Brothers – Summer continues to get closer each day. Summer time brings family vacations, outdoor activities, trips and hopefully much needed relaxation. Our Lodge will also go “dark” for regular communications but that does not mean that our Masonic work will stop. Like anything else in life, our Lodge will continue on.
We will have our annual Lodge picnic tomorrow, Saturday 05-09-15 at the IBEW facility located at 301 E. 103rd Terrace Kansas City, MO. It is near I-435 and Holmes. For those who are familiar with where the Scout Shop is located at 103rd & Holmes, it is south of there. If you Google search the address it will show you the map. You can also search IBEW Local #124. The event will start at 11:00 AM. Food will be served at 12:00 noon. The Lodge will provide burgers, dogs, condiments and some drinks. We are asking brothers to bring sides and desserts. Last names starting with A-M are asked to bring a side dish and last names starting with N-Z are asked to bring a dessert. This is a family event and there are plenty of areas for children to run around and have fun.
Brother Tony Mesa is moving forward with the Fireworks Tent. This is our major fundraiser each year. The tent helps to provide for approximately 30% of our operating budget for the year and is a key factor to keeping our annual dues so low. Brother Tony needs people to sign up on the schedule to work. The more hours our lodge works, the more money we make and keep in our Lodge. Inflation and changing times keep us watching the horizon and as a Lodge, we are close to the “breaking point” financially. We need to keep the fireworks tent as profitable as possible and we need to keep the money from the tent in our Lodge. I know that many Brothers don’t have a lot of time in their schedules. If we can get an extra 20 Brothers to sign up, come in and work a simple 4 hours shift sometime during the week before the Fourth of July, or better yet having 10 brothers help out on Saturday July 4th itself, that will help the Lodge tremendously. Feel free to contact myself, the Lodge Secretary W.B. Hank or the website master and we will get you in contact with Brother Tony. We really need this to be a success.
We are also looking at other fundraisers. Brother Steve has a long history with BBQ competitions. In fact, Brother Steve has been known to win some. He is working to organize a competition hosted by our Lodge sometime in the middle of August 2015. He has secured the place and is rapidly working on getting sponsors and competitive teams signed up. Brother Steve has a committee that is helping him through this, but I am sure that any other help will be gratefully appreciated. As this will be our first attempt at the competition, we have no idea about how successful it will be, yet.
We are scheduled to do two First Degrees at our next communications on Thursday 05-21-15. We will open lodge early at 7:00 PM. We will start the degree work at 7:30 PM. I know that it would make a super first impression for these men to see a full Lodge room for their degree work. If you are available to be there, please mark it on your calendars. We can always make room for an extra Brother at our meetings!
We will be hosting a MoChip’s event later this summer. It will be held in conjunction with the Raytown Chamber of Commerce Community Health Fair. More information will be coming out about this but let’s start spreading the word. It will be on Saturday 08-08-15.
As you can all see, we are moving forward with a lot of projects quickly. I truly appreciate the support we get from our fraternity. I will keep my fingers crossed that more Brothers can find a little time in their busy schedules to help us out. A little bit of help can truly go a very long way for all of us.
I want to wish everyone a safe, happy and healthy summer. May we all get to enjoy it with those we care about. May it be filled with lots of laughter and happy memories.
Sincerely,Tom Saccardi