Dues

I just sent out dues notices to about 20 Masons. Dues are an important part of the life of the Lodge. They enable the Lodge to do its business. There have been a lot of posts on dues lately (well at least one or two)

Here is Chris Hodap's take on them on Freemasons For Dummies.

Masonic Minute has this to say.

He did a "quick poll" here.

While not discussing dues per se The Burning Taper discusses lodge renewal in several posts and has this to say:

In the Golden Age of Masonry, when it was a force for improving society, lodges were smaller than today. It worked pretty well for them, so let's take a few pointers from that age. Let's not fight declining social capital by diluting our own social capital. That is, lets not let in thousands of new Masons in one day classes and do nothing but collect their annual dues. That's the path to making Masonry a mailing list.

Let's counteract these forces in our own lodges by allowing our lodges to naturally contract. A small lodge where new petitioners are carefully vetted is a lodge where we all know one another and more likely have trust in one another. In other words, there is social capital. There is brotherhood.

Back in April the Maonic Observer had this to say about dues.

The Rocky Mountain Masonic Conference discussed dues and it is summarized here. Some good points are made.

The Lion's Paw has this to say:

The fact is, though, that most of our Lodges aren't charging anywhere near the percentage of household income for dues that they were even 50 years ago. The burden of Lodge dues is not nearly as great for today's retirees as they were in earlier times. Even a lodge charging $100 a year -- as mine does -- is asking for less than $10 a month to fund its programs. You probably can't get the senior citizen's plate at the local cafeteria for $10 anymore, and your monthly newspaper subscription probably runs at least that much, and probably more. And let's not get into how many -- or in fairness, how few -- Starbucks lattes you can buy for that.

None of these even mention the cost to the Lodge of the members who do not pay dues because they are 50 year members. In Arcadia Lodge ($80.00 dues) we have 25 50 year members. You can do the math. One or two of these members do send donations just as one or two of the members send extra donations along with their dues. Many of these are not even able to attend the Lodge because they life out of state or too far away to attend regularly. Yet their membership still means a lot to them and they are interested in what is happening in their lodge.

I pay a lot of dues (or at least I used to) and I don't really begrudge paying them. They enable my Lodges and Masonic organizations to function. I am not really fond of getting solicitations in the mail asking me to give more or to selling me things I don't want or need so that the Grand Lodge or the Scottish Rite can operate. I think perhaps, that my friend Jerry Marsengill was right about this comments on the Albatrosses that hang around our necks in the way of Lodge Buildings that are old and outdated and expensive to maintain and we should look at how much of our dues money has to go to paying them. We need to look at our Lodges from a business standpoint and live within our means or increase our dues to enable us to at least break even.

Be all that as it may be, as a Secretary of the Lodge charged with collecting those dues I just want to say that I appreciate those who pay their dues early or on time (January 1) and for the rest of you I found this:

Forget the hasty, unkind word:
Forget the slander you have heard;
Forget the quarrel and the cause;
Forget the whole affair, because,
Forgetting is the only way.
Forget the storm of yesterday;
Forget the knocker, and the squeak;
Forget the bad day of the week.
Forget you're not a millionaire;
Forget the gray streaks in your hair;
Forget to even get the blues -
But don't forget
To Pay Your Dues!

Be loved, Hugs, jcs