By Paul Rodriguez-Obrien—Master
Brethren and Families,
On October 10th-11th, the Grand Lodge had their “171st Annual Communication”. This was conducted via the internet conferencing site “Zoom”.
All legislation scheduled for this year, and also those held over from last year, were pushed off until next year. The sole item that all California Lodges had up for vote was to amend our bylaws to allow for virtual Stated and Special Meetings (with mandated stipulations). This item Passed.
With this mandate being fully adhered to, I am pleased to announce that during the California shelter-in-place orders appertaining to large gatherings; our lodge will host virtual Stated and Special Meetings beginning with our next Stated meeting (November 5th, 2020), on the same date and at the same time as provided in our Bylaws for in-person Stated Meetings. All our lodge meetings will be conducted using “Zoom”.
Until further notice, our Virtual Zoom Stated meeting ID will be: 618-797-9982. The regular meeting password will be in the email invitation sent out days prior to the event. If you don’t receive emails from the lodge, then please call or email any lodge officer for the meeting password, and also to register your email address with us.
I do want to quickly inform you of some basic stipulations that you will need to know to get you up and running prior to joining these virtual Stated and Special Meetings.
No virtual meeting should be recorded.
Our Tiler may ask for each attending to verify that he has taken all reasonable steps to prevent anyone not eligible to be present from observing or hearing what is happening on his screen.
We will not perform any ritual Lodge opening or closing, or any esoteric or portion of Ritual in these non-tiled events.
No signs or modes of recognition may be given.
(The Grand Master’s full mandate with stipulations will be emailed out, read out loud in our next virtual Stated meeting, available in this Trestleboard, and again on our Website.)
A note of importance: This year’s Election of Officers will be held on our Virtual Zoom Stated Meeting on November 5th, 2020. Instruction on how this will be accomplished is forthcoming.
Disclaimer: Everything above is subject to change per the Grand Lodge.
Until then, stay safe, stay healthy, and know you are a valuable part of our Masonic family. We are here to help and support you any way we can. Just reach out and call us. Our phone numbers and email address are easily found within this Trestleboard, and on our website.