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Fraternal Exposition & Symposium
Recap
and
Ideas for the Future

Dear Fellow Fraternalists:

On behalf of Mill Valley Lodge, we would like to express our thanks to all participants for your contribution toward the success of the Fraternal Exposition and Symposium. We also hope you will take a little more time to reflect on the event, and invite you to share perspective about it with us.

After over a year of planning and publicizing, the Fraternal Exposition and Symposium is now almost two weeks past. It is time to consider what we will make of the event. We should evaluate whether it has laid a foundation of mutual trust and understanding upon which we might build to further enhance each of our organizations in the communities we serve.

Let us consider that we succeeded in bringing together one of the most diverse cross sections of fraternal organizations assembled together in one room, with exhibits by Freemasons (including individual exhibits by our brothers of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine and Sisters and daughters in Eastern Star and Jobs Daughters), Co-Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, United Ancient Order of Druids, Improved Order of Red Men, Native Sons of the Golden West, and the Orange Order. In addition to the Lodge members present and exhibiting, the Red Men were represented by their Great Incohonee (National President); the Knights of Pythias had their entire Grand Lodge line of officers present; the Odd Fellows were represented by their Grand Secretary, Past Grand Master, and a current Grand Lodge Director; the Druids were represented by their Grand Grove Secretary. Thus the Exposition brought fraternal leaders from many different organizations together, which has rarely been done. It afforded us all an opportunity to share both our challenges and the different ways were are all addressing those challenges.

We were privileged to have wonderful speakers, including featured speakers author W. Kirk MacNulty, Odd Fellows Director Peter Sellars, University of San Francisco Professor and author Tony Fels, and the Red Men's Great Incohonee (National President) William Armstrong. Their presentations were all relevant to building our understanding of our fraternities similarities and differences, and how these great institutions might adapt to address changes in society that have and will occur. I am certainly looking forward to reading Prof. Fels upcoming book about Freemasonry and religion, and again encourage everyone with any interest in symbolism, psychology, or Kaballa to read Kirk MacNulty's excellent book, The Way of the Craftsmen. Two representatives of the Grand Lodge of California, Knights of Pythias, graciously agreed to being added to the schedule of featured speakers: Associate Grand Tribune of the Knights of Pythias (California) and President of the Children's Welfare Foundation, Sir Mel Pinkham, gave a very inspiring talk on the value of member's involvement in fraternalism; Grand Treasurer of the Knights of Pythias of California, Sir Murray Teitel, gave a brief overview of Pythian's contributions to youth.

Publicity was a qualified success. Fraternal publications, including the Summer additions of the Red Men's Magazine, California Odd Fellows and Rebekah's Magazine and the Pythian International, announced the event to their membership. We leveraged the combined stories of the Mill Valley Masonic Lodge's Centennial and the Fraternal Exposition to the advantage of both happenings and the local press seized on the combined story: The Marin Independent Journal ran four, eight inch columns on the op-ed page (A-6) under the political cartoon under the caption "Fraternal Spirit;" The Mill Valley Herald (Marin Scope Papers) ran a two page article on page one (2 columns, full length of front page) and page two (four columns, half page) with three photos. The Mill Valley Business (Chamber of Commerce) featured the Mill Valley Masonic Lodge in its September edition with a front page article (2 columns, quarter page) continued on page 11 (3 columns, three quarters page) with a photograph. The Tiburon Ark gave a half-inch of column space to the Fraternal Exposition & Symposium. On television, the Fraternal Exposition ran on Marin Cable Channel 26's Community Events calendar. On the world wide web it appeared in many places, including, Craig's List, Bay Insider, Urban Events, San Francisco/Silicon Valley Minority Professional Network, Marin Community Partner's Community Calendar of Events, etc. (for other places, check Google under "Fraternal Exposition"). Calendar reminders appeared on over 87 different Yahoo use groups at intervals of two weeks and two days before the Exposition. Printed invitations were mailed via first class mail to approximately 200 recipients; "e-vites" were sent via the internet to an additional 500 invitees. Flyers were posted on all local bulletin boards within the last week of the event. Our local bookstore (Book Depot) was contacted and its purchasing agent agreed to stock books about fraternalism and Freemasonry. We tried to capitalize on the drawing power of the concurrent local event: The 47th Mill Valley Outdoor Arts Festival attracted a record attendance of over 9,000 visitors. Thanks to Odd Fellows Bob Chapman and Jon Merchant who lent their realty firm's signs, we had signs directing traffic toward the Expo at all key downtown intersections. We can be certain that more members of the public than we will ever know read, saw, or heard something about our fraternities as a result of our advertising campaign. Nevertheless, despite our best, most sustained efforts to attract public attention to the event, few attended who were not already involved with one or more of our organizations.

