The month of May has been another busy month for the lodge officers! We had a very successful 1st Degree on Tuesday May 22nd for Dale Satre with the assistance of the Senior Warden Sean Mergy of Orinda Lodge. Welcome to the craft, Brother Satre!

I am also very pleased to announce that our Hiram Award nomination committee has met and selected our 2018 recipient! Please join me in congratulating Brother Bob Smith, who has diligently served our lodge both as our Tiler and behind the scenes as our past Temple Board President & member. Bob’s Hiram Award Ceremony is slated for the evening of Saturday, September 22nd and more details will follow in the coming months.

We will wrap up the month of May on Tuesday May 29th with our monthly lodge potluck from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM. The lodge officers will then head up to the Lodge Room to rehearse for our upcoming 2nd Degree on Saturday June 9th. All Fellowcrafts & Master Masons are welcomed to attend this rehearsal. As a reminder, If you are interested in serving our lodge as an officer or volunteer in any capacity please do let myself or any of the lodge officers know.

In June our Stated Meeting & Dinner will take place on Tuesday, June 5th, followed by a traveling 2nd degree on Saturday, June 9th at the outdoor lodge room at the Masonic Homes in Union City for Brother Reynold Dandan. The degree will start promptly at 9 AM and conclude around 11:45 AM. We will then head back down the hill for a prepared Picnic Buffet including hamburgers, hotdogs and all the fixin’s. Please be sure to RSVP via Eventbrite in advance so we can get an accurate headcount for the caterers. Volunteer guided tours of the Masonic Homes grounds have also been arranged in the 1 PM hour.

Finally, on Tuesday June 26th we will have our monthly lodge potluck from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM. There is no cost to attend, all are always welcome and we just ask that you bring either a salad, entrée or dessert to share. It’s an excellent time to break bread and get to know each other better! Thanks all, and I look forward to seeing you all around the lodge soon!

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the Brethren of Acalanes Fellowship Lodge for sending the three principal officers of the lodge to the Master and Wardens retreat in Monterey the 1st weekend in March. This was an excellent opportunity for us to immerse ourselves in numerous breakout sessions with Masters and Wardens of other lodges from all over California.

In these breakout sessions, we discussed best practices in such topics as long-term lodge planning, setting appropriate dues and fees, from leader to mentor, email communications best practices and lodge culture and identity. As in the past, Acalanes Fellowship Lodge was well represented by several Past Masters who are instrumental keynote speakers at these retreats, including our very own Very Worshipful Allan Casalou (Grand Secretary) and Worshipful Gary Charland who is the President and CEO of the Masonic Homes of California.

Once again Acalanes Fellowship Lodge has pledged 100% Officer contributions to the Masonic
charities. In addition, Jason Harding, Entered Apprentice with Acalanes Fellowship Lodge also
played an instrumental role in the successful implementation of this retreat. It was an honor to spend
this weekend with your future lodge Leaders, our Senior Warden Bob Strohmeyer and Junior
Warden Adam Hanin. They are already hard at work preparing for their year as Master and I am
looking forward to seeing them both sitting in the oriental chair.

The month of April will be another busy month for Acalanes Fellowship Lodge. Our monthly Stated
Meeting will take place on Tuesday April 3rd. After dinner we will have guest speaker Kristen
Anderson giving us a presentation on the Raising a Reader program in honor of Public Education
Month. On Thursday, April 26th at 9am there will be the annual Raising a Reader program event at
Bridges Academy which is one of the public schools which has implemented the program. I urge you
all to come and see firsthand the importance of promoting literacy to children and how this program
continues to make a positive difference in the lives of these amazing students. Our Grand Master,
Most Worshipful Bruce Galloway, will be in attendance. On Tuesday, April 24th we will have our
monthly lodge social potluck starting at 6:30pm.

Our next degree will take place on Tuesday May 22nd for our 1st degree candidate Mr. Dale Satre at
6:30pm. All Masons are welcome and encouraged to attend.

I look forward to seeing you all soon!

Acalanes Fellowship Lodge is off to a very busy schedule in 2018. Please join me in welcoming our newest Mason to our lodge Brother Reynold Barzaga Dandan who was initiated into the fraternity on Tuesday January 23rd. The annual Acalanes Fellowship Crab Feed Fundraiser was a huge success. It was highly attended with 165 guests and a profit just shy of $10,000 which we will use to fund our lodge activities and charitable programs.

At our February Stated Meeting, our Junior Warden Adam Hanin put on an excellent presentation about the communication process we are using to advertise all upcoming lodge events and activities and the importance of RSVP’ing using the Eventbrite system we have in place. Our communication committee will continue to send out announcements electronically via Eventbrite notifications. The lodge App is another resource you can use to see what’s going on at our lodge. Finally, the Trestleboard is electronically sent monthly and you can opt in for a paper version should you not be comfortable with the electronic version. If you ever want to know what is on the calendar all you have to do is visit our lodge website at http://www.acalanesfellowshiplodge.com and the latest and greatest calendar can be found. This is also a place you can RSVP for all events. As we are not charging any additional fee to register and pay via credit card for all lodge events, we are encouraging pre-payment but will still collect at the door if you prefer.

