I always find jurisdictional differences interesting. I can only speak for my Lodge and what happens in My District, but the planning for one's year in the East starts with the time leading up to nomination and election as JW. We nominally follow a Progressive line starting with the JD with the assumption that JD leads to SD, leads to JW leads to SW leads to WM. However it is quite common for Deacons to drop out of the line. As an example this year I was newly raised 2 weeks before our elections and the various non elected chairs had been planned by the incoming WM. By March the JD announced that they were too busy with work and family to attend lodge, and I was asked to fill that chair. Over the summer our SD, who was supposed to have been learning the work necessary to stand for election as JW decided to resign from the Lodge for personal reasons, so come September I was asked to fill the SD chair and learn the work.
In order to be eligible to stand for election as JW you must attend District School, be signed off by a Sr. Instructor as proficient in conducting the Business of the Lodge and conferring the EA degree. You also must have approval of the DDGM in order to stand for election. Anyone wishing to be on the ballot for any elected office must state their intentions, in writing, to the WM and Secretary by the November Stated Meeting. Our officer elections and Installations take place at our December stated meeting and the new Officers are officially in their Offices on St. John's Day.
As I have been signed off as proficient, approved by the DDGM and properly submitted my name, and no one else has, I am pretty much assured that I will be the JW for the next masonic year. The incoming WM (currently SW) has been working on and refining his plan for next year during the entire 2 years he has been a Warden. At the November District Board of Governors Meeting (Consisting of the DDGM and WM, SW & JW from each lodge in the district) all of the incoming WMs had to present the plans for next year and submit them for approval by the DDGM. Next week the incoming WM, the incoming SW and myself have a meeting to review the 5 year plan developed last year by the WM, SW & JW and refine it for the next 5 years. At that point I will have input into the plan and be able to start planning for my year in the East in 2020.
We sometimes grumble among ourselves that our DDGM is a tad strict and always has something to change or add to anything we say, but, I think we have a solid group of Lodges in our district due to his leadership and insistence that we are proficient, coordinated. make solid plans and carry out those plans