REBUILDING THE LINE

A couple of years ago as I was reaching the end of my journey in the officer line of my home lodge I decided to affiliate with a neighboring lodge. I had found my years in the line to be a positive experience and was not quite ready to sit on the sidelines again. The contrast between the two lodges is pretty dramatic and a lot of the things that I simply took as a norm in my home lodge are not so in my new lodge. Primarily my home lodge has a progressive line which has been working effectively for over ten years now. My new lodge had all Past Masters in the principle officer stations and very little participation by non-officers. Fortunately in my first year as an officer (SD) in my new lodge we raised several good candidates who immediately took an interest in the lodge. Now in my second year as an officer (SW) we now have new members in the line as junior officers and are raising more good candidates.



Recently we began discussing a MM degree, the lodge had not done a MM degree in many years having relied on a local degree team to perform the degree or by outsourcing our candidates to other lodges perming the degree. As the JW was wise to point out we cannot develop an effective line only performing two degrees. But how....the lodge does not have enough participation to conduct a degree with the level involvement necessary. I have always been a firm believer that the needs of the candidates comes first and foremost. Now I find myself trying find a balance between the needs of the candidates and the need to develop new officers effectively.

For years my home lodge has helped my new lodge on their degree nights and that was one of the reasons I affiliated. I think the best plan is to try to perform the MM with the help of the Past Masters and my home lodge. I'll let you know how this works out.........