Lunch and the Grand Master's Meeting

Today Ginny and I went out to lunch with Mrs. Walker. We were going to go to the Reiman Gardens but when we got there we discovered that not only was the Gift shop closed but they no longer had a place to eat lunch. So we got our money back and went to The Cafe.


I like the Cafe very much and we had a great lunch.

Mrs. Walker is in her 90's and she seems younger than me. She walks all over the place, babysits and helps people pack to move. She is a dynamo and we both love her. You can see why if you look at the picture of her with Ginny at lunch.














Later I came home and had blog conversations with Kurt and Tim about the new Lodge we are going to try and start here in Iowa. You can read about it here.
The Lodge documents are posted to read now and we (Kurt) sent out 40 letters of invitation to Masons we think might be interested in joining with us in this exciting endeavour.



Iowa's Most Worshipful Grand Master Donald E. Mosier.

M. W. Don held an Iowa Masonic Membership Retention Forum in Nevada tonight. There were 29 Masons in attendance.


The "Red Brigade" Paul and Bill



Don describes these meetings on his Web Site.

So, we are having 19 meetings or forums across the state over the next two months to talk about this. The figures will be presented. Opinions will be asked for. Discussions will be held. And we will talk about HOW TO MENTOR NEW MASONS. The Master, Wardens, and Secretaries of each Iowa Lodge will receive a letter inviting them to these meetings. They will each be expected to attend one of them. They will also be asked to bring others from their lodges. All are welcome, Young, Old, New Mason, Seasoned Mason.

There was a lot of good discussion and many suggestions were made about ways to mentor new Masons and help them to become full members of the Fraternity.

Don started the evening by showing us a movie on The Nature of Success.

Following that he presented information showing the Membership Trends. We held a discussion on the reasons for SNPD's and Demits and approaches to reducing them.


He discussed the New Master Masons Forums and the (sometimes startling) revelations from their questions.




We were asked to come up with some suggestions on how we can improve the Mentoring of New Iowa Masons. Some of the suggestions were:

• Hold Mentoring Schools to teach Masons how to Mentor.
• Work with a Coach before the initiation. One Mason mentioned that his son was joining and there was a class of five who regularly met before they even received the first degree.
• One person suggested that there should be an attempt to have the Mentor and the Mason being mentored to "fit" together.

There was a suggestion that they may hold Mentoring/Leadership classes across the state.

For me the most important message of the evening was one I had heard before.

"The most important part of leadership is to train our replacement."

Another thing I read on one of the slides was "Investment leads to success." If that statement is true - and I know it is. Don is a very successful Grand Master. I have watched him this year and have seen him put a lot of time and investment into the office of Grand Master and for what he is doing and has done for our fraternity I salute him. Thanks Don, for the time and effort you put into these meetings, It will make a difference. ARTYAL, Hugs, j