I had a thread here, that is now in the archives.  But here's the text:

Well, it's going along. I think we could be doing more, but as with all things I've only got a few dedicated guys to help out.

Blythewood Lodge, No. 395 AFM was founded in 1960. We built stage one of the building in 1961 (Lodge room and bathrooms), the dining hall in 1974, and the kitchen in 1978. The floor was carpeted in the original building in 1984. The interior of the Lodge and dining hall were painted in 2010, and the last exterior painting was in 1988. The roof was replaced 1998.

The officers meet every Tuesday. Our regular communication is the first Tuesday. We practice every week we do not have a meeting or work. I have each committee meet before practice on a rotating schedule so everyone is aware of what's going on with the committees. I also started the practice of giving a written agenda for every meeting which has shocked the old timers.

I took office officially December 27. The building committee met right before Christmas. Several things came up...

January meeting we discussed and voted to replace the roof. It did not lay over, but was motioned and voted unanimously in under 10 minutes. Three days later the crew came and replaced 78 squares of shingles in one day. Done for 25-30 years. We had an EA degree

February we voted to make new Lodge embroidered shirts and window decals for the brothers. The decals were ordered the next day, and were in the mail by the following week. Shirt order is ongoing until July. We had a FC degree.

March we voted to paint the exterior of the Lodge and replace the carpet in the hallway, office and changing room. I sourced commercial carpet squares from an office that was being remodeled. The blue carpet tiles were less than one year old before the building they were in was sold, and the new owner didn't like them. I convinced the new owner of that building to remove them and deliver them to us for free. New carpet; zero dollars. We voted to have the Lodge room carpet cleaned by a pro. Dates were set for work days. The candidate wasn't ready for his MM degree. We had the first Easter Egg hunt that our Lodge has hosted in nearly 30 years. This family event was attended by 15 kids and 45 adults. That was triple the expected turnout so I'd call it a success. The building committee began work on plans to replace the commercial tile in the dining hall with ceramic tile. The old tile has shrunk, cracked and are coming up and it's time for replacement. Money is being raised as all details are being worked out. Once the money is there and the plans are sorted it will come to the Lodge to vote on. We anticipate this to be in August.

April we discussed the upcoming 4 fundraisers. We painted the exterior of the Lodge (25 gallons of no fun at all over two weekends). The building committee began pulling up the landscaping planted in 1963. New bushes and plants were found and the owners were convinced to donate them without causing an added expense to the Lodge. We had a MM degree.

May we voted to host what we hope will be an annual horse shoe pitching competition among the two districts near us. We ordered shirts for the Rodeo fundraiser. We agreed on all final details for the Boston Butt fundraiser. We set the price for the chicken BBQ fundraiser. We set plans for hosting a site for a community wide yard sale which is a fundraiser as we are renting slots and will sell some surplus furniture we have stored. We replaced the carpet (okay, I replaced the carpet, but I had help for about two hours) as voted by the brothers. The officers were asked to perform the final EA degree that Eau Claire Lodge, No. 344 will hold in their original building. That 91 year old Lodge has to move before June 1 as the city is widening the road and it will go through the middle of their building. The officers of Eau Claire were not prepared adequately to perform the ritual work.

We have been invited by the Grand Secretary to tour the Grand Lodge Museum and Library on June 11. That will be our second family fun day.

We still need to fund and lay 1800 square feet of tile, replace the ancient landscaping, replace the road sign and plan and fund a parking lot surfacing. Plus run the fundraisers and the horseshoe tournament. The Widow's Committee meets this coming Tuesday, and I need to light a fire under them to plan some events for the ladies. Plans to repaint the interior of the Lodge hall in 2017 are being made.

Considering I have about 7 guys that regularly can be counted on for physical work outside of fundraisers, I think we are doing okay. Hopefully we can pick up the pace and get something done this year.

So the second half of the year went like this:

We held the tour of the Grand Lodge Museum and it was a real blast.  What was supposed to be a 1 hour tour took 4 hours.  And it's not big at all.  We learned a LOT from the Grand Sec.

The horseshoe tournament was attended by one other lodge which is the lodge I'm a plural member (and Past Master) of, Eau Claire No. 344.  Blythewood resoundingly trumped Eau Claire, and I'm not ashamed.

The Rodeo t-shirt sale was a waste of effort.  We broke even and sweated in oppressive heat for 2 days.  We will do it again in 2017 to sell off the remaining shirts, but we won't be doing this one after that.  

The Boston Butt BBQ was a great success, and we raised about $2,000.

