The Joy Of Building

The best thing about being Worshipful Master is being able to take things I had only contemplated or wrote about and making it into reality, tonight was one of those great nights. For those of you who read this blog you may recall at the end of one of my posts about an idea for a lodge "building" night I called "Mix The Cement Night". The basic idea of the program came from an experience at our Grand Lodge's Wardens Seminar I attended in October of last year. We were separated into pairs and caused to interview each other as a team building experience, I took this idea and came up with "Mix The Cement Night"and it was a tremendous success.

I snuck the event into my Message From the East and did not give any details about what it was going to be, knowing that none of the Brothers of my lodge really reads my blog so it would be a complete surprise(as it turned out one of the newest Brothers had read it but kept it a secret). I started receiving calls about it the day after I sent out the Trestleboard and would not give the slightest idea of what it was to be, which heightened the anticipation.

I arrived this evening, fashionably late, to a full parking lot and a bunch of Brothers quite enjoying each others company already, which just made it that much better. We quickly opened lodge and disposed of the good business of petitions and returned investigations, then I put the lodge at ease so I could explain what we were about to do. I explained the esoteric idea of the night and knowing my lodge as I do split the Brothers up into pairs of "old school" and "new school", so to say, and gave them a nice questionnaire to conduct the interview. Name, Family Members, Why You Became a Mason were some of the questions on the sheet that I explained to the Brothers should be used as a template to know your Brother better. I then promptly closed the lodge and we adjourned to the dinner hall for the exercise.

We all grabbed a beverage of choice and the fun began. I wanted to limit the time of the interviews to 15 minutes a piece so we would have enough time to hear everyones answers but to my pleasant surprise I was asked for a little more time. The buzz in the air was music to my ears as everyone got to know each other a little better and then I started by introducing my Brother the Treasurer to the lodge. I then went around the room and randomly went back and forth between old and new and had every Brother tell us a little more about their Brother. The stories were great, the camaraderie was amazing and no one was in a rush to leave afterwards! The best part of it was that we all knew each other better than we had ever before and left more cohesive and happier than we came, TRUE BROTHERHOOD.

The cement of personal knowledge was mixed into the aggregate collection of men and turned into a concrete foundation of a Freemasons Lodge. It just doesn't get any better.