2015 Installation of Officers

Transcription

1 A P U B L I C A T I O N O F Volume 123, Issue 10 December 2013 In This Issue: From The East...3 From The West...4 From The West...4 Feast of St. John...6 Upcoming Events: All-PM MM Degree...12/12 Officer s Meeting...TBD Christmas...12/25 New Year s Day...1/1 Stated Communication...1/2 December Birthdays: Doug Pringle 12/3 Dan Gray 12/5 Ralph Holt 12/8 H Leon Stanfill 12/9 L Dean Barzee 12/9 Stan Schmidt 12/14 Melvin Frye 12/16 W Charles Armstrong 12/16 Don Martin 12/18 Joseph Thomas 12/20 Wayne Ford 12/21 Kenji Yaguchi 12/ Installation of Officers Installed officers, from left: Jr. Steward Larry Smith, Treasurer Stephen Barkley, Tyler WB Garry Weiner, Sr. Warden WB Tom Binkerd, WM Brandon VanDyke, Chaplain WB Carson Bailey, Jr. Warden David Potter, Marshal WB Phil Myers, Secretary WB Art Geary, Sr. Deacon Wayne Ford. B eaverton Lodge held its Annual Installation Of Officers on Saturday, December 7th. The public ceremony was opened by MC Dan Gray, WM of Beaverton #100. After the introduction of guests by WM Dan and the invocation by WB Noel Keister, WB Carson Bailey led the 2014 Officers into the lodge for installation. WB Rick Komraus performed the installation of elected and appointed Officers. Ashley Davies, Worthy Advisor of Rainbow Girls Meridian #80, performed the Gavel Talk, after which the installed Officers introduced any guests in attendance. After final remarks from newlyinstalled WM Brandon VanDyke, WB Noel Keister gave the

2 Page 2 Volume 123, Issue Installation of Officers At left is the installation team. From the left are: Worshipful Brother Noel Keister, Installing Chaplain; Worshipful Brother Rick Komraus, Installing Master; Worshipful Brother Carson Bailey, Installing Marshal; Ms. Shirley Moore, Pianist; Worshipful Master Dan Gray, Installing Master of Ceremonies. Also part of the team were Brother Clem Norton, Clarinet (not pictured); and Worshipful Brother Bill Erickson, Installing Photographer (not pictured). benediction. All attendees then retired to Stafford Fellowship Hall for a wonderful reception highlighted by delightful refreshments provided by Brother Sadi Yildizhan. Newly-Installed Worshipful Master Brandon VanDyke assumes his chair in The East as Installing Master Worshipful Brother Rick Komraus looks on. Worshipful Master-Elect Brandon VanDyke would like to extend thanks to all those who attended, with special thanks to the Installing Officers and Musicians, the Ladies of Meridian Assembly #80 for the decoration of Stafford Fellowship Hall, and Brother Sadi Yildizhan for preparing delightful refreshments for the occasion. Stafford Fellowship Hall was abuzz with attendees visiting and enjoying the refreshments following the installation ceremony. Brother Sadi Yildizhan dishes up his scrumptious cuisine for all to enjoy.

