POINTS TO PONDER
“A POSITIVE LOOK AT MASONIC CHALLENGES”
by W.Bro. D. K. Armstrong

The short piece of Masonic education I intend to
present this evening was created in the Lodge
of Fidelity in which I am the Brother to Brother
coordinator. The Lodge of Fidelity; which is a
Lodge in Ottawa District No. 1, the BROTHER TO
BROTHER program works closely with the Long
Range Planning Committee because the Lodge
views the two activities as highly complementary.
Last year the Worshipful Master took advantage of
the assistance of Grand Lodge to conduct a long
range-planning workshop for the Lodge. With the
assistance of R.W. Bro. Terry Maclean all brothers
in attendance worked through a series of questions
designed to identify what was working well, what
wasn’t and what the priorities should be moving
forward. The workshop provided much food for
thought as well as concrete action steps for the
future. In many ways that workshop was the impetus
for the material I will present tonight.

Lodge of Fidelity had experienced a sharp drop
in membership in the period from 1998 to 2002.
Some members of the lodge were very concerned.
I shared that concern but became interested in
learning how alone Lodge of Fidelity was or wasn’t
in this situation. Particularly from either a long range
planning or a BROTHER TO BROTHER perspective
I had heard it said that there was nothing that could
be done, because the drop in numbers was simply
a result of demographics and increasing age of
Masons. I needed a better sense of the situation
because if it were indeed true that nothing could
be done then there was little if any need for a
BROTHER TO BROTHER chairman. While I was
pretty familiar with the situation in Lodge of Fidelity
I became curious about “the numbers game” on a
wider basis than a single Lodge. I hasten to add that
you have probably all heard the old saying of there
being “lies, damn lies and statistics” and that any
kind of statistical “snapshot” is unlikely to provide
much in the way of concrete answers by itself. What
I hope to do this evening both for my Lodge and
any other one that may be interested is to present
some information that can be incorporated into the
thinking and experience base of Masons. Only
from that combination can any “answers” or ideas
emerge.

The source for any of the statistical material I present tonight is the Proceedings of Grand Lodge for the year 2002; specifi cally the section entitled “Returns of Lodges As At December 31st, 2001”. For those of you not familiar with the material it is a table of some 25 pages which in addition to some other information contains the numbers of men who were or had:
• Initiated
• Passed
• Raised
• Joined
• Restored
• Resigned
• Died
• Been suspended.

Any arithmetic errors are mine and mine alone – I
also rounded so any totals may not represent a full
100% of the sample. I will attempt to explain any
assumptions I made as I go along.

The first item of interest to me was some assessment
of the numbers of Lodges that were decreasing in
size, remaining stable or actually increasing in size
from one year to the next. The method was fairly
simple – I used the summary figures in the table to
assess whether each Lodge was larger or smaller
based on 2001 membership role against the same
figures for 2000. I kept a tally sheet and a cup of
coffee handy throughout the whole process but
came up with some interesting material.

It will come as no surprise I’m sure to hear that
69% of the Lodges in Ontario are declining in size.
More interesting to me was the fact that about 9%
remained stable from one year to the next and
some 22% had increased their membership in the
time period being measured. The large number
of Lodges with declining membership coincided
with my own observations and anecdotal evidence
from other Masons and some related readings. My
attention however was drawn to the fact that on
a provincial basis over a quarter of Lodges were
remaining stable or growing in size. I worry that
the numbers with membership declines get too
much attention and that those who are managing
growth may not be getting enough. I wonder what
the secrets of growth and stability could be for these
Lodges:

Unfortunately I don’t have an answer for you,
it may be some of the things I suggested or it
may be none of them, or even more likely, some
combination of a number of factors. While most
Lodges are constrained in their demographic reach
or geographic location but if we could uncover some
of the “best practices” (to apply a business term)
then there could be real valuable lessons that could
be spread to other lodges.

I then asked myself the same question at a district
rather than a provincial level. For Ottawa District
1 the numbers are fairly similar. 66% of Lodges
decreased in size for the period represented in the
table while 7% percent remained stable and about
27% increased in size. As a district we are doing a
little better than the province as a whole. Perhaps
there is some solace in being no worse off as a
district than the province it but I prefer to think of it
as being possible that some of those “best practices”
may be closer to home than we might think. The
challenge before us as a District is to examine our
own “best practices” more closely and also to learn
what we can from across the province.

The next issue of interest to me was a more detailed
look at how members were being lost. My interest
in this issue was born of the experience in my own
Lodge. We had certainly experienced the loss of
members from death. I had also observed however,
that we had lost a significant number of members
who were still young and healthy. I looked at the way
that Masons exit a Lodge and there are basically
three. They are:
• Death
• Resignation
• Suspension.

Here I was forced to make an assumption because
the statistics I had at hand did not contain a more
detailed breakdown of the reasons for suspension.
Based on my own experience and supported by
discussions with other Lodges I feel it is fairly safe
to assume that the primary reason for suspension is
for non-payment of dues.

At a provincial level about 41% of membership
lodge exits were due to death of the member. Again,
probably not a huge surprise but of more interest to
me was that the percentage of resignations equals
those due to death – 41%. Another 18% are lost due
to suspension.

My own view is that is there is only a difference of
degree of propriety between the resignation of a
member and the suspension for non-payment of
dues. The member has decided to leave a Lodge
– some are simply more interested in leaving in
good standing then others.

So, 41% of the lodge exits were due to death of the
member and a total of 59% were due to resignation
or suspension. Perhaps demographics and the
laws of nature are not the enemy we thought they
were. My own experience is that suspensions
and resignations generally happen fairly early in a
Masonic career. Have we misrepresented ourselves
somehow? Is it too expensive? Is it too time
consuming? Is it too difficult? Are we so effective
at teaching the lessons of morality and truth that
they can be gained in a couple of years rather than
a lifetime? Again I have no answers and we could
build a list of reasons we’ve heard for ceasing to
be a Lodge member all night. I won’t deny that life,
business and family dynamics have changed. There
may also be much more competition for spare time
than there used to be but I found these particular
numbers quite an eye opener.

*** This will be continued in the Fall 2004 issue ***