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Table Lodge Legislation

Brother JC

Moderating Staff
Staff Member
I, too, would like to read the actual Recommendation, even though I don't have a duck in the race. I'm afraid that not only will Table Lodges (as Brother Ecossais has described them) be affected, but "festive boards" in general. I'm sure Jewel Lightfoot 1283 and St. Alban's 1455 are making alternate plans as we speak...
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
Well, this is not a description on any "table lodge" where I was a participant, neither domestic nor foreign.

Yet that's exactly what a Table Lodge is. A tiled meeting that is a dinner with toasts. Above I posted the Maine version. Here's a link showing the Illinois version. http://bobdill.tripod.com/Table_Lodge.PDF

If dinners you have been to were not tiled, then they were not Table Lodge events. There is unlimited variety in festive board events that are not tiled and thus not Table Lodge.

I wandered around on the GLofTX web site but could not find the text of any resolution. Maybe this is because I'm not a member of a GLofTX lodge until tonight's Stated meeting - There should be a member's only section with that sort of data.
 

tomasball

Premium Member
It's worth noting that lodges in Texas didn't just start doing table lodges out of the blue. It started with a report at Grand Lodge by the Committee on Membership Maintenance. I can't put my finger on the year, but it was the mid-nineties, and the committee chair was John Henderson of San Antonio. The committee recommended that lodges hold table lodges as means of increasing interest and fellowship. They printed a suggested script. The committee report was adopted by unanimous vote of the Grand Lodge.
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
It's worth noting that lodges in Texas didn't just start doing table lodges out of the blue. It started with a report at Grand Lodge by the Committee on Membership Maintenance. I can't put my finger on the year, but it was the mid-nineties, and the committee chair was John Henderson of San Antonio. The committee recommended that lodges hold table lodges as means of increasing interest and fellowship. They printed a suggested script. The committee report was adopted by unanimous vote of the Grand Lodge.

Thus it is appropriate to say that any recommendation on Table Lodge is an effort to ban them.

So far I haven't found any scheduled Table Lodge in the last year. The only ones I've found were back in Chicago - one that I've attended annually for years and one by one of my lodges that hosts one every 2-3 years.
 

tomasball

Premium Member
I managed to track that down a little more accurately. It was the 1991 report of the Committee on Membership Maintenance, chaired by Powell. He gave John Henderson credit for the research on Table Lodge resources they were providing to Lodges. I knew Bro. Henderson was mixed up in there somewhere.
 

JJones

Moderator
I wish I had known that it was something that we could do in this jurisdiction all along. To be honest, I never saw any references to table lodges in the law book or monitor so that led me to believe it was just something nobody did and wasn't accepted.

Where could I find this table lodge script from the 90's?
 

tomasball

Premium Member
If you read the proceedings of 1991, it was available from the GS office back then. Who knows now? I remember it being pretty close to the one promoted by the MSA, except it included a toast to Sam Houston. Bill, we do still have three table lodges a year...and in February we have a ladies banquet. I don't think we would slash our wrists if GL told us to stop...I imagine it would still be alright to hold festive boards.
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
Bro. Tom- does Mercedes Lodge still have a quarterly table Lodge?

Before asking if there's one before the GL meeting I looked it up in Mapquest. 4-5 hours each way from my place. Hmm. Is there one before GL?

Merry to meet, sad to part, merry to meet again. Merry to meet again, again, merry to meet again!
 

Timothy Fleischer

Registered User
Committee reports are part of the annual "book" printed by the Grand Lodge every year, I think, in addition to the annual reports of the Lodges themselves. It might be worthwhile to look through that decade for the report and any action taken resulting from it for the discussion that is likely to take place on this proposal.
 

tomasball

Premium Member
Now that I've had a chance to read the text of the GM recommendation on Table Lodges, I would say the thrust is more to establish a uniform Texas table lodge ritual than to stop the practice altogether. It also appears that someone pointed out the 1991 action to the Grand Master before the final printing of the recommendation, because it now makes mention of the ritual kept in the grand secretary's office.
 

crono782

Premium Member
Now that I've had a chance to read the text of the GM recommendation on Table Lodges, I would say the thrust is more to establish a uniform Texas table lodge ritual than to stop the practice altogether.

I concur.


My Freemasonry
 
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dfreybur

Premium Member
Now that I've had a chance to read the text of the GM recommendation on Table Lodges, I would say the thrust is more to establish a uniform Texas table lodge ritual than to stop the practice altogether.

This doesn't need analysis paralysis. This needs a sample booklet to be proposed and voted on. And since there's a ritual in the Gr Sec office that's all that's needed. "We have this one. It works. It was approved in 1991. We want it to be available to members by order from the Gr Sec. This vote is to formalize that request. All in favor. All opposed. The ayes/nays have it. Whack. By the way brethren, lodges conducting a Table Lodge this year will be announced on the floor next year." The best brownie points in Masonry are being marched out on the floor and congratulated for a job well done. Conducting a Table Lodge is a job well done. Giving out actual physical brownies on the GL floor, I suggest that to next year's GM.
 

jwhoff

Premium Member
Yep! They're sure to try to water this one down.

Most unfortunately, in more ways than one!

Pray brethren ... for another Enlightenment!
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
They're sure to try to water this one down

I've read the section listed in the big document of legislation. It is indeed watered down. A shame really as it loses the value that is to be found in the responses, discourses and toasts. Best to pass it then any time you see a member of the committee on work that a real version should be offered and passed now that a watered down temporary version was passed.

Most unfortunately, in more ways than one!

Viewing brewed materials as sacred per Masonic tradition. Can't have that. Unfortunate.
 

Warrior1256

Site Benefactor
A "Table Lodge" is a tyled lodge meeting, duly and constitutionally opened, usually on the E.A. Degree (but sometimes on a higher degree), with the members seated at the table enjoying dinner. That is what a "Table Lodge" is. Every Masonic encyclopedist and reputable Masonic author who has written about "Table Lodges" over the past 200 years or more all agree on this basic definition.
I had never heard of a "Table Lodge" before. Thanks for the info.
 
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