3 Volume 123, Issue 10 Page 3 Holiday Greetings From The East I had the hardest time writing this month. For the longest time I could not figure out why. Writing this article felt like I would be communicating a goodbye to the lodge. Every time, when I put my hands to the keyboard, it made me both sad and frustrated. I feel highly honored to have been given the opportunity to be Lodge Master, and I am looking forward to continuing the work of the lodge. But in my professional career, I have never had the experience of being demoted from a higher position in the organization to a lower one. I have never moved from management to worker bee. Of course, this is not goodbye, but it does signal an important organizational transition. Several times I formed lists of what had been done well this year, what had been begun and not finished, and what good ideas had not even been started. The following list is my optimistic vision of the future of Beaverton #100. There were several areas of emphasis that had begun with earlier Lodge Masters. Each of the following comes from advice I gained from listening to members of our lodge: (1) The idea that the lodge is a member of the community has been an important idea. Our participation in some community activities might even seem silly to some. First Fridays, for instance is important, not just for Beaverton #100, but to the larger organization. This activity lets members of our community know that we have interests outside our own walls. (2) Events that involve the family of our members are very important. This can take the form of picnics, and even pre-stated dinners. The participation of the entire family is extremely important to maintaining the vitality of the organization. (3) Good coaching, consistency of coaching, and the tender care and feeding of upcoming Masons is very important. (4) Encouraging attendance of lodge meetings was a very important initiative. Keep up the good work of phone calls and personal reaching out to members that have not been attending. (5) Keep up the good work of managing lodge rentals. This is very difficult work, and work done by a few who often do not get recognized for their persistence and attention to detail. This work keeps the lodge financially viable. The Lodge cannot be run on dues and hat passing. (6) Keep up the good work of maintaining running in the black, and sensible investment strategies. This has been a job well done. Keep up the good work. (7) O f f e r i n g e d u c a t i o n a l a n d informational opportunities at meetings is very important. These need not be specifically on Masonic subjects. Hearing about pet subjects adds enthusiasm to our organization. Any and all of our membership should feel welcomed, and should accept the opportunity to speak to the lodge. I have always said that an organization that turns over its management every year would have difficulty in maintaining steady growth. In my career, the organizations I worked for always maintained at least a five year term for top management. Because this is what I was used to, that is what I thought was most healthy for all organizations. However, after having enjoyed the privilege of serving a year at the helm of Beaverton #100, I am now con-

4 Page 4 vinced that annual turnover of management is not such a bad thing. The role of movement of officers in the chairs does offer considerable continuity in management. A great deal of continuity is also accomplished by offering outgoing officers positions on committees. I thank you all for allowing me to serve on the board of trustees, and I personally thank each FROM THE WEST It is with both much excitement and more than a bit of trepidation that I now prepare to journey to the East. I would like to thank you all for the support you have given me in my Masonic life, and I look forward to working together with all of you in the coming Masonic year. With that in mind, I would like to share with you some of my plans for the coming year, and invite you to attend as many of our events as you are able. My first priority as Master of the Lodge will be to maintain the traditions and high standards that have been established by all the Masters who have come before me. Beaverton #100 has a history of doing great work, and I will do my best to ensure that tradition continues. In addition, there are a few areas I hope to improve upon while I am in the East. The areas I plan to focus on specifically are education, ritual, and fellowship. One of my goals this year is to include education as a part of every stated communication. To that end, we will have four guest speakers this year, visiting us at our March, June, October, and December stated meetings. The first of these will be our Grand Lecturer, Right Worshipful Brother Bob Fountain. He will join us on March 6 to offer a lecture on the password of the Fellowcraft degree. This is a presentation he has done before for the Masonic College, and I think you Volume 123, Issue 10 and every one of you for your patience, encouragement, and your hard work throughout this year. Fraternally, Dan Gray, WM 2013 will find it quite interesting. At most of our other stated communications, we will have short educational talks provided by members of our Lodge. Our first two short talks will be provided by Worshipful Brother Ted Balestreri in January and Brother Ralph Maldonado in February. If you are interested in presenting a short talk (5-10 minutes) to our Lodge, please let me know, and I will gladly add you to our calendar. Continuing with the topic of education, the time has come for the return of the code social. Code socials provide an opportunity for our Entered Apprentices, Fellowcrafts, and notyet-proficient Master Masons to work on their proficiencies with the assistance of their coaches, our officers, or other senior members of the Lodge. For those who have already passed all their proficiencies, code socials also provide an opportunity to learn parts for upcoming degrees or to work towards earning a proficiency card. Code socials will take place on the last Thursday of each month at 6:00 PM, to be followed by the officers meeting at 7:00 PM. Unless needed for a degree conferral, the second Thursday of each month will be designated a Masonic Education Night. Depending upon the month, this could be used to prepare for upcoming degrees, read and discuss Masonic articles, or other activities. These will be publicized in our Trestleboard as the events are scheduled.

