Make sure to check out our website Freemasons Lodge # N. Van Buren St. Milwaukee, WI 53202

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1 Freemasons Lodge # N. Van Buren St. Milwaukee, WI `` Make sure to check out our website If you are receiving this Trestleboard as a printed edition and would like to help the lodge save costs by subscribing to the version instead, please contact freemasonslodge@gmail.com

2 Freemasons Lodge # 363 Milwaukee, Wisconsin ~ January, Volume VIII: Issue 1 Editor: Tommy Baas, tbaas78@gmail.com contact: freemasonslodge@gmail.com STATED MEETING: Webmaster: Jasen Groves 1 st Wednesday 5:30pm, monthly Freemasons Lodge exclusive Facebook group: Also, see our activity calendar on-line at google calendar for those that want to sync to their electronic calendars: Google, Calendar, Username=freemasonslodge@gmail.com Freemasons Lodge #363 Officers 2015 Worshipful Master Jerry Reick (414) jareick@gmail.com Senior Warden Michael Burnham (262) binarymike@gmail.com Junior Warden Jasen Groves (414) jasen.groves@gmail.com Treasurer Jan Talaga (414) cigarjan@gmail.com Secretary Paul T. Tourville (414) paul.tourville@nextlevelpwm.com Senior Deacon Michael A. Reindl (262) mreindl2010@gmail.com Junior Deacon Rick Turtenwald (414) r.turtenwald@live.com Senior Steward Damon Sanchez damonsanchez@gmail.com Junior Steward Jeremy Koss 414/ jekoss@ameritech.net Chaplain David R. Miracle (414) frmiracle99@yahoo.com Counselor William V. DeLind II, PM (414) wmdelind@execpc.com Tiler Lowein Bystrom III 414/ lbbthethird@gmail.com Organist Michael J. Hill (414) mhill@trykor.com Lodge Piper Clayton Simchick (414) shriner@mo42.com Trustees David Alderfer (920) dave.alderfer@us.army.mil Jeffrey W. Day (262) jday@wisconsin.nef.com If you haven t already, please join the lodge facebook group mentioned above. And if you haven t lately, please check out the lodge website, also given above. These are the best ways to keep up to date with lodge activity on a regular basis.

3 Greetings Brethren, The Sound of the Gavel By Worshipful Master Jerry Reick Well, we re out of dry dock and the 2015 cruise is underway! Congratulations to all of the Officers for I d like to thank everyone that participated in and supported the 2015 Officer Installation. The ceremony was extra special because the installation team consisted of three Past Masters from FML: Paul Tourville PM the Installing Master, Tom Curtis PM the Installing Marshal, and Frank Mayer PM the Installing Chaplain. Thank you guys and great job! The reception afterward was a very nice event. I hope that everyone enjoyed themselves. The January stated meeting was very well attended; 25 Brothers braved the weather and participated. It s great to see the sidelines full. Let s keep those attendance figures on the rise. Come on in and bring a friend. The Committee Chairs provided their first progress reports. Each of the teams are developing their strategies and goals for the upcoming year. I believe we have a framework for success that will deliver on our commitment to serve the membership. One of our key initiatives for 2015 is to increase communications so keep an eye out for greetings, news, reports, and events via messages, our Lodge website, phone calls, and even the US Postal Service. Getting involved and participating in the Lodge are what being in the Fraternity is all about. If you have been initiated as an Entered Apprentice or passed to the degree of Fellowcraft, you are a member of Freemasons Lodge. I want you to be welcomed and participate right away. To do that, we re changing the format of our stated meetings to allow ALL Brothers to participate. We will open the Lodge at 5:30, take care of any Master Mason business (about 20 minutes), and then invite you in to participate in the rest of the meeting. This will go into effect for the February 4 th stated meeting. Please mark this on your calendar and plan to attend. We ve been blessed with a number of membership inquiries over the past several months; around 30 if I m not mistaken. Br Sec Paul is working on arranging a potential Candidate mixer. The tentative plan is to have it on Wednesday 1/28 at Tripoli Shrine between 4:30-6:00, before the SOI. I will send out an sometime the week before and confirm if we are having the event. It would be nice to have a good showing of Officers and Members to greet these guys and talk to them about Masonry and FML. Please consider stopping by. Dues notices for 2015 are in the mail. Thanks to everyone that has already paid. I d like to personally congratulate our newest perpetual member, Br Jeremy Koss. Way to go Jeremy!! We appreciate everyone paying their dues on time. Please consider making an additional donation to one of our Lodge funds; the Endowment, Past Masters, and VA. Post-meeting fellowship was had at Balistreri s Bluemound Inn. A wonderful time was had by all. Thank you for the hospitality, Brother Jeremy! Safe travels and good health to you all. Looking forward to a great year and seeing you in Lodge. We ll leave the lights on for you. Sincerely and Fraternally, Br Jerry A Reick WM, Freemasons Lodge #363 ~ Fellowship and Activities, not just Bricks and Bills ~

