Time For CHANGE

It was Socrates who said "The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new".

During the course of the past months you will have read of the work of the Membership Focus Group (MFG), and perhaps you have participated in the online surveys of members.  Among the MFG priorities has been to seek ways to improve retention of members and to ensure that we recruit only men who are suited to the Craft, know what they are being asked to undertake, and are suited to the Lodge to which they are applying.  Mentoring, of course, also plays a vital part in this process, but attention is already being given to this aspect of a new member’s involvement in the life of the Lodge.

Research has shown that a critical element in the process of attracting and retaining new members is the discussions they have before they are formally interviewed and the interview itself.  Where these are conducted well, with an open discussion of mutual expectations, the new member is more likely to remain in the Craft and contribute to his Lodge.

Therefore, the MFG has been concentrating on developing a process for attracting, vetting, interviewing and preparing potential candidates. The process is called the Members’ Pathway.  A critical part of which is the conduct of the interview, including the questions to be asked and how we ensure that only well suited and well prepared candidates are accepted for Initiation.  This part of the Pathway is now ready to be tested in a pilot study.

I have agreed that this Province will assist the MFG by being one of the Provinces to take part in the pilot study. This will give us an opportunity to contribute to an important development within Freemasonry. Each Province taking part is asked to invite twelve Lodges to participate.  Participating Lodges should expect to have at least one candidate to interview during the period September 2016 to March 2017. Before that time, over the next few months, members of the Lodge will need to be briefed on the Pathway and those members who interview candidates will be asked to complete a three hour training session.

I have invited a number of Lodges to be involved in this valuable exercise and i look forward to sharing with you the output from their deliberations and experiences.

I quoted Socrates in my opening comment, I have chosen a more contemporary person to support the need for change. HM The Queen recently said "Change has become a constant, managing it has become an expanding discipline.  The way we embrace it defines our future".