MASTER’S MESSAGE (January - March 2010 Trestleboard as a PDF)

Greetings from the East Brothers:

    I am humbled once again by the vote of confidence of the Brothers to elect me to the East for another year.  It is unfortunate that our 2009 Senior Warden was unable to continue on, but I will do my best to serve the lodge for another year.

    We continued with many of the successful programs of the past and tried a few new ones this past year and we will continue to do that again this year.  Coming up on March 20th, we will once again hold our Ladies at Table to honor the ladies in our lives.   For those of you that have not been to the lodge recently, this is an excellent opportunity to enjoy the fellowship of your brothers and their ladies.  This event has been a sellout the past few years, so please reserve a spot early with JW Michael Hudson. 

    We are also getting called on more frequently by CPTV to man the phones for the Lady Huskies basketball games, so RW Rich Beebe is putting together a call and email list to let the brothers know when we are asked to support.  We have been asked to have a small contingent for the Jan. 2nd and the Jan. 4th games, and will need a large group for the ladies last regular season game on Feb. 27th.  If you are interested, please contact Rich at 569-0163. 

    Coming up on Jan. 28th, Columbia Lodge will be hosting the Blue Lodge Council meeting and holding a dinner before.  Any brother is welcome to attend and find out what the other lodges in our district are doing.  Just a couple of days later on the 30th, we will need brothers to support a CHIP event at the Hebron Avenue School.  If you are available to help with this event, please contact Arnie Grot at 633-5849.

    We have developed a pretty large email list to keep the brothers informed of Lodge events between Trestleboard mailings.  If you are not getting those notices, please feel free to contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I will make sure that you are added to the list. 

    This past fall we attempted to run a fundraising trip to the National Heritage Museum and the Saugus Ironworks.  We only ended up with 10 people on the trip, so it was not very successful as a fundraiser, but all who went on the trip had a great time.  If any brother has an idea for a fundraiser or event for the lodge, please feel free to share it with me or any other officer, so we can work to develop programs of interest to the members of the lodge.

    Just a reminder, dues are payable on the 1st of January every year.  The lodge voted this past fall to add a $20 service fee to any dues not paid by the end of January.  The reason for this was to entice a brother to get his dues paid early and to help alleviate some of the work on the secretary throughout the year tracking dues payments.  Every brother should realize that we have to pay their Grand Lodge assessment early in the year, and the lodge needs these funds to make those payments, so thank you to all the brothers that have already done that.

    I also would like to thank the brothers that answered the call for the wheelchairs for the lodge.  We now have several wheelchairs on each floor of the lodge.  Lastly a big Thank You needs to go out to WB Mario Accornero, who just stepped down as President of the Building Association at our Annual Meeting.  Mario had served on the Building Association for over 40 years and has left some big shoes to be filled.  To honor Brother Mario, he was voted President Emeritus at the meeting and that is an honor well deserved.