4 At Meridian Height Junior Warden Jasen Groves Happy 2015 to all! I hope your holiday season was relaxing and stress free, and that your New Year has been treating you well! At the January stated meeting, I had presented the idea to reach out the Milwaukee Homeless Veteran's Initiative ( In the United States, 1 out of every 4 homeless American is a veteran of our military. Since 2008, MHVI has assisted 1,200 veterans, and have identified 300 more who need our help. It's unknown how many veterans in Milwaukee need assistance, but it's believed that number could be as many as 5,500. I believe that it's vital that we continue to serve those who have served us. As a nation we will never be able to live up to the sacrifices these men and women have made for us. I've contacted MHVI to assess their needs that we can fulfill. Currently their main focus is donations. Right now, their main needs are the usual single serving read-to-eat meals (such as chili or Chef Boyardee-style meals), bottled water, and the usual toiletry necessities. More specifically, there's a high demand for shelf-ready Tetra Pak milk. This is milk that is unnecessary to refrigerate. If approved by the lodge, I would like to have a fund/donation drive and a date set for delivery at their Fond Du Lac Avenue storage bunker. If possible, I would also like to have a service day where we volunteer with manpower to help them at their facilities. If anyone wishes to help out, please me at jasen.groves@gmail.com. After this month's stated meeting, we dined out at Balistreri's on Bluemound, where we enjoyed pizza and egg plant. The event was hosted by SS Jeremy Koss. Following the February stated meeting, we will be walking over to Real Chili for a hearty and gut-punishing meal. Please join us. It's guaranteed to be an awesome time!

5 Chaplain s Chatter By Brother David Miracle Music in our hearts I suggest reading psalm 150 Dear Brothers, Recently I asked a friend how his mother was getting along. He told me that dementia had robbed her of the ability to remember names and events from the past. Although, he said, she can still sit down at the piano and, without sheet music, beautifully play hymns by memory. It was Plato and Aristotle who wrote about the healing power of music 2,500 years ago. Centuries before that, the Biblical record was saturated with song. From the first mention of Jubal, the father of all those who play the harp and flute (Gen. 4:21), to those who sing the song of Moses, the servant of God and the song of the Lamb (Rev. 15:3), the pages of the Bible resonate with music. The Psalms, often called the Bible's songbook, point us to the love and faithfulness of God. They conclude with an unending call to worship, Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! (Ps. 150:6) Today we need God's ministry of music in our hearts as much as any time in history. Whatever each day brings, may the evening find us singing, To You, O my strength, I will sing praises; for God is my defense, my God of mercy. (59:17) May we each spend time in a religious environment on a regular basis where the Lord can speak to our hearts through the beauty of music and song! God be with you, David Miracle