The chicken BBQ fundraiser was a real struggle.  We didn't have the manpower we needed.  We made about $4,200 off of it, but it may never happen again.  It was a lot of work for a few men to pull off.

The community yard sale which is run by the local Chamber of Commerce  had one of it's locations at our property.  We rented spots for $40 each, and sold some donated items.  The profit for the Lodge was about $1,000.  Next year we will do this again, and add a hot dog concession.  We had a lot of requests for a lunch sale, and we are happy to profit, er, oblige.  

Then came the biggest challenge and project this Lodge has undertaken since we had the last portion of the building built in 1978.  We removed the vinyl tile in the dining hall and replaced it with porcelain tile.  This project was monumental in many ways.  First of all, 1800 square feet of tile is about 5 tons.  That costs a lot to have delivered, and the budget was tight.  We did some dealing and haggled and in the end, we found a tile that we all really liked, that was deeply marked down, and was further discounted since we bought a large volume, and we even managed to get the tile and mortar delivered for free.  This cut the cost of the materials in half.  Since labor was done in house, we got a great deal.  Delivery did not go as planned, and we called the store manager and he worked a large miracle to get the tile on time and offered to help us out if we needed anything else.  Then, he ended that conversation with "If I can do anything else to help you, Worshipful, I will be glad to."  That's only significant, as we had never met.  The manager of the store turned out to be the Junior Warden of another Lodge in town, and he really went to the plate for us.  When we were done, he got new baseboards, and new trim to go around the windows for 50% off.  The windows had never been trimmed out on this concrete block building, so adding wood trim and new wood Venetian blinds made a huge difference.  Since we got such a deal on the tile and trim, we were able to buy 5 new 6' round tables and 50 new folding chairs.  The dining hall looks better than it has ever looked.  

This whole process took every Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday for October and November.  It was a MAMMOTH undertaking.

Now, when I was elected to the East in December of 2015, it was rather contentious.  I was only elected by a majority of 1 vote.  The older members did not like my progressive attitude and had plotted to re-elect the master.  It was not a good scene and it caused a lot of hurt feelings.  

With that in mind, I was unanimously re-elected to serve as Worshipful Master  of Blythewood Lodge No. 395 for the 2017 Masonic year.  

I guess, if you drive a Lodge hard and lead from the front, you make an impact.  

I would say, that last year was a good year.  Enough tile is left over from the dining hall project to replace the carpet (yes the new carpet I got donated last year) in the entry hall, office and changing room with the same tile.  This will unify the building.  And I've got my eyes on the kitchen for renovation this year.  Good things are yet to come.

All I can say IS WOW.

that's a shit ton of doing for a handful of men.

and you earned your respect the good way.

That is so much.  I have been bending our WM in trying to come up with a signature fundraiser that can be done each year.  He like likes the idea, but what to do has been the big issue.  No one really has any ideas.  Still trying to push it as we have a small lodge and even smaller budget.

A lodge I visit does a gun ticket every other month.  They have no problem selling 1000 of them for $2 each, based on the lottery. A chance to win a nice $500 gun or cash, and the lodge pockets $1500 6 times a year.

We are 99 men.  Not a huge lodge.

Our Grand Lodge does not allow raffles, so we can't do those without special permission.  

Again, I never ask anyone to do something that I haven't done or am doing.  Lead from the front.  I also provide financial for everything that comes up on our (written) agenda before it is discussed.   Our meetings take less than 30 minutes except for ritual opening and closing, and 10 to 15 minutes of education.   I also provided the education for the team at the beginning of the year for all 12 months.

Sorry to hear that...... but there are ways around it.  Raffles are not prohibited here, but you could always run it through something else, like have a trusted Brother do it, then make a donation to the lodge.

The nice thing about their ticket is, it brings visitors and that means attendance.

Wisconsin allows raffles with a State issued license.  There are two types; same day drawing and a future date drawing.

Three years ago we started having a 50/50 raffle for the Holy Land Pilgrimage at each Commandery Inspection.  That first year, every winner opted to not take the cash and donate it to the fund.  We raised somewhere north of $14,000.  It's tapered off since, but we've been able to fund sending at least one, if not two, ministers to the Holy Land each year.

If you're unfamiliar with the Holly Land Pilgrimage program check it out.

PA has a small game of chance licence.  They have one, as do all the other lodges that have these.


Our lodge was able to get a property tax exemption and that saved us 4000+ a year. We don't keep that money. Every year we give out about 10k to non Masonic community charities. 
Due to a fortunate Brothers Will,  we ended up with around 300k added to our investment fund.... the interest from that is a lot. That interest is what allows us to be generous. 

We have several gun raffles a year here, along with the occasional fish fry.