February Message

Post date: Feb 12, 2015 2:14:48 AM

Brethren and friends,

As you receive and are reading this, we’ll just be finishing one of our busiest months of the year. We had a fun night of games on Jan. 1st and a nice brunch with four lodge families on the 11th as we watched the Packers win their first playoff game. On the 15th I had the privilege of presiding over the FC Degree for Bro. Thomas Kelley, and we hosted the first Grand Lodge Masonic College in our area on the 31st. I hope you were able to join us for one or more of these events. If not, please plan to get out and join us in February, we’ve missed you!

In addition to our stated meetings on Feb. 5th and 19th, we’ll be hosting our 2nd Annual Bunco night on Sat., the 21st at 7:00pm. Bunco is easy to learn, fast paced and fun for young and old. This will be an event for the adults, so bring your significant other and/or friends for a night of fun, including prizes, beer & wine, snacks, and a decadent dessert.

Looking ahead to March we’ll be hosting the semi-annual McKinley Lodge World Famous Fish Fry from 5 to 7pm on Friday, March 20th. As usual, we’ll be serving all you can eat fish, french fries, German potato salad, cole slaw, bread and desserts. Make plans to join us for a great meal.

On to more serious matters…Brethren, unless something changes, we're headed down a financial path where we're losing substantial amounts of money each year. Ultimately this is not sustainable, and has the potential for serious consequences in the not-too-distant future. This is something we’ve been hearing some about for several years, but I’m not sure that the membership is really aware of the true state of affairs with our current finances. That being the case, I believe it is my responsibility, at an absolute minimum, to get everyone on the same page and help develop a shared understanding of where things stand.

To that end, I have asked W.:B.: Ryan Mayrand, in his capacity as Trustee, to head a serious effort this year to identify our challenges, brainstorm possible solutions, and start pursuing the most promising ideas. We will need all of your help with this. To get us started, we’ll be having an informational discussion during our 2nd Stated Meeting in Feb. on the 19th. This will be a chance for the Trustees to outline our current situation and for the lodge as a whole to start to come together on this issue. I expect that coming out of this discussion we will probably set up a special meeting for discussing the situation more fully, brainstorming solutions, and forming a group to pursue the ideas more fully. Brethren, this is very important. I don’t believe that I’m overstating it to say that without some hard work on our part, and some changes to the way we do things, we won’t be able to stay in our building for many more years. We have some hard decisions to make. Please, make plans to be at the meeting on the 19th and to be part of the team looking at how to solve these problems.

Fraternally,

Chris Goodwin

Worshipful Master