The low level of general public attendance hints at a much greater problem: Fraternal organizations have for many years failed to communicate the many advantages of membership to the public at large. One person who walked in off the street expressed his surprise over the event, saying, "What are you all doing? Aren't you secret societies?" Unfortunately, his misunderstanding about the nature of our organizations points to a sad reality: We have let our organizations become invisible and secret. Unless we again communicate the advantages of membership to the public at large, I submit it will be difficult to attract mass attention as we did at the turn of the last century. And in this vein, we should be endeavoring to capitalize on the great number of people who read, saw, or heard about our fraternities through our advertising, by getting additional stories to the press before the impression we made becomes too deeply submerged in their subconscious.

The Knights of Pythias did have an idea for attracting foot traffic that might have worked had we publicized it. They had purchased a new television and brought a number of bicycle helmets to give away as door prizes. Perhaps more of the 9,000 visitors to the Outdoor Art Festival might have made the short walk over to the Exposition had the right lure been cast out? This is certainly something we should consider if we entertain thoughts of holding another Fraternal Exposition and Symposium.

In addition to evaluating holding another Fraternal Exposition and Symposium in the future, and whether it should be a rotating event, we might consider the following ten ideas as future projects for our combined participation:

Idea #1 - Creating a "Bay Area Fraternal Press Association." In years past, most papers devoted considerable space on a regular basis to fraternal news. Contact with local editors and reporters (both City and County papers) suggests that a failure to provide press releases about fraternal news may be one of the largest reasons the fraternities receive little or no attention. Imagine a pass word protected, on-line system where each fraternal group merely inputs information into designated screens, i.e., who, what, when, where, how, and why, and hits the submit button; the system administrator merely verifies an authorized user submitted the information, and then lets the system compile separate, individualized press releases to each newspaper in the data base. Such a regional system might be expanded by county and then by state. Because more than one fraternal organization is submitting news, we would hope there would be a steady stream of news about unique, newsworthy events, etc. An internal e-mail system between the fraternities might be used to alert others that certain papers are soliciting for information about, i.e., summer camps, haunted houses, etc., so that those having such activities could direct a press release appropriately and in time for publication.

