Re: Your Prediction: Texas Freemasonry in 5-10 Years
I think one of the biggest problems we face, is that we are kind of missing a generation that is just now starting to recover. I've noticed this in my own Lodge. We have few members between the ages of 40-60, with those in that group on the low end of 40. Because of this drought in that age group, it has lead to a few people who were not quite ready to take the place in the chairs. This also has kind of lead us into getting stuck in a rut somewhat. As people have stated sometimes a little change is good to freshen things up, and we've been unable to make little changes to freshen it up.
We do have some strong leaders that will be coming up through the chairs, but we have had very real discussions on if there is an end of the line for us. The next few years will be either our re-emergence or our death nail.
I think one change in Masonry is generating a more public presence. I am a big proponent in doing big public events for charity. To me it's a big two-fold item. First it helps raise money for charity. Secondly, it give a nice big public face and reminds the public we are still big in the community.
Regardless, I think we need some more exposure as being part of the community. I also think we have over extended ourselves on the number of Lodges we have. And example is my county. We have a population of around 200,000, and have a Lodge per 10,000 people. In the building we meet in, there are 3 other Lodges, both having similiar problems. So I do see the day of combining Lodges into maybe some kind of Super-Lodges or something.