On Saturday February 17th we had our annual spring Sweethearts Luncheon at Zio Fraedo’s Restaurant in Pleasant Hill. A great time was had by all and I encourage you all to not miss the opportunity to bring your sweethearts and significant others to these events. We were also joined by several widows of Brothers who have passed on and as always it was great to see them and find out what they have been up to since we last met. The next Sweethearts luncheon will take place shortly after Installation of Officers in December. More information to follow.

On Tuesday February 27th we held our 1st Lodge Potluck/social of the year. This is simply an opportunity for Brethren/friends and family to come together for a great shared meal, games and sometimes a little Masonic Education. All are welcome, and an RSVP helps so we know how many are bringing salads/entrees/sides and desserts.

The weekend of March 2nd through 4th I will be heading to the Master’s & Warden’s retreat in Monterey with our Senior Warden Bob Strohmeyer and Junior Warden Adam Hanin. This is an excellent opportunity for the three principal officers of our lodge to come together with other Lodge Leaders to share best practices and continue to develop a multi-year leadership lodge plan for 2019 and beyond.

At our upcoming Stated Meeting and Dinner on March 6th the program of interest will revolve around Youth Orders and we will welcome our District Inspector Greg Thompson into our Lodge Room at the Stated Meeting for his annual Official Visit.

On Thursday March 22nd the Lodge Officers will head over to Orinda Lodge for dinner and a visitation. Our lodge officers will be conferring a 1st degree on one of their candidates. If you would like to attend this degree or serve on the degree team, please let me know. All Masons are welcome to attend. Finally, on Wednesday March 28th, Acalanes Fellowship Lodge will be the host location for an Open House/Mixer for the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce from 5:30pm to 7:00pm. Light appetizers and beverages will be served, and the event is open to all. More information to follow.

Thank you all for your ongoing support of our lodge, I look forward to seeing you all again soon!

Greetings fellow Brethren and friends.

Acalanes Fellowship Lodge is already in full speed ahead. We held our first degree of the year on Tuesday January 23rd for Mr. Reynold Barzaga Dandan who was elected to receive the 1st degree of Masonry in our lodge at the January Stated Meeting. The degree began at 6:30pm, and it was wonderful to watch our core of excellent ritualists perform the first degree of the year and welcome our newest member to our lodge and fraternity.

I am looking forward to seeing you all at our annual Crab Feed at the Lafayette Community center on Saturday 27th. We have an exciting lineup of exciting silent auction of donated items. This event is the largest fundraiser for the year! I am also excited to report that Job’s Daughters and the Order of the Eastern Star are going to be serving our guests and we will be taking up a collection for them that night.  

Our Junior Warden Adam Hanin will be making a presentation at our upcoming February Stated Meeting on how to use this RSVP system for our lodge. Once you all see how easy it is to use I’m confident you will all want to embrace this new RSVP technology. As in the past, anyone who wants to send in check or cash payments for this and future events, please direct them only to our lodge Secretary Fred Lezak at our lodge PO Box 1, Lafayette CA 94549 and indicate in the check memo what the payment is for.

Our upcoming February Stated Meeting will take place on Tuesday, February 6th and I look forward to seeing you all then. Finally, please save the date of Tuesday, February 27th for our first monthly lodge potluck and social night.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow Brethren for giving me the honor and privilege of serving again as Master of Acalanes Fellowship Lodge #480 in 2018! The theme of my year will be “Why we Gather.”

I want to emphasise this theme so that my fellow brethren and their loved ones will better understand why it is so important that we as men devote so much of our time to our gentle craft. To begin with, we as Masons share a common bond in the experience we received in our initiation into the Fraternity.

During our first degree, we are taught about the three great lights of Masonry which are the holy writings, the compass and the square. These tools are constant daily reminders to all Masons. The holy writings are given to us by God as the rule and guide of our faith. The square and compass are Masonic tools that remind us to keep our actions and behaviors in check toward all mankind.

Each Mason is then presented with a lambskin apron which is an emblem of innocence and the badge of a Mason. The Lambskin apron is more ancient than the Golden Fleece or the Roman Eagle and more honorable than anything of value or distinction we ever will receive in life.

We then receive instruction on the importance of time management using a twenty-four- inch gauge as a guide. Masonry teaches us that to keep a healthy balance in life, we must divide our time into three parts. One part for service to God and a distressed worthy brother, a part for work and a part for rest and our families.

The next teaching is about the importance of the Common Gavel. In society, the Common Gavel is seen more as a form of authority. But we as Masons are taught that the Common Gavel is used for breaking apart our old ways and continually building a new and better self internally.

