From the Treasurer’s Vault – May 2018

Brothers,

Here we are with a third of the year gone and you are wondering what tale of woe is going to come from the Treasurers Vault.

Well here it is, we are in good shape, there is money in the checking account, money in the Money Market account with Edward Jones and the investments have been doing very well. If we are doing so well why am I writing?

The news is not all that bad. For several years we have had dinner at 6:30 pm and open lodge at 7:30. Many of our brothers like having dinner with their Masonic friends and family. For some it is a break from the meals served at home or at a retirement community (I will say that the meals I have had at different retirement communities have been quite tasty). The problem is that our spending for meals is a major outlay compared to the amount we receive in donations for the meals. One would think that if a meal costs $15.00 per head to prepare and we ask for a donation of $10.00 our total output per meal would be $5.00 per head. Considering that we must guarantee a minimum attendance and if we don’t meet or exceed that minimum we pay for those unused meals, and those brothers, who for whatever reason, are not able to donate places us further in the red every time we have a meal.

For example, normally we guarantee the caterer a minimum of 35 meals which is $525.00, and in a perfect world 35 people would attend and donate $10.00 to the meal, we would collect $350.00, making the output for the lodge at $175.00 or $2100.00 for the year. In the last couple of years our deficit has exceeded approximately $7500.00 annually. This I do not believe we can sustain for very long.

The Worshipful Master and officers have had several conversations concerning this issue. We have an idea that may help the situation. We have asked the Grand Master for and received a dispensation for June (and we will ask the new Grand Master for a dispensation for July and August) to allow us to start our meeting at 7:00 pm rather than 7:30, from 6:30 to 7:00 we will have finger foods available and after lodge a light repast consisting of pizza (or some suitable fare) and possible a beer or two. Hopefully this will bring our expenses back in line with our budget. Do not forget the charity pot is always available for donations.

This does not mean that we will not have dinners before lodge, there are special occasions where dinners are appropriate and need to be placed in our schedule, such as Valentines to honor our sweethearts, Past Masters/Widows night, and most certainly the dinner at Christmas time.

Thank you, brothers for your time and I hope to see all of you at Lodge.