6 Dude I Googled Freemasonry? Masonic Content Emission in the Digital Age and what it could Bee By Damon Sanchez The subject of Freemasonry in the digital age has come up a lot in recent months. At the 2014 Council of Deliberation in Madison, the subject arose in some degree in every walking conversation, at every table, at every membership debate, and in everyone s theory to help our Masonic future. The idea that Masons need to pick up digital tools and start wielding them to benefit the Craft is a theme we hear a lot; but it is a theme that doesn t holistically specify the mechanics of how or why the tools of the digital age are supposed to cohesively fix Masonic problems. The tools of the digital age can be summed up as high frequency content emitters. If you think about the ramifications of that dorky statement, you see how viral content works. It s scary but awesome. A mom can publish a video depicting her son biting the finger of his big sister and it gets a half a billion views online. A few thousand Twitter posts within the course of 24 hours can topple a weak government in Egypt. A despicable video showing the murder of a journalist can induce a war. If we look at the history of the written word, the ability to frequently publish content on a global scale has been something only governments and the extremely wealthy could do just 50 years ago. What does this mean to us as Freemasons? In truth the current state of the Freemasonry Brand and a good many other organizations can be summed up by a basic Google search. This sounds a little millennial and no doubt it is, but it s true. The question then becomes, if we have a goal of recruiting new brothers, do the search results of Google support our efforts to cultivate new members? I m not trying to put forth the idea that Google should be the foundation of our business strategy, but I am trying to say that if you look at the numbers, there are almost undeniable similarities. So if our future membership forecasts are directly tied to search results on Google, Now What? The answer: We need to raise our content publishing frequency. When we look back into Masonic history, we see that publishing content has existed inside the heart of Freemasonry since its inception. Masons have created content on all levels and in many different forms. Symphonies, architecture, sculptures and statues, books, drawings, papers, magazines, theories, laws and mathematics, scientific and medical treatise, etc; The list goes on and on. This enigmatic property of Freemasonry is one of the reasons why the general public has had such a high esteem for the Craft for centuries. Why wouldn t a group of people that produce such wide ranging content not have a secret that no other in the world has? So what has changed?

7 In a way the missing inertia of Freemasonry is in our frequency decline of published content. Yes, we are still putting web sites on line, writing symphonies, and branding signage in towns and light poles, but the content we are producing isn t increasing globally, nationally, regionally, locally, cohesively, and frequently enough to make an impact against the tide of absent or negative online content. So what is something we as masons can do to help Freemasonry? Ok so I m going to get a little esoteric and talk about the Masonic symbol of the Bee-hive and the propagation of thought in the material world. One of the reasons bees are so successful in what they do is that they repeat actions over and over again so much so that we see the algorithmic math expressed in their honeycombs. By performing the same tasks over and over again, the bee is able to manifest superstructures in nature. If you use this analogy of the bee and think about it in terms of content, publishing, and frequency, then you start to see a potential strategy for Masons that we have a unique ability to capitalize on everyone month on the first Wednesday during lodge. What would the ramifications bee ( no pun intended ) if every brother with a smart phone, tablet or laptop for 10 minutes published content during lodge every month for a whole year? But not just 363 every lodge in the state, in the united states, in the world This Month in Masonic History January 2 January 7 January 8 January 12 January 13 January 17 January 26 On this date in 1901, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt received his 1st degree in Matinecock Lodge #806, Oyster Bay, New York. On this date in 1808, the Grand Lodge of Ohio was established. On this date in 1785, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart received his 2nd degree. On this date in 1844 or 1843, the Grand Lodge of Iowa was formed On this date in 1886 Quatuor Coronati Lodge #2076 was consecrated and constituted in London. It is considered by many to be the premiere masonic research lodge in the world. On this date (or January 12) in 1818, the Grand Lodge of Indiana was formed On this date (or January 16 or 26) in 1865, the Grand Lodge of Nevada was formed On this date in 1872, the Grand Lodge of Utah was formed On this date in 1866, the Grand Lodge of Montana was formed On this date in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle received his 1st degree.

