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What's for dinner?

JamesMichael

Premium Member
Tonight is our regular stated meeting and I am now getting the ingredients together for the dinner I wonder how much your lodge spends on dinner for the meal and what do you typically have for dinner we like to make it special and we spend 50 to 70 dollars on supplies for the meal each meeting

I typically stop by the local grocery store or food supply store and buy bulk food items I'm not sure what we're going to have tonight, no box dinners .
I arrive at the lodge at 4:30 p.m. Meal served at 6:30 p.m.

What does your lodge do for the meal ?
 

Levelhead

Premium Member
We have a kitchen in our lodge so it cuts the cost down to each member paying 5 bucks

Lately
-spaghetti meatballs & salad
-store bought samwitches
-tacos
-fried fish
-hot dogs/burger



Sent From Bro Carl's Freemasonry Pro App
 

phulseapple

Premium Member
We spend on average about $300 for our dinners. We have a caterer and have begun doing our meals in the form of an agape. We are leaning towards Observant Masonry and this is one of the things we are doing to enhance our experience.
 

Texan92

Registered User
I don't know how many to expect at our meals makes it hard for me. I spend between 50 and 100 dollars for food items. Sometimes I ask the lodge to reimburse me sometimes I don't. Last year I themed the meal with the month. Example November we had turkey, Christmas we had ham March we had gumbo. I thought it would bring men to the lodge who have not attended in a while I was wrong.


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japool

Registered User
Our Lodge has budgeted $250 per stated meeting meal. I am the Senior Steward, and I spend between $200 and $250. We take in at least $100 in contributions. We also have 2 potlucks, and the OES feeds us 1 month. With the extra, we try to have something, nothing big, as a snack for Floor School on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Recent stated meeting meals have been a baked potato bar, taco bar, burgers and hot dogs, and BBQ. We're having Sloppy Joe's next month.
 

Warrior1256

Site Benefactor
We have a kitchen in our lodge so it cuts the cost down to each member paying 5 bucks

Lately
-spaghetti meatballs & salad
-store bought samwitches
-tacos
-fried fish
-hot dogs/burger



Sent From Bro Carl's Freemasonry Pro App
We also have a kitchen so it makes preparing meals cheaper. However sometimes our cook will just buy a bunch of pizzas which is fine. I have only visited two other lodges besides my own and none of them charged for meals.
 

Pscyclepath

Premium Member
We put out a donation box, with a usual donation of $5 per person.

As Junior Warden this year, part of my year planning was to establish a kitchen/refreshment budget, and try to stick to it. Budgeting $5 per plate, and planning for 25 plates per stated meeting, 50 for degrees and family nights. Experience shows that we're hitting 25 or so for stated, 25-to 30 for EA and FC degrees, 35-45 for MM degrees, and 60 for family night.

Last night was a MM degree, 43 plates, and the menu featured taco salad, beans & cornbread, banana pudding, bread pudding, Cave City watermelon, and iced tea. Spent $92 on groceries (hamburger is pretty high right now); took in $125 in the collection box.

Stated meeting last week featured roasted pork loin & gravy, mashed potatoes, pinto beans, buttered corn, tossed salad, cornbread, banana pudding, & iced tea. 25 plates served.

Family night is a potluck meal, though with our growing numbers, we have way outgrown the potluck model so I do what's pretty much a full meal (Lodge has historically provided the meat entree), so I did a couple of pit hams, potato salad, and beans & cornbread, plus whatever the potluck brings in. We fed 57 plates, but do not put the donation box out for family night, as this is our monthly open house for all comers.

Past meals over the summer have featured Louisiana gumbo, chicken-fried steak, corned beef & cabbage, jambalaya, red beans & rice, pork loin in several styles (it's the cheapest meat entree for these sorts of numbers), salisbury steak, spaghetti, chicken & dumplings, taco salad, oven-fried pork steaks, ham, beef stew, and others. I still have about 20 lbs of rice that a brother donated, and one of the OES ladies filled my freezer with some pasta stuff collected from a closing restaurant, so I have to figure out something to do with that in the near future, so it's an ongoing deal.

I serve as half of our kitchen staff over at the Scottish Rite temple, and so had a little over a year's experience there before stepping up into the JW chair. As Jr. Warden, I pretty much get stuck with the kitchen duties, though I have a couple of our EA's and FC's helping out, and building a bit of interest in forming a standing kitchen committee rather than depending on the skills of whoever is sitting in the JW's chair. The standing committee works well at the Scottish Rite, and that's something we can hopefully transfer over to the blue lodge.

As Emeril sometimes says, we do real cooking in here, we cook from scratch, and serve home-style comfort foods. No take-out chicken or pizza...

It's been a busy year so far, and has pretty well worn me down, as we put these sorts of meals on at least twice a month (plus the monthly AASR meeting), and with degree work over the past couple months, there have been stretches where I've put on the festive board every single week. And we do a monthly Saturday breakfast, too, btw...

But 90% of what happens in our lodge rotates around our dining room/fellowship hall. We have high attendance numbers, and lots of visitors, because the brethren know that if they come to Adoniram, we set a good table and they'll be well-fed with good company. And we do it with consistency. It's as much of a recruiting and retention effort as anything else we do ;-)
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
So you invite spouses and kids to every month dinner? That's a great idea

In some states the "Stated meeting dinner" system is popular. The officer corps minus the stewards go upstairs to open the lodge then call to refreshment. Everyone meetings downstairs for dinner. Then the members go upstairs and call to labor. There's a ladies' meeting downstairs, a men's meeting upstairs. Then everyone meetings downstairs again for refreshment over coffee and dessert.

This works very well because it keeps the families involved. Back when we lived in Seattle metro for a couple of years I affiliated with Seaside lodge that did the Stated meeting dinner system and it's a common practice in Washington state. It seems rare or unknown in plenty of states these days.
 

Brother JC

Moderating Staff
Staff Member
In my NM lodges, dinner is always open to family and guests. After dinner, the Brethren go open lodge and the families go home, or some of the spouses go out together. My CA lodge does it differently, but the others in the area seem to follow that form, as well.
 
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