Idea #2 - Networking and "Joint Ventures:" Each individual fraternal organization and each individual lodge has an inventory of unique assets, e.g., the Pythian Order in California has its Pythian Camp at King's Canyon; Berkeley Lodge No. 162, K of P, operates a successful car seat loan program with Oakland's Children's Hospital and has an expanding program of providing bicycle helmets to underprivileged children; The California Odd Fellows have the Three Links Camp for children near Sonora, CA; The Masonic Order in California has a teacher training program (Model Student Assistance Program ) to teach educators how to recognize and help at risk children, and has various free health services such as the Scottish Rite Speech and Language Clinics and the Shrine Hospitals for orthopedic, spine and burn treatment. An example of networking that occurred at the Symposium was teacher from Marin City walked in and said she was trying to find out if the fraternities could provide any assistance to the at risk children in Marin City: She was immediately told about the Model Student Assistance Program by the Masons and introduced by them to representatives from the Knights of Pythias who told her about the Pythian Camp program. While the Pythian's no longer have a Lodge in Marin (but would like to institute one), they have expressed a willingness to work with other organizations on their helmet program: Consider how much good this could do in areas like Marin City, or the canal area in San Rafael, or with a group like San Rafael based Trips for Kids (bicycle outings for underprivileged kids). Further, in a time when many lodges have closed and some orders lodges are too far apart for convenient travel, announcing such open activities as dinners, dances, picnics, etc. to other organizations could serve to make events more lively and profitable both in terms of money and enjoyment: We might even create new excuses for banquets such as "Sister Lodge Nights" (We now all have friends in other organizations: Why not propose "adopting" "Sister Lodges" for the sole purpose of being more social with kindred fraternalists - such adoptions may perpetuate our networking opportunities while having no effect on the uniqueness or sovereignty of the different organizations: In other words, we would not be making members of different fraternities members of our own fraternity (any more than San Francisco confers U.S. citizenship on citizens of foreign cities upon which she accords Sister City status), but merely recognizing that we have certain similar aspirations. Yet another idea related to increasing Lodge's individual purchasing power came to me from the Druids several years ago - one of the Druid's Lodges was looking for Lodge's interested in purchasing a box car full of plastic table cloth: In such a quantity, a supply that many of us routinely use would cost far less than the $12/roll retail price we pay as individual Lodges. Each of you can no doubt think of many more ways networking can lead to successful joint ventures between Lodges. As you are aware from an earlier letter, Mill Valley Lodge No. 356, F & AM, supplied the Marin Independent Journal with the contact information for each fraternal group for inclusion in an upcoming addition of Marin 101 Magazine (a directory): Until it reaches print, we would be happy to share that list, as well as the press release list, with any fraternal organization wanting a copy.

Idea #3 - Preserving Grand Lodge proceedings and other records. As was suggested during open mike time at the Symposium, a situation exists whereby the history of some fraternities in California has become entirely lost: A case in point is the Knights of the Golden Eagle, whose Lodges and Grand Lodge ceased functioning in California and whose Supreme Lodge in Baltimore lost all records. We might suggest to our respective organizations that they consider donating a set of their proceedings to another fraternal organization's library, to a historical society, or to a willing University for archiving. On joining the Masonic Library and Museum Association several years ago, I passed this suggestion on to the Librarian of the Billings Masonic Library at Billings, Montana: within days, he contacted me to say that he had mentioned this to friends in the Odd Fellows and with their help he had been able to preserve a portion of a faltering Odd Fellows organization's records, regalia and jewels that would otherwise have been lost to posterity. (In this vein, Mill Valley Lodge received a very generous donation of historic Odd Fellows officer's jewels from Peter Sellars personal collection that already have been added to the Lodge's show-case of fraternal artifacts to round out its existing collection.) If we succeed in creating one or more repositories of our fraternal histories, it would greatly facilitate research and study of the valuable contributions our organizations have made throughout the history of this State. (For more on the preservation of fraternal history, see, http://www.abaris.net/freemasonry/marin-fraternities.htm)

Idea #4 - Utilize MeetUp services: At least one Presidential candidate has gained tremendous publicity based on his successful use of the free internet service called MeetUp for successful grass roots organizing. Inspired by this success, members of Mill Valley Lodge No. 356, F & AM pioneered the fraternal use of the MeetUp internet service to facilitate casual fraternal meetings in public places. The process has proven a moderate success, with nearly 300 Masons signing up world wide in less than three months since activation of http://freemasons.meetup.com. This number only reflects those who actually sign up to vote on venues, etc.; it does not reflect actual attendance at the coffee clutches which includes those coming because of announcements in Lodge bulletins, word of mouth, etc. A similar MeetUp for Odd Fellows (http://oddfellows.meetup.com) also was created in Marin County, but has been slower in gaining acceptance. A proposed MeetUp for the Knights of Pythias has never been activated by MeetUp. How can the fraternities utilize this powerful meeting organizing tool to their advantage? Is being seen and identified in public as Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, etc. the only gain we can derive from this tool?

