Goals for St. John's Lodge No. 1 for 1997

Tom Thornton of St. Johns #1,

Mountain Lakes, New Jersey,
USA

posted the following regarding his Lodge. Others may benefit from his ideas.

Goal 1 - Increase Membership by 4 new Members

Masonic Renewal planned for late March or April
Advertising, including newspaper and possibly radio
Increase Masonic knowledge for our lodge's line to prepare them to answer questions from the public and equipping them with pamphlets and business cards
Designate Official Greeters for the lodge
Increase exposure of facility with signage, if town will permit.
One or more general interest open house events such as an Internet seminar for the public

Frequent speakers on relevant subjects to our members. Current speakers scheduled include a Masonic historical night in early March by Don Pellington and Bob Peppel and a slide show and lecture by Glenn Trautmann from a FC lecture
Masonic movie nights
Increased family events, including dinners, outings
Do salvage duty on members that are delinquent on dues. Everyone will receive two letters and a phone call from me before we proceed
Creation of a Visitation Committee to call on sick brethren
Send out at least two personal letters during the year to every out-of-state member letting them know they're missed and still an important part of our fraternity.
Re-institute the telephone chain

Review of the present way we do things to eliminate redundancies
Automate operational/record-keeping tasks when possible
Increase efficiency, outsource when reasonable, and question the ways we currently do things

This goal will be partially accomplished by our efforts to gain new members but additional indirect efforts would include:

Increased ID program activity where we approach groups such as day-care centers and senior citizen groups
Sponsor a clothing/food drive

Have a group of our members visit every lodge in the district at least once in l997
Promote joint lodge events, including ID program and advertising
Investigate the possibility of creating a St. John's web page for Internet access

Revamping our tresselboard to get it out quicker, bring it in house to control it better, and add pictures to make it more interesting
Removal of growth from front of Lodge and mulched to make building more presentable and lower maintenance
Initial automation of ID program to make it manageable by fewer volunteers
Automation of the phone system to allow for more effective communication, paging capability, and general public information

Re-edited into HTML by Dr. Roger M. Firestone.