5 Volume 123, Issue 10 Page 5 Moving on to ritual, Beaverton #100 generally does a very good job with ritual, both at stated communications and for degree conferrals. However, there is certainly still room for improvement. My goal is for us to clean up our ritual and floor work through additional practice, to become a Lodge recognized for demonstrating excellent ritual work. Some of this additional practice may occur as part of one of our Masonic Education Nights mentioned above. Through our efforts this year, we should also be able to earn an Intermediate Blue Lodge Proficiency Award from Grand Lodge. More important than the award, though, is the improved experience we will offer to every Mason who attends our Lodge, including ourselves. That brings us to fellowship, and in my opinion, there is always room for more Masonic fellowship. My hope is that by improving our ritual and holding efficient business meetings, we will have more time Sunshine Pantry Work Party Bro. Wayne Ford The Beaverton Masonic Lodge and the Rainbow Girls Meridian Assembly and their families volunteered at the Sunshine Pantry again this year. Approximately 17 of our Masonic family attended and helped sort, stock, bag, and hand out food to people requesting assistance from the Sunshine Pantry. We presented a small cash donation from the Lodge, as well. available for fellowship. I also hope our educational speakers will give us plenty to discuss during refreshment. With that in mind, in addition to our formal refreshment time, I encourage those who want to stick around afterward to enjoy a beverage and continued fellowship to do so. After some meetings, we may plan to take our postrefreshment fellowship down the road to a local establishment, but unless so stated, let's plan for optional additional refreshment in our own Stafford Fellowship Hall. If there are any events, activities, or projects you would like to see our Lodge undertake that are not already planned and that you would be willing to assist with, please let me know. I am always open to adding events that would be of benefit to our Lodge and its members. Thank you! Fraternally, Brandon VanDyke, SW 2013 As a postscript, Sunshine recently moved into their new location and has not yet unpacked. They could especially use help assembling up their walk-in freezer. Once that is done, the additional floor shelves can be assembled and the difficulty of working in the current cramped space alleviated. If anyone can help in this process, they could call Bill or Sharon at Sunshine, , for further information. Note that the excess of the canned foods collected at this time of year is saved as a buffer to distribute during the rest of the year when donations are more sparse, but they need storage space to do so. At this time of year, needy clients may make an appointment with Sunshine, or drop in, and receive a turkey and the rest of the fixings for a family s complete Thanksgiving dinner. Family sizes of up to 8 is common. So, as a result we helped provide food for more than 160 people for just a few hours work! Tis Well, don t you think?

6 Page 4 The Feast Of St. John The Evangelist The Craftsman - Dec 1866 All Christian nations celebrate Christmas time - the anniversary of the birth of Christ, the founder of the Christian religion and the object of its worship. Many curious ceremonies are practiced by the people of Northern Europe, on each recurrence of this festival time, the signification and origin of which are little thought of by those who partake in them. The bringing in of the great Yule Log wherewith to make the great Christmas fire. This and many other Christmas customs of the old world, are associated very closely with the commemoration of this anniversary season, yet in themselves are so foreign to the occasion, or rather are so wanting in all suggestion of meaning as appertaining to this Christian festival, that it is not a little surprising that more do not ask whence come these strange and peculiar usages. They have no natural relation ship to the celebration of the anniversary of Christ's birth. There is but one answer to the inquiry here suggested, and that is, that these customs properly belong to the celebration of an anniversary season celebrated in the North of Europe for as many years before the birth of Christ as that time is previous to the present. Two days after Christmas comes the anniversary of the day given to St. John the Evangelist by the Church Calendar. Anciently this was the great Masonic Festival Day. The Evangelist's Day was observed as the great Masonic Festival time from the period of the middle ages, when the Masons in Europe, actuated by their conflict with the Moslems of the East, began to Christianize their system by the adoption of Saint John as their patron Saint. Saint John the Baptist's day, on the other hand, did not rise to any note, even among Masons, until after the year We have alluded to the Christmas customs in this Volume 123, Issue 10 connection, and for this purpose, namely, to claim that those customs belong with quite as much, if not more propriety to the Masonic anniversary of St. John the Evangelist on the 27th of December. We do not claim that these customs partake of any relationship to the Evangelist more than to his Lord and Master. The customs to which we allude are associated with this period of the year, and refer to celebrations observed by Masons long before the days of St. John or Jesus Christ. Centuries before in the oak forests of Germany or Britain, the old time Druids and Druidesses presided over similar festivals. The conquering church adopted the customs of the period, and adapting them to their new religious systems, assigned to them a Christian name, but failed to give to them a Christian signification. The Masons, finding the St. John's day of the church occurred about the time when, for reasons having nothing to do with St. John the Evangelist, they had been in the habit of enjoying a festival season for ages, chose to call it St. John's day, and so observe it; until those who have inherited their Masonry, having overlooked the true Masonic reason for the celebration at this season of the year, have very generally ceased to celebrate it, even as the anniversary of one of their patron Saints. We regard it as very much to be regretted that Masons fail to celebrate the day of the Evangelist St. John. It is a loss to Masonry. It is a surrender of an opportunity to direct the minds of the Fraternity to the origin of their Institution, antedating the times of Christ and the Evangelist, antedating the times of the ancient Druids, who in celebrating the great winter festival were merely commemorating a season which had been observed by men and Masons from the beginning. "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from