8 The Lighter Side of Masonry A postman, on his route, picked up a letter from a mailbox that was addressed to God. The postman seeing that the letter was not sealed, and there being no postage on it, opened and read it. It was from a man who was down on his luck and was asking God for help. The letter asked for $50 to get his family through the next week. The postman, being a Mason, took the letter to Lodge that evening, read it, and asked for donations for the unfortunate fellow. The Masons, wanting to help, took up a collection, and received twentny five dollars from the brethren. The Secretary placed the cash in a Lodge envelope, and gave it to the postman to deliver the following day, which he did. Another day passed, and the postman again found an unsealed letter in the mailbox addressed to God. Again he opened and read the letter, which thanked God for the money, but instructed him to send it through the Knights of Columbus next time as the Masons kept half. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Q. How many Masons does it take to change a light bulb? A. After much research this tricky question can now be answered. It takes 20, as follows: 2 to complain that the light doesn't work. 1 to pass the problem to either another committee, the Temple Board or the Master of the Lodge. 3 to do a study on light in the Lodge. 2 to check out the types of lights the Knights of Columbus use. 3 to argue about it. 5 to plan a fund-raising dinner to raise money for the bulb. 2 to complain that "that s not the way we did it before." 1 to borrow a ladder, donate the bulb and install it. 1 to order the brass memorial plate and have it inscribed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pat & Bill had been Lodge Brothers for many years. They had promised each other that the first to go to the Grand Lodge above would return to tell the other whether there really were Lodges in Heaven and what they were like. By and by, it came to pass that Bill went first. One day shortly after, Pat was working in his garden when he heard a whispered voice, " Pssst Pat!" He looked around but saw nothing. A few moments later he heard, now quite clearly " Pat! Its me, Bill!" "Bill" Pat exclaimed, " are you in Heaven?" "Indeed I am" said Bill. Pat paused for a while to get over the shock and then said "Well, Bill, are there Lodges up there in Heaven?" "There certainly are, Pat. There are Lodges all over and they are quite magnificent, equal or better to Great Queen Street. The meetings are well attended, the ritual is word perfect, the festive board fantastic and the spirit of Masonic Fellowship is all pervasive." "My goodness, Bill," said Pat, "It certainly sounds very impressive but for all that you seem rather sad. Tell me old friend, what is the matter." "Well, Pat, you are right. I have some good news and some bad." "OK, so what's the good news?"

9 "The good news is that we are doing a 3 rd degree this coming Wednesday" "Great" said Pat. "What s the bad news then?" "You re the Senior Deacon! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It seems that another Mason, Master of his Lodge, went to Heaven and met with St. Peter. He identified himself as a member of the Craft and St. Peter asked, "What Lodge?" Proudly the Master replied, "Old Adage Lodge #1." St. Peter immediately took him to the Masonic Clock Room. The Master, in puzzlement, looked around the room which was filled with clocks. Each clock had a Lodge s name on a brass plate and, strangely enough, each clock was at a different time. He asked why and St. Peter informed him that the hands only moved when someone in that Lodge made a mistake in the Ritual. The Master then asked where his Lodge s clock was as he couldn't see it. St. Peter replied, "Why, it s in the kitchen, of course." "The kitchen," said the Master? "Yes, you see, we needed a new fan." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There s a man, walking down the street at 1 in the morning and he s very drunk. A policeman stops him and asks: Where are you going in that condition? Man: II mm on mmyy waayyy to a lectttuurre on FFreemmassonnrrry. Officer: Where can you possibly get a lecture on Freemasonry at this time of night? Man: Frromm mmyy wifffe, wwhenn I gget homme! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A man had been convicted of murder and was about to be hanged. Just before the sentence was executed, the hangman asked the man if he had any last words. "Yes," came his reply, "I hate Masons!" "Why do you hate Masons?" asked the hangman. "The man I killed was a Mason," explained the murderer, "the sheriff who hunted me down was a Mason, the Prosecutor who tried my case was a Mason, the Judge who presided at the trial was a Mason, and all of the men on the jury who found me guilty and said I should be hanged were Masons!" "Is that all?" asked the hangman. "Yes," replied the convicted murder. "Then you will advance one step with your left foot."

