Brethren and Ladies,

             I hope you all had a joyous holiday season with your friends, family and loved ones. I would like to thank Wor. Jim Achenbach, PM, for again coordinating the food drive on December 21st, which is a part of our partnership in education to assist families who are unable to celebrate the holiday season, due to financial hardship or other personal issues. I have participated in this event for the last couple of years and just seeing the joy on those family faces when we do our part in their time of need is very heartwarming and makes me proud to be a Mason and to be part of such a wonderful lodge. 

            As we start off the New Year, I would like to thank everyone who attended our annual Installation of Officers for 2014. I am very grateful and honored to be serving as your Master for the ensuing masonic year and my sincere thanks to the officers of our lodge for their continued support and commitment in wanting to make this year a success.

            Our focus for 2014 as I stated at our installation will be working on improving our ritual. I strongly believe that the ritual is of great importance not only to us but to our visitors who attend either our degrees or stated meetings.  Also, our candidates who have joined our lodge to see, firsthand, what Masonry has to offer them, should be exposed to strong, dedicated and professional ritual so that their experience is an awesome experience whether they are being initiated, passed, or raised.  If there are no degrees during a month, we will practice one of the three degrees. As for Masonic education, we will have presentations in our Stated Meetings as well as during the months when we have no degrees.  Also, I have reserved the month of August for Masonic Education since the lodge will be dark.   Wor. Jim Achenbach, PM, will be the leader of this program since he has done such an excellent job with handling our Masonic education and it will be exciting to see what topics he will have for us.

            On December 17, 2013, we raised Bro. Steve Cumming to the sublime degree of Master Mason and heard Bro. Jason Bockerman give his 3rd Degree proficiency. Bro. Bockerman did an excellent job on his proficiency and Bro. Cumming’s received an excellent degree from the brothers of our lodge. Congratulations to the both of you and my many thanks to the Brethren who participated in the degree.

            January 7th, 2014, will be our first stated meeting of the New Year, so please join us since we will have a lot to discuss. As part of our monthly stated meetings, we will have presentations about the seven liberal arts and sciences as part of our masonic education which will be given by one of our new FellowCrafts. I am hoping, that by doing this, we can get our “new” Masons more involved in our stated meetings by showing them that they too are playing vital part with promoting our lodge, no matter what degree they are.  This however will alternate every other month so that our Junior Warden can read some excerpts from the CMC which is required to be read in lodge.  We will have our lodge picnic in June and are planning our table lodge in July.  There will be a lot of other exciting events to look forward to this year.

Remember, Tuesday nights is lodge night and hope to see you all there!     

Fraternally yours,

 

Wor. Ryan A. Bacaoco

Worshipful Master

SW Hackett Lodge# 574 F&AM