7 Volume 123, Issue 10 Page 7 the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years." As the sun ruled the day and the moon the night, so the moon marked the week of seven days and by its quartering the month of four weeks; so the sun measured the year, and the earth by its revolution and the eccentricity of its axis, pointed out the equinoxes and the solstices. Very much in Masonry has thus an astronomical origin. The moon has always been used to indicate by its quarterings the time for lodge meetings. And among all the nations of antiquity, the equinoxes and solstices were ever regarded as seasons of great importance. Especially in the ancient mysteries, was great stress laid upon the solstices, and the winter and summer solstice, the shortest day and the longest day of the year, commemorated with great ceremony. The wellknown Masonic symbol, the point within a circle bounded by the two parallels - refers to this - the point, the sun, the centre of the solar system; the circle, the earth's orbit around the sun; the parallels, where they touch the circle, the winter and summer solstice, the limit of the sun's apparent course to the Northward and Southward of the Equator; the left hand perpendicular, Boaz or the Northern Pillar, the right hand perpendicular, Jachin, the Southern Pillar, standing in the porch of the Temple of the Lord, which is the Universe, while the Bible, as now placed in the symbol, or more properly in our opinion the sun, as the symbol of divinity, has its place in the Orient. The Winter solstice occurs about the twentysecond of December, near enough to the day given by the Church to St. John the Evangelist, to induce the Masons to surrender to it their preference for the twenty-second. A day or two either way, it was thought, no doubt, made no essential difference. But a great mistake was committed. It cast adrift the Fraternity from the reverence for days and seasons of deep Masonic significance, and led them to the adoption of anniversaries which have no essential Masonic meaning. And during the present generation the entire neglect of the anniversary of St. John the Evangelist has led to the surrender of the Christmas festivities to the Church, which more properly and only legitimately belong to the Freemasons. Can this departure from old Masonic custom have gone so far as to render it altogether hopeless to expect that the great Masonic festival of the Winter solstice may ever be revived?

8 Page 6 Volume 123, Issue OFFICERS OUR MASONIC FAMILY Daniel Gray...Worshipful Master Brandon VanDyke...Sr Warden WB Tom Binkerd...Jr Warden Wayne Ford...Treasurer WB Art Geary...Secretary Dave Potter...Sr Deacon Dustin Miller...Jr Deacon Jason Morrow...Sr Steward TBA...Jr Steward WB Joe Noecker...Chaplain Byron Ward...Tyler WB Garry Weiner...Marshal Dave Potter...TB Editor/Webmaster beavertonmasoniclodge@gmail.com Order of the Eastern Star Beaver Chapter #106 2nd & 4th Wednesdays, 8 PM Contact: Karen McClain International Order of the Rainbow for Girls Meridian Assembly #80 2nd & 4th Mondays, 7 PM Contact: Janet Lovelin Lodge Phone : Our Stated Communications are the First Thursday of the month with dinner at 6 PM and Lodge at 7 PM. June Stated is the 2nd Thursday due to Grand Lodge. Dark in July & August. Officer s meetings are the last Thursday at 7 PM and are open to all Brothers. Keep our legacy going please remember our Lodge in your will. Contact the Secretary or Master for more details. Visit Our Website at: Beaver Nile Club 4th Thursday, 10:30 AM Contact: Lorraine Garde Under the Jurisdiction of The Grand Lodge of Oregon: LODGE RENTAL INFORMATION Patrick Knowles Rental Coordinator beavertonlodgerentals@gmail.com BEAVERTON MASONIC LODGE #100 AF&AM 4690 SW Watson Avenue Beaverton, OR David Fryday Grand Master of Masons in Oregon