i have seen both sides of this happen, for one thing over the last 100+ years we grew too fast for our own good. Our numbers grew but our membership stayed the same and our members grew old and no one to replace them in lodge. The other hand is that too many new lodges grew out of these times and now we have mergers for there is not enough (not members )but officers to maintain that lodge. Out of quality you can get quanity and on the other hand you can look for quanity. I have seen a large number of masons join over the years since we have started this PR campaign and one day classes and open houses. I think it is good to advertise to a point, get the GOOD word out about us and how to join if interested. But where we fall short is when these men of quanity(not all, but some) enter and find that that is it? They leave or find out about politics in the lodge turns them off. Ads are good to a point, but I think we need to go back to old school and educate our members once they start coming in. We need to keep that spark lite. Once we get in the quanity they will work on getting more of quanity members in and I have seen dead lodges come alive again up here in the North because of this. The ads work, getting the word out is good but it takes work. Two lodges here in Cambridge advertise in local school papers, The Harvard lodge started this back a few years ago with a monthly post in the Crimson newspaper and a couple of years ago the MIT lodge did the same thing in their school paper. IT was a way to get the word out since both lodges do not have any site at the campus. Both ads have worked to a point. The Harvard Lodge through a huge campaign that included ads but other things as well brought in in 2006-2007 200 men. Now I do not know how many stayed, but years ago this Lodges was DEAD, I attained both fraternal and offical visits to the lodge and on both visits the suite outnumbered the members and officers present. Today they have between 300 to 400 members and about 40 to 100 make meetings. But this is a specaility lodge and good number leave after graduating the school.