Has your Lodge ever hosted an Open House? If so, how was the turnout? What activities did you have?
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Open House
- Thread starter Blake Bowden
- Start date
cemab4y
Premium Member
My lodge (Macedonian Lodge, Quincy Mass.) hosts two (2) open houses per year. Every lodge in the entire state of Massachusetts hosts two open houses per year on the same dates, statewide, and Macedonian lodge participates on schedule.
Here is the run-down: The Grand Lodge of Mass. directs that all lodges in in the state open on a Saturday in April and October. Massachusetts is a small state, and the Boston newspapers and television stations are available state-wide. The open houses are announced in statewide media.
The lodges open up, and serve coffee and snacks. Activities for children are sometimes provided. Some lodges get Ben Franklin impersonators, and other famous Freemason impersonators. Some lodges will have members show up in revolutionary-war costumes.
The lodges set up TVs and play short masonic DVDs, and other informative programs. Literature is distributed. People who attend are encouraged to ask questions about Masonry, and the appendant organizations. There are stacks of petition forms available, and if any man is interested in petitioning, he is given a form.
The result of these open houses, is that Massachusetts masonry is growing. Some lodges have a waiting list of men waiting to petition.
In 2007, only two Grand Lodges out of the entire USA showed any growth in Masonry. Massachusetts and Delaware.
If your lodge is considering holding an open house, You should look at how they do it in Massachusetts. You could consider having all of the lodges in your district hold an open house, on the same day, and collaborate on your media announcements.
I wish you luck.
Here is the run-down: The Grand Lodge of Mass. directs that all lodges in in the state open on a Saturday in April and October. Massachusetts is a small state, and the Boston newspapers and television stations are available state-wide. The open houses are announced in statewide media.
The lodges open up, and serve coffee and snacks. Activities for children are sometimes provided. Some lodges get Ben Franklin impersonators, and other famous Freemason impersonators. Some lodges will have members show up in revolutionary-war costumes.
The lodges set up TVs and play short masonic DVDs, and other informative programs. Literature is distributed. People who attend are encouraged to ask questions about Masonry, and the appendant organizations. There are stacks of petition forms available, and if any man is interested in petitioning, he is given a form.
The result of these open houses, is that Massachusetts masonry is growing. Some lodges have a waiting list of men waiting to petition.
In 2007, only two Grand Lodges out of the entire USA showed any growth in Masonry. Massachusetts and Delaware.
If your lodge is considering holding an open house, You should look at how they do it in Massachusetts. You could consider having all of the lodges in your district hold an open house, on the same day, and collaborate on your media announcements.
I wish you luck.
just to add to my brothers post, we also have a large group of females that come in either with their husbands or boyfriends and some just by themselves wanting information. We give them tours, brochures and will sit down and talk with them on all aspects of Freemasonry. ALso the GL a number of years ago produced large banners and gave one to each Masonic buidling in the state, each year a update sticker is issued to each building and placed over the old one and the banner is hung up weeks b4 the open house. We begun running open houses in 1988, but it has been only the last number of years that we do the bi-open each year.
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4
4thgenPM
Guest
Blake,
Does Gonzales Lodge still do an open house on the day of the "Come & Take It" celebration? I spent several hours in your dining room a few years ago talking to one of your Past Masters...there were several non-Masonic visitors as well.
Does Gonzales Lodge still do an open house on the day of the "Come & Take It" celebration? I spent several hours in your dining room a few years ago talking to one of your Past Masters...there were several non-Masonic visitors as well.
Yeah I think that was thrown together that year and not much if any money spent to advertise that to the public. I f we made a big group effort in TExas I think we would have quality members comin out our ears.
We held tours of the Ft Worth Temple during an event and lots of people we very curious as to what was inside and we ended up giving out about 5 petitions getting 2 back that was not bad for one day and little money spent to advertise. Giving the tours was a blast lots of questions about the craft.
Unfortunately no.
Brother Blake, you and Joey can make things happen. Go for it!