FREEMASONRY
~ A WAY OF LIFE ~
Greetings from the East,
I hope that you all have had a wonderful holiday season. I want to begin by saying that I am honored to be serving as Worshipful Master of Arcadia Lodge and that I look forward to a great year with your help and guidance. I thought that Brother Fredrick Killian said it best at last month's stated meeting. He noticed some brothers that he had not met before at the meeting and expressed the fact that there are many brothers of Arcadia that he is not familiar with or would not know if he met them on the street. That is a sentiment that is true for me as well as many of our recently raised brothers, that being said I want to invite all of you back to a stated meeting or degree to get reacquainted with some old friends and make some new ones. The calendar is maintained on the website and there will be many opportunities coming up the next couple of months.
Besides our regular meetings and degree work we will have some special activities this year as well. One of those is to be involved with the Oblong Square Club, a ritual study group that will be meeting on the second Thursdays of each month. This is a group of lodges in Boone, Madrid, and Nevada who have been meeting to practice ritual similar to MI/DL clubs or a regional school. We may have a conflict in January due to the stated meeting being moved to the 8th but we will do what we can for future months. We are planning a fellowship night for Thursday, January 29, 2009 where we would like to see as many members as possible come out and just visit, play cards, share some pizza and fellowship getting to know each other better.
In case some of you were not aware, Jeremy Davis is in the Grand Lodge Family this year serving as Senior Grand Deacon. We will be hosting a Grand Lodge Reception on February 21, 2009 and I invite you all to attend in support of Jeremy, as well as Grand Master Jack Butler.
In addition to the Grand Lodge Reception and in concert with hopefully all lodges in Iowa we will be taking part in the Statewide Re-obligation Night. This is directed from the Grand Lodge of Iowa as a night to break out your own white leather aprons and to come to lodge to re-obligate ourselves by reviewing our obligations as a lodge as well as grips, signs, tokens, etc. It sounds like a great night of fellowship and education and will take place on Monday, March 30, 2009. There will be more details to come on this night as we receive more information from the Grand Lodge.
We will continue to look to meet the needs of our members and address the things that you are looking for in your lodge. I would appreciate you coming to me or one of the officers and expressing your concerns and we will do our best to address them. Serving you this year are SW – David Baker, JW Marty Jacobs, Treasurer – Taner Sen, Secretary – Jay Cole Simser, SD – Fredrick Killian, JD – Justin Dodge, SS – Tom Meskan, JS – Steven Schroeder, and as Tyler – Lance Olson. Again, we look forward to serving you and making Arcadia Lodge one of the premier lodges in the state.
I look forward to seeing you at the lodge sometime soon and do not forget to mark your calendars for some of these dates coming up in the next few months. Thanks again for your trust in me and this group of men.
Paul Miller, WM
January 2009 Calendar
5th DeMolay 7pm
6th Eastern Star 7pm
7th HyVee Coffee 9am
8th Stated Meeting 5$ dinner 6:30 pm
9th Amaranth 7 pm
12th DeMolay 7 pm
14th HyVee Coffee 9 am
15th Arcadia Lodge 7 pm
19th DeMolay 7 pm
20th White Shrine 7 pm
21st HyVee Coffee 9 am
21st Old Maine Brewery After Hours 5:15 pm
22nd Arcadia Lodge 7pm
26th DeMolay 7 pm
28th HyVee Coffee 9 am
28th York Rite 7 pm
29th Arcadia Lodge 7pm
January Birthdays! Happy Birthday from Arcadia Lodge!
1-1 Greg Seaton
1-2 Bob Harvey
1-4 Larry Wirth
1-10 Andrew Christensen
1-11 Robert Shearer
1-21 Dean Flummerfelt
1-21 Charles Hammerburg
1-24 Austin Woodin
1-25 Jeremy Davis
1-26 Michael Loftin
1-27 Matthew Hargarfer
1-29 Kurtis Ness
1-29 Robert VanDoren
1-30 Nathen Johnson
1-31 Mitchel Caltrider
GUESS THE ARCADIA MASON?
Feel like you don't know your fellow brothers in the lodge? You may be missing out on a life long friendship filled with love, respect and fraternal kinship. You may be surprised to find that you have more in common with these great men than you think. To aid in this venture you are herby being brought from darkness to light on the many wonderful Arcadia brothers that surround us everyday. This month will embark a great journey for what I hope to be a long tradition of us all getting to learn about each other.
I am a Manager of Napa Auto Parts store in Ames.
I am a single dad with one son named Cayden.
My hobbies are camping, working on cars, being outdoors, favorite car is a Ford Mustang, playing games with my family, watching movies.
My favorite restaurant is O'hana's Steakhouse
My favorite sport is Football and my team is the Chicago Bears.
My favorite movie is Invincible.
My favorite music is 80's rock hair bands.
My most memorable experience in masonry was when I was raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason. It meant so much to me because I immediately knew that every mason in the lodge with me was instantly my brother.
WHO AM I ?
*** The answer of this brother mason will be in the February's issue of Arcadia Lodge #249 ***
Visit us on the Web at http://IowaMasons.com/249.html
"We Masons are among the fortunate ones who are taught to meet together with others opposing or competitive ideas and yet respect each other as Brothers"
****** Special thanks from our Past Master Jeremy Davis to all those that donated in the "Toys for Tots" drive …… THANK YOU!