An officer’s meeting was called last night regarding the Charity Committee situation I’ve written about in this space. Of concern was the fact that the vote in question – which purported to grant oversight to a standing committee over the affairs of the lodge – contravened Masonic law in this jurisdiction. The consensus of the officers was that it did violate the law, as in this jurisdiction the Committee on Charity is charged with one, and only one, duty: “to dispense the charity of the lodge as the by-laws permit.” Full stop. As has been commented upon by readers of this blog, using that committee as a “governor” on lodge spending is not proper and is certainly not contemplated by the applicable law in this jurisdiction. Although no action was taken, it appears the consensus is that the lodge revisit the issue at the stated meeting next week. I anticipate that someone will move to repeal the earlier action. Some, myself included, had feared that the meeting might be a raucous affair, but I am pleased to report that the thing went off nicely, with particularly effective leadership by the Senior Warden in his role as harmonizer.
But the root of the problem remains unclear. At the meeting some voiced that the move last week was fueled by resentment over recent capital improvement projects which have been vocally opposed by the Old Guard, and while I was inclined to see it that way, I am no longer certain that this was the motivation. Rather, I think the vote and the resulting furor was a by-product of a gremlin that has plagued our lodge (and very likely yours as well) for decades: poor communication. This failure to communicate was compounded into an exponent (the particulars I will omit here), which resulted in the Charity Committee being led to believe that no money existed for charity, when in fact that was not the case, and a member of the committee misunderstanding the recommendations of the full committee plus the unthinking assent of a number of brothers who later said they didn’t realize what they were voting on. Snap judgments (including my own) then assumed that all that kvetching and moaning about the parking lot was the father of it all and voila: one hell of a misunderstanding.
We’ll see what happens next week.
"How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it."
--Marcus Aurelius
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
"What We Have Here..."
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2 comments:
Robert Heinlein once wrote: Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keeping this is mind often gives you a way to deal with him...
Now, none of those men are your enemies, but they are on the opposite side of this issue... or seemingly so. It seems that the issue was a result of a series of misunderstandings, at the heart of which is a failure to communicate.
You are all brothers, and as you indicate today, talking about it, communicating, shows that there is a meeting ground and the motion itself is not really the point. It seems the master should have forwarded the motion to a committee (which is what I have seen many masters do when an issue like this is sprung on them) for a 90 investigation and report to the lodge, then a serious discussion about the need.
Or, frankly, to have ruled the motion out of order and then table it... and THEN appointed a committee to investigate all issues relative to the suggestion. Now you have to re-vote to set aside the vote, or have the master set it aside as contrary to the bylaws, to wit, giving a committee the right to overrule the vote of the brethren on how to spend money.
I wish you well in untying this knot.
I really do think it was just a complete failure of communication and I am hopeful that things work out well on Monday night. I think they will.
I am hopeful, too, that this will cause all of us to open up a bit more and talk things over before the meetings. It seems there is a willingness to get it worked out, and that is the important bit.
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