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13 Calendar of Events!! Freemasons Lodge #363 As of 1/07/15 Date Time Location Event Description Wednesday, 1/7 5:30 p.m. Lodge Room Stated Meeting 7:30 p.m. Eggplant, Pizza, Yum!! 6501 W. Bluemound Saturday, 1/17 8:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m. Concourse Hotel Madison Secretary s Conference Wednesday, 1/28 6:30 p.m. Tripoli Shrine 3000 West Wisconsin District 12 School of Instruction! Saturday, 1/31 8:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m N. Pilgrim Road Brookfield Wisconsin Masonic College Wednesday, 2/4 5:30 p.m. Lodge Room Stated Meeting 7:30 p.m. Dinner um well let s go with sustenance 419 East Wells Street Wednesday, 2/25 5:30 p.m. Lodge Room EA Degrees Wednesday, 3/4 5:30 p.m. Lodge Room Stated Meeting

14 7:30 p.m. A feast!! Wednesday, 3/25 5:30 p.m. Lodge Room FC Degrees Tuesday, 3/31 5:30 p.m. Tripoli Shrine 3000 West Wisconsin Combined Table Lodge Wednesday, 4/1 5:30 p.m. Lodge Room Stated Meeting 7:30 p.m. Dinner 522 W Lincoln Avenue Wednesday, 4/22 5:30 p.m. Lodge Room Degrees us at freemasonslodge@gmail.com Check out our Website!

15 Travelling Forward Editor s note, by Br. Tommy Baas As I sat down to prepare this issue and looked over the saved files I have in a folder marked trestleboard, it occurred to me that this year marks my 5 th year as your lodge Trestleboard editor, since Past Master Bob Roth graciously appointed me the position. Whenever people trust me with such a regular responsibility, I always feel quite flattered. I think of one of the many mottos of my favorite band, the Grateful Dead, who is also celebrating an anniversary this year. It was often said of them, They re not the best at what they do they re the only ones who do what they do. For fifty years their legacy has survived, no matter how often their line-up changed and their style developed, because they give the world something unique that legions of fellow freaks of a certain subculture still appreciate. Similarly, our great lodge keeps going year after year, though the officer line and membership is constantly changing, because it means something special to so many different people in so many different ways. Just like every member of the band from one time period to the next contributes a special, personalized sound to the group harmony, so too does each member of the lodge bring their personal gifts to the table in making us the unique thing that who we are. I may not be able to make every meeting and event these days and may not always get each new issue of the TB out in a timely fashion, but it means a lot to me that my brothers recognize me for my talent in the writing field and still rely upon me season after season to help spread lodge news and events. I may not be the best at what I do, but How many other Masonic Trestleboard editors out there are going to cite the Grateful Dead in their communications? As our Lodge Trestleboard under my editorship moves into its 5 th season, I d like to open up a dialogue for new ideas and new directions moving forward. WM Jerry Reick and PM Jan Talaga have put together a few ideas for future Trestleboards that I think would be great to incorporate, if anyone out there is moved to help out on any of these: Today in Masonic History call-out of something historic and interesting that has happened in a particular month Famous Masons - different theme each month with a particular Mason(s) highlighted Awards - List of Brothers achieving things like service awards, Ashlar Award, Ritualist/proficiency cards, completing the MCCC, Masonic College, things like that. Special events: Birthdays, Anniversaries, births, weddings, etc Lighter Side - humorous articles, jokes, etc. If any of these ideas appeal to you, or if you have your own ideas of what you d like to contribute to future Trestleboards, don t be shy to step forward and pass along an article or two. Anybody from the Lodge is welcome to contribute you don t even have to be an officer just drop me a line any time with your ideas and/or articles, preferably via at tbaas78@gmail.com. On that note, I close out this current issue with a verse from the Dead, which even relates back to Brother Miracle s, reminding to keep the music going in our hearts: Let there be songs to fill the air!