Idea #5 - Organize an inter-fraternal drumming circle associated with our various fraternal organizations: Before you think someone has lost their mind, recall that musical units have been a feature that many of our organizations have lost and are unlikely to regain in the near future, e.g., the Masonic Sciots Band in San Rafael, Native Sons of the Golden West drum and bugle corps, etc. Today, given deep cuts in public school music programs, trained musicians are not as readily available as they once were. Yet, drumming circles have become very popular vehicles in the so-called "men's movement." Why not use drumming circles as a doorway for men interested in such male bonding rituals to gain an introduction to more rewarding systems offered by our fraternal organizations. We might even have fun in the process!

Idea #6 - Signage: The more people see our fraternity's names and emblems, the less invisible (read secret) we become. A) Most cities still have sign boards at the entrance to town showing the organizations meeting in a given town. Are all of our organizations making use of community signage? Has your sign become old and weathered so that people might doubt whether your organization still stands behind it or has failed? If a town doesn't have a sign board, what about trying to have one erected? B) When your Lodge goes out to dinner, do they have a sign to place at the door of the banquet room advertising that members of the organization are "welcome?" Why not let the public know what organization is meeting and having so much fun with a quality door sign?

Idea # 7 - Encourage uniformed departments participation in Civil War reenactments: Civil War re-enactors likely would be receptive to and appreciate the public aspects of the Knights Templars or the Patriarchs Militant as the uniform ranks of respectively Masonry and the Odd Fellows- doing drill work in what are essentially Civil War uniforms. Consider that many of the Civil War re-enactors are already "joiners" and might be intrigued by the older fraternal organizations history during the Civil War, during which time Masons (and likely Odd Fellows too), were known to help a fallen brother regardless of what uniform he wore. (Although the Knights of Pythias disbanded their own Uniform Rank in the 1940's, Civil War re-enactors might be equally interested in how the Knights of Pythias contributed to reconciliation during the period of reconstruction.)

Idea #8 - Create a regional bank of Durable Medical Goods: If sufficient donations can be received from, i.e., members who no longer need the durable medical goods ("DMG"), we might create a "Bank" of, i.e., shower stools, canes, crutches, wheel chairs, mechanical beds, grab bars, etc. This could be an on-line DMG bank that again facilitates use while advertising a tangible benefit of membership. Cost would be minimal since it would rely on member's donations to create the bank. Storage may be a challenge that needs a solution.

Idea #9 - Sponsor an Annual Community Leadership Course: The idea of a fraternal exposition might be converted into something more mainstream. We might arrange with governmental entities, local city, county and state (i.e., local Assembly, Senate, Congressional and Senatorial offices), to give introductory courses on what services those governmental entities provide and current challenges faced by the entity, etc. We could include a segment introducing the public to third sector, non-governmental agencies (that is fraternal organizations, etc.) providing civic enrichment, etc. Such a course could be done over the course of a day, or spread out as one hour evening sessions for several weeks.

Idea #10 - Your Very Own Idea: Use this e-list to network more ideas.

On a personal note, I have greatly enjoyed the chance to work with all of the participants who have all worked hard at making the Fraternal Exposition and Symposium a success. Thank you for all of your efforts, your participation, and in creating unique presentations of which everyone could be proud. As with many of you, I hope that the ideas shared at the Fraternal Exposition and Symposium will prove beneficial to each participating organization and fuel a renaissance in fraternalism in Marin County and to whatever extent possible, in the greater Bay Area.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts about the event , whether you believe any of the further ideas are worth pursuing, and most especially your own ideas for rebuilding the spirit of fraternalism in the greater Bay Area (MillValleyLodge@aol.com).

Fraternally,
Stanley J. Bransgrove, PM
Event Chair - Fraternal Exposition and Symposium
Mill Valley Lodge No. 356, F & AM

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