Scottish Rite Leadership Conference

This past weekend I was privileged to attend the Scottish Rite Leadership Conference in Minneapolis. It was a great weekend of idea sharing and fellowship.

I would say the thing that most impressed me was how the Scottish Rite is "remodling" itself to reach out to the brothers of our Rite. Emphasis is being placed on listening to our new brothers, reaching out to our current membership and those who may have left the Rite, and education.

I have come to the conclusion that we Masons have not done a very good job of mentoring, rather it be our new brothers or those who have been members of our fraternity for a period of time. Mentoring is a process not just for the new guys, it is a process for "all the guys"...it never ends. Freemasonry is all about a brotherhood and being there for each other. That is what we are all about, we need to get back to that.

I am really impressed with the Master Craftsman program that the Scottish Rite has come out with. It is an education program that brothers can take to learn more about Freemasonry and the Scottish Rite. There is a course of readings and multiple choice quizes (5 or 6 in total). At the conclusion of the process you will definately be more knowledgeable about the fraternity, plus you get a nice certificate recognizing your efforts. A lot of discussion was held on using this as a part of training for our individual valley leaders.

It was a great weekend. I always come away from these meetings with a lot of enthusisam and ideas. We have to use the ideas that come from meetings such as this to continue to "chip" away at some of the shortcomings and get our fraternity back to what he is all about...brothers caring about brothers!