Unmasonic

Just a vent...our Lodge has a couple of different lodges who pay us rent and use our building. One of those lodges was on the brink a few years back due to a lack of membership, often times not having enough present to open lodge. In order to save the lodge, a number of Brothers from our lodge joined the failing to help keep them from disappearing. Nice enough right?

Recently, EA from our lodge let me know that his friend would like to join, a few days later I got an email from the friend requesting information. When I called him back to setup a meeting to sit and chat about him and masonry he informed me that he had already spoken with someone, filled out a petition, and had a date set to be investigated.

Come to find out, the brother who had contacted him was one of those who took on dual membership to help the failing lodge, and had taken the petition to them. I contacted the gentleman and asked him what lodge he wanted to join, and he said the one his friend was a member of, our lodge....

When I broached this situation with the brother who introduced the petition to the other lodge his response was snappy, bitchy and someone along the lines of "we've already had a first reading and an investigation, it's not my problem, he should have told me he wanted to be in your lodge"

So we've contacted the grand secretary for advice, who says since there has been a reading of the petition there MUST be an investigation and ballot, and THEN the candidate must request, in writing, that his petition be destroyed, and them petition our lodge, first reading, investigation, second reading, ballot all over again.

Not only does this seem to be a terrible first impression for the potential new candidate, it also seems to be a very unmasonic way of dealing with this.

I'm considering allowing them to keep the candidate, bring our brothers to their degrees to help with the work, allow them to keep his feed and dues, and have him demur from their lodge and join ours after raised. Any thoughts or ideas from the peanut gallery?


Part upon the square.

I don't know how it may work in your jurisdiction but, since your lodges share a building, the only real issue would be that his dues are going to another lodge, correct? As you mentioned, your lodge could still help with the degrees and, I assume, he could visit your lodge and vice-versa?

It's not as ideal as it would have been otherwise but it won't benefit anybody to be upset/frustrated. If it were my friend I'd just step back and let the other lodge investigate and vote on him...if nothing else he can change lodges later on correct?

JJones said:

I don't know how it may work in your jurisdiction but, since your lodges share a building, the only real issue would be that his dues are going to another lodge, correct? As you mentioned, your lodge could still help with the degrees and, I assume, he could visit your lodge and vice-versa?

Click to expand...

That's how I would view the situation. If everyone wanted to be make the best of the situation, you could have each lodge do a degree (Lodge A confers EA, team from Lodge B does FC) and then make a bigger team composed of both to confer the MM. Bury your hatchet and move forward.

It's not as ideal as it would have been otherwise but it won't benefit anybody to be upset/frustrated. If it were my friend I'd just step back and let the other lodge investigate and vote on him...if nothing else he can change lodges later on correct?

Click to expand...

Bingo.

Are we forgetting what the candidate and EA would want? They want to be raised in the same lodge. Seems pretty simple to me. Cut through all the bullshit and make the right decision. They want to be together. If someone "decided"'differently they were wrong. Who is this decision being made for?


Spes mea in Deo est

Tom Jr. said:

Are we forgetting what the candidate and EA would want? They want to be raised in the same lodge. Seems pretty simple to me. Cut through all the bullshit and make the right decision. They want to be together. If someone "decided"'differently they were wrong. Who is this decision being made for?

Click to expand...

So the potential brother's introduction into our fraternity is a bureaucratic nightmare manifested in a disagreement between lodges? Seems like that's the least peaceful or harmonious way to approach the issue. I would let him be received into the one lodge and then transfer his membership if it's that big a deal.

Edit: This isn't to say the first lodge's brother wasn't wrong. He was obviously a jerk about it, and the ideal resolution would be to just undo everything. Since that's not possible, you have this scenario. What happens now is that candidate gets to see how you and your brothers react to the situation. Nothing's stopping him from visiting the second lodge. He can even be "our brother who's eagerly waiting to transfer his membership to us."

Maybe taking the high road (and having the brother leave the first lodge) will leave that first group of brothers something to think about.

JCmasonSquared said:

So we've contacted the grand secretary for advice, who says since there has been a reading of the petition there MUST be an investigation and ballot, and THEN the candidate must request, in writing, that his petition be destroyed, and them petition our lodge, first reading, investigation, second reading, ballot all over again.

Not only does this seem to be a terrible first impression for the potential new candidate, it also seems to be a very unmasonic way of dealing with this.

I'm considering allowing them to keep the candidate, bring our brothers to their degrees to help with the work, allow them to keep his feed and dues, and have him demur from their lodge and join ours after raised. Any thoughts or ideas from the peanut gallery?


Part upon the square.

Click to expand...

This does not sound right to me. He can be initiated and then request a waiver of jurisdiction if he wants to move to another lodge, no? It may or may not require a vote by ballot or public vote but this seems like the most stable route to me.

We had an issue where an EA wanted to move to another lodge. Our lodge gave him a waiver of jurisdiction (in the sense we were letting him associate with another lodge within our state) and he continued on.

Edited: I would wait until he is accepted because if you piss someone off in his future lodge, he could be cubed out of spite and will have to wait the allotted time to reapply to the lodge he wanted in the first place.

On petitions I have read it asks if you have ever petitioned another lodge. Does your jurisdiction not include this question? Reading the answer to it would have handled the situation. In jurisdictions I know the name of every candidate who petitions must be reported to the Grand Secretary in case a candidate forgets or lies. Doing this also would have handled the situation.

I don't get it. The candidate wants to be in lodge with a specific friend. That friend is a member of both lodges. Whichever lodge gets the candidate it should work out. It doesn't even make sense to petition both lodges and then express a preference after that. Petitions aren't like college applications. That's why the question is on them and that's why the Gr Sec gets notified.

dfreybur said:

On petitions I have read it asks if you have ever petitioned another lodge. Does your jurisdiction not include this question? Reading the answer to it would have handled the situation. In jurisdictions I know the name of every candidate who petitions must be reported to the Grand Secretary in case a candidate forgets or lies. Doing this also would have handled the situation.

I don't get it. The candidate wants to be in lodge with a specific friend. That friend is a member of both lodges. Whichever lodge gets the candidate it should work out. It doesn't even make sense to petition both lodges and then express a preference after that. Petitions aren't like college applications. That's why the question is on them and that's why the Gr Sec gets notified.

Click to expand...

Yes this is on the petition because somehow they may have been black balled, they may have started it a long time ago and did not finish the process or something like that. We would never know if they lied if they put no. if they put yes we can ask what happened of them or the secratery of the other lodge.

jvarnell said:

We would never know if they lied if they put no.

Click to expand...

Unless the initial information was reported to the Grand Secretary, as Bro. Freyburger pointed out. Regardless of whether or not he followed through with the initial endeavor, his information would flag when he applied somewhere else later on. (this is all a hypothetical removed from the question at hand, of course)

The candidate emailed my lodge and expressed his interest in joining (this is the lodge his friend is a member of), immediately, before we contacted him, a brother with dual membership contacted him and got him a petition for the other lodge. He didn't petition both, he was approached and given a petition to the wrong lodge in order to help that lodge with membership.

I talked to the WM of that lodge, and he told me they would be balloting on him last night. Hopefully they didn't cube him based on the nonsense surrounding it (takes 3 cubes in New York, and then a year waiting period if rejected).

The brother who gave him a petition has a history in the district of poaching petitioners for this specific lodge, to try and rebuild their membership (he's a member of 4 lodges). In the past he's even (wrongfully) told a petitioner that his town doesn't have a lodge, and the nearest one is no. xxx.




Part upon the square.