Holiday Greetings, My Brethren –

I hope this reading finds you in good health and good spirits, and that your upcoming (or recently past, depending on when you read this) holiday season is thoroughly enjoyable for you!

We recently celebrated our Awards Night, and I want to take a moment to congratulation all of our honorees:

Celebrating their 25th Year as Masons:
William Catlin * Douglas Johnson
Celebrating their 30th Year as Masons:
Carl Basic * Charles Adgate, Jr * David McCanna * Earl Maxin, Jr
Celebrating their 40th Year as Masons:
Jack Alpern * Paul Ellison * Roger Rowe * Norman Thompson
Celebrating their 50th Year as Masons:
Glen Mark, Sr * James Mulligan * Ralph Shear * James Sloan * Thomas Weller
Celebrating their 60th Year as Masons:
Raymond Decapito * David Miller * Alva Redman * Richard Shapiro
Celebrating their 65th Year as Masons:
Phillip Hogue

Congratulations to all of our award recipients, and thank you all for almost a combined 900 years of service to freemasonry.

Some topics that I brought up for discussion at our most recent lodge meeting, I want to discuss my thought here so that you can let us know what your opinions are as we bring them up under Old Business at our next meeting (Jan 4th, 2022):

• Monthly As A Lodge Dinners. One of the things that WB Eugene Miligi instituted during his term was meeting once a month for dinner with our brethren and their spouses at a different restaurant each month. This a) allows us to meet in brotherhood with our spouses / significant others, and get to know each other on a more personal level, rather than just at the lodge; and b) helps support a local business each month. Naturally, with staff shortages amongst all restaurants, we will be courteous enough to call a few days ahead to let them know roughly how many guests we are bringing. I am eyeing the 4th Thursday of every month to do this, starting in January, as no local york rite or scottish rite bodies meet on that night.
• Mailed Newsletter. Now that the trestleboard is an online only document, we are finding that a lot of our brethren aren’t hearing anything from the lodge. This may be due to the fact that they don’t know that the Trestleboard is online, or they aren’t tech savvy and don’t really go on the internet. Thus we have decided to send out a mailing to all of our brethren to see if they would like to receive a regular mailing informing them of the on-goings at Old Erie. So in this mailing we are asking any brethren to respond that they would like to receive either a paper copy, or an email copy of a newsletter (or even a paper/email copy of the trestleboard article). If you wish to participate, and let any of the lodge officers know so we can get an idea. If we get enough interest in a paper newsletter, we will only be sending the newsletter to those that said they were interested.
• Dinner prior to Lodge. Another thing that was mentioned to me was an interest in having a dinner at the lodge, prior to our meeting, so I brought up the idea that on the 3rd Tuesday of each month (our 2nd Stated Meeting), having dinner prior to lodge (so dinner would be at 6:30pm) and would vary from Soup, Spaghetti w/ meatballs, Stew, Chili, Sandwiches, etc. Something simple yet filling, where you would have a main, a side, and coffee, water or pop. We would charge $6 or $7 dollars, to keep it paying for itself, with all additional proceeds to go to our charity fund.
• Event Committee. Our annual Christmas party was a bit lack luster in attendance, and I know that is partially a timing fault. But I realized that as a Master, you have so little time to prepare for such things. Usually, the Christmas party takes place less than 1 month after you are installed, and if you are a first time Master, it may not even cross your mind. So one of the things I brought up is the desire to create an ongoing Event Committee (meaning it won’t completely change with each new master). The idea is that there are several annual events that need to be planned (Installation Dinner, Awards Night, Christmas Party, Inspection Dinner, Past Masters Night Dinner, Steak Fry, Lodge Picnic, etc) that we should start planning on taking place at the same time each year so that we can bring consistency, make it easy to plan, and make it easier to invite other bodies. This way, we can start letting bodies know in September that Old Erie’s Christmas party will be on whatever date, and the committee can discuss the various events with Officers in charge of said event.

All of these discussions were brought up to allow the brethren to mull them over, and then act upon them at our January meetings. If you have anything to add to these discussions, please contact me and let me know.

Some upcoming events

• January 18th – at our Stated Meeting we will have Brother David Gorsuch teach the brethren present on how to use the new defibrillators that the Temple Company installed in the building.
• 2nd & 4th Tuesdays in Jan and Feb will be Ritual Practice for all line officers and any others who wish to better learn the Ritual.
• March 8th – Our Inspection in EA. Dinner will be at 6PM. Please let myself or any of my officers know if you wish to attend dinner, so we can plan accordingly.
• April 26th – Past Masters Night / Annual Seafood dinner. Not sure if this will be a fish fry or not, but we are planning on focusing on a seafood style dinner
• May 21st – Annual Steak Fry – more to come
• a Sunday in Late June or Early July – Annual Lodge Picnic. I’m tentatively scheduling this for Jun 26th, but am confirming with the Grotto that they are availabe, otherwise it may be the week before or 2 weeks after (as the week after will be July 4th)

That is all I have for you at this time. Again, I hope you have a thoroughly enjoyable holiday season, and look forward to seeing you all in 2022!

Christopher M Kiraly
Worshipful Master
Cell#: 330-770-3544
email: christopher.m.kiraly@gmail.com