Masters Message Septembr 2024

Greetings My Brothers,

It’s that time of year again! The summer days are slowly cooling down, the back to school season is well underway (much to the chagrin of my children), and our lodge will soon reconvene for another year of good work in the quarries of Freemasonry. I hope your summer experiences were relaxing and enjoyable, and that you are as excited about the coming year as I am.
Welcome back!

It was a busy summer indeed. We enjoyed our annual St Johns family picnic on August 4th, where we hosted over 100 brothers, family, and guests. It was a delightful afternoon of food and fellowship. I want to thank brother Junior Warden Bill Gouge for heading up the picnic committee. Thanks to his hard work, as well as that of our officer line, our picnic went off without a hitch. We were fortunate to have most of our 2024-2025 candidate class there as well, which gave them an opportunity to get to know each other, as well as the lodge brothers. They are enthusiastic about taking the degrees, and it will be an honor for our officer line to give them the finest experience possible. At our picnic, we also held a 50/50 raffle to benefit the Rhode Island School for the Deaf’s after-school and athletics programs, for which we raised close to $400! My thanks to all of our SJ1P brothers and families for their exceptional generosity towards this worthy charitable cause.

At the end of August, the St Johns 1P officers gathered for our annual organizational meeting. I am confident in saying that we are wellprepared for the coming year. Your line officers remain the most committed and impressive group of brothers I have had the good fortune to work alongside. We spent ample time reviewing the calendar ahead of us, and my brothers, it is going to be BUSY between now and December! We have three high quality programs scheduled, as well as a large class of candidates to take the EA degree in October.

For September’s program, the Rhode Island School for the Deaf will come to visit our lodge. September is Deaf Awareness Month, so having RISDeaf come to speak to us about the school, its mission, Deaf culture, and more, will be both a delightful and timely program. Please note we will open the lodge at 5:30PM, as we also have quite a lot of business to get through, in addition to our program agenda.

In October, we will confer the EA degree upon our new group of candidates. You may have noticed that to this point, I have not specified the number of candidates. We currently have four candidates voted and ready to take the degrees. As many as SIX additional candidates are in the pipeline for investigation and voting. The lodge and officers are preparing to conduct the EA degree over two sessions in October, to be split between our stated communication on October 16th, and a special communication on October 19th. It is a blessing to have so many applicants to our lodge! We continue to guard the West gate, as we follow the appropriate application and investigation procedures which have served us so well. But still, I am enthusiastic about having such a robust class.

A friendly reminder that RSVPs for dinner at each communication are mandatory. Our stewards are talented at slightly over-estimating the meal count for a given meeting, but we don’t want to make them guess at who is coming. If you expect you will be in attendance for dinner, please send in your RSVP! In the event you do not, you will be asked to wait until all RSVPed brothers have gone through the line, at which point we will gladly receive you to dine with the lodge. Thank you, brethren, for making our steward’s jobs just a little bit easier.

As I traveled this summer, I frequently found myself in the company of brethren from other lodges. In particular, while at Camp Yawgoog with my children in July, I was delighted to spend time in the company of brothers from no fewer than four other Masonic lodges from within the jurisdiction! Along with the opportunities afforded by Grand Lodge gatherings, each of these meetings gave opportunity to listen and learn from these brothers, on all manner of subjects. We discussed degree and ritual differences between lodges, how best to engage with the families of our brothers, whether or not we charge too much (or too little!) in dues, among other things.

Through all of these discussions, I realized how fortunate we are at St Johns 1P to have such a vibrant and enthusiastic lodge culture. There are many great lodges in our jurisdiction, and we remain among the most active and dedicated. We have worked hard to earn our reputation for Masonic excellence. It is, therefore, vital that we remember how we earned that reputation; by devotion to hard work, dedication, and commitment to the causes of the Craft. We must continue that good work, day after day, never resting on our laurels contented with these momentary blessings of good fortune.

I believe in this lodge, and the officers who dedicate their time and energy to it. We will serve it with joy, conviction, and good old fashioned hard work. As my grandfather used to say, “that corn ain’t gonna shuck itself.”

My brothers, I look forward to enjoying with you another exceptional year of Masonic life at St Johns Lodge No 1 Providence.

Fraternally,

W∴Charles Jason Shealy
Worshipful Master, St Johns No 1 Providence