Shiloh Lodge #327January 2004
Trestleboard
Shiloh Lodge #327
January 2004
Trestleboard
From the East
According to our good Secretary, we had even raisings and five affiliations in the 2003 which adds up to a total gain in membership of sixteen for, at least, a 10% growth. This was the result of the commitment on the part of our membership concentrate on and implement a serious attitude towards membership growth.
You may recall that our 2003 budget had potential deficit of around $900. During discussion, it was pointed out that a 10% increase in membership would eliminate this potential deficit.
Lets do the math. Each new member paid the lodge $100 to join. Ten bucks of this went to Grand Lodge, leaving us a gain of $90 for each candidate. $90 times 11 equals $990. That eliminates the projected deficit 2003!
Each new member will contribute approximately $35 in dues (Shiloh's portion) in 2004. 16 times $35 equals $560 additional income in 2004!
Time, patience and perseverance accomplish all things!
Thanks to all of our membership for granting me a very pleasant and rewarding as your Master. The tremendous cooperation and assistance I have been given makes me very proud to be a member of Shiloh Lodge.
Fraternally Yours,
Charles W. Amidon
Worshipful Master-2003
WHY FREEMASONRY SURVIVES
Institutions do not survive through the ages by accident; they live only through the possession and operation of everlasting principles. When an organization runs back beyond historic records, and relies upon tradition for the story of its origin, its career during a known period either justifies or falsifies the tradition. An ancestry of virtue and good works is a liberal education. The power of the accumulated wisdom of the past is a resistless impelling force upon the present. The architects, the decorators, the draftsmen, the woodcarvers, the workers in precious metals and the Masons who were building the famous Temple of King Solomon came from every nation in the then-known world. Their union of mutual help, protection, society and improvement was the marvel of an age when all navies were pirates and all nations enemies.
Masonry, marching under the leadership of God and the banner that bears the motto, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," with the peasant and the prince, the mechanic and the merchant, the learned and the unlearned following in equal rank and common step, knows neither race nor nationality, neither caste nor condition, as it proudly and beneficially moves down the centuries.
Chauncey M. Depew (I 834-1928)
Financier, U. S. Senator
DUTY
"Every crime against our laws, every sin against decency and morality, every sharp practice against square dealing in business, is a serious reflection on the Masonic Lodge, in the neighborhood in which it is committed. Masonry should not take the pure principles of morality and preserve them in the walled up seclusion of lodge halls, like as we preserve fruit and vegetables and keep them in dark cellars for our own use; but our lodges and our lives should be as lighthouses, blazing out the truths of right living, to bless the community, state and nation, in which we have our being."
Milton Winham, P.G.M., Arkansas
Odd Fact:
OK brand soda (produced by Coca-Cola in 1994/95) actually contained Acacia.
(Make what you will of that.)
We would like to provide support to our brethren in times of distress and celebrate with them in times of gladness. Please immediately inform any of your lodge officers of such information regarding yourself or a brother.