boys is a good start to get younger members as they start aging out, but let’s dig deeper and see how we can grow with the other organizations.

When a girl joins either Rainbow or Jobies, we not only get to help a girl grow, we also have the opportunity to meet brothers, mothers and fathers and help grow our fraternity. I have seen quite a few fathers of Jobies ad Rainbow Girls who have joined the fraternity in recent months who would not have been here if not for their daughters.

When the Rainbow Girls and Jobies majority, the bonds they’ve formed oftentimes lead them to Eastern Star. Guess what! Now these young women who have just joined OES, have boyfriends and husband and friends and other relatives that they can bring into masonry to help grow the Lodge as well.

The masonic family is just that. A family where we can all lean on our brothers and sisters, and know our kids can be safe wherever in the world they are when they need a meal.

Stephen Liguori
Senior Warden

From the Junior Warden

Your work in Freemasonry can go as far as you desire it. Many brothers engage with their Blue Lodge and remain content to serve and do good work of raising all good men. Others have interest that go beyond the good work of your blue lodge, and there are several opportunities. There are several appendant bodies of Free Masonry which you can join and continue your Masonic journey. The most prevalent are the York Rite, Scottish Rite and Shriners. All of these dependent bodies require that you remain in good standing with your Blue Lodge, and take you beyond the initial 3 degrees of a Master Mason to become a 32 degree Mason. Each of these organization focus on charitable activities that may be of interest to you and come with their own level of commitment, dues and learning requirements.

If one desires to work with our Masonic youth, Masons can participate volunteering to be adult leaders in the DeMolay (young men organization), Job’s Daughters or Rainbow Girls. Each of these organization give you the opportunity to be a positive role model to young people and enrich your life by exemplifying what it means to be a Mason.

The Order of Eastern Star and The Order of the Amaranth are two women led organizations that Mason can join and participate. If you are married, these are good opportunities to share a form of Masonry with your wife, and if your single, these are still good organizations that provide opportunities to support Masonry and meet new friends.

The bottom line is Freemasonry has many opportunities for you to participate beyond your Blue Lodge. Each brings its own level of satisfaction and enjoyment, and you can decide to participate or not. I recommend your consider joining each of them depending on your ability to participate.

Fraternally,
Doug Steele/JW