Masons gather together not to be seen by the outside world as a secret society whose only mission is to gain wealth and political power. Nothing could be further from the truth! We gather together to focus on our Brothers internal heart and soul. To take good men and make them better through a series of three ritual degrees and ongoing mentoring and fellowship. We gather because our Masonic Community gives us the armor we need as we travel through life’s times of joy and times of sorrow. That someday we will join God in his celestial lodge above (forever). We are a support network of friends and brothers who strive to live out the three principal tenets of Masonry which are Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth.

To live as Mason, one must have a strong support network in place that can whisper words of encouragement and council whether we want to hear it or not. Knowledge of temperance, fortitude, prudence and justice are key elements of our teachings. The reason this is so important is that what we do as Masons in our daily lives at work, at home and at refreshment are a reflection on our lodge and Fraternity so we must continually strive to improve ourselves.

I ask again, why do we gather? Masons gather because we as human beings have an internal need for community. The bond we share in Masonry makes us not only friends but Fraternal brothers. Have you not seen or experienced two complete strangers meet and then find that they share the Masonic bond of Masonry and become instant friends? A man that can trusted to be on the level and share similar values and ethics. I personally experience this in my daily life and it’s a wonderful thing to know that no matter where I go I will ALWAYS have a friend and brother who will be there for me when I need him.

Another reason why we gather is that God who is all seeing and all- knowing desires it to be so. I have been placed in this lodge for a reason and have been called to do so. While Masonry is not a religion, and should never be used as a replacement for one, we as Masons are implored to supplement the teachings of the holy writings with the Masonic ritual we teach and implement the lessons through life. I cannot express how many times I have been sitting in a church and heard a sermon on portions of our Masonic ritual and had that revelation moment. It is a beautiful thing when a Mason receives new light supported by biblical scripture written well over 2,000 years ago.

Finally, why we gather is because Masonry is as relevant to us today as it was to our three founding Grand Masters Solomon, King of Israel, Hiram, King of Tyre and Hiram Abiff, the Widow’s son from the tribe of Naphtali.

In conclusion, Acalanes Fellowship Lodge will continue to be known as “The Friendly Lodge”. Our home away from home. During this Masonic year our home continues to be your home as well. In 2018, we will continue to strive for degree excellence but will create more opportunities for all Masons and their families to better understand our gentle craft through social and Masonic education events, fundraisers and community service projects. I look forward to working with you all and wish you a very happy and prosperous 2018!

Isabella’s penitence,
Thomas Wheatley’s treasure trove,
Threads with which Kind Providence,
Robe of bounty for us wove

These phrases, from my School song, resonate in my mind to illustrate how the history of our ancient institutions is the warp and weft of the cloth by which our modern institutions are clad. The warp is the timeline of history as it gathers the weft of the shuttle passing through the loom. Masonry is no stranger to this process.

Our heritage is the accumulation of wisdom through the ages. Our sacred rituals are gathered from more ancient rituals as man has explored his relationship with his maker. Our principle tenets, Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth are the distillation of all that is essential to a Just Society, and so we are the custodians of a treasure we must pass on to future generations.

The Masonic founders of this Nation enshrined these principles in its Declaration of Independence and in its Constitution. Masons led the way to universal education, one of the mainstays of the Nation’s greatness. So now we have an obligation to pay attention to the lessons that Masonry provides and, through Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence and Justice restore civility to our society and renewed strength to the Nation’s and the World’s Institutions.

As we move toward the end of the three hundredth anniversary of the first Grand Lodge, think of all the moving lines of Lodge Officers who have maintained and grown our Institution, reaching across Time and Space to us, our line of officers, all the Brethren of our Lodge and their Families. Ponder on the great responsibilities we have inherited in guiding the future. Kind Providence has indeed blessed us and we in turn we are privileged to use our blessings to the betterment of this world.

This has been a Masonic year that in many ways is similar to every other. We cut down the trees threatening our Lodge. Someone crashed into the Lodge and we are working our way through repairs. We are working with a Neighbor to replace the fence between our properties. We held a moving Memorial Service in the Lodge for Jack Chudley. The City of Lafayette is again considering traffic management developments that would require removal of the Lodge (we have a good team on this). We had a visitation to Mendocino Lodge 179 and a great BBQ on the Tunzi Ranch. Crab Feed and Luau. And we are again trying to get 5 year plans for the Lodge and for the Hall off the ground. These are all things typical of what happens in the annual cycle of keeping a lodge in being.

We have had five entered apprentice degrees, two FC degrees and two MM degrees. We have been approached by over 20 men interested in Masonry, three of whom have joined us and 10 of whom we are working with. We have established a policy that the first line signer of a prospect will be the person’s coach. Experience at other lodges indicates that this encourages careful thought when bringing in a new member and develops members more likely to contribute because of the commitment made right at the start. We are building better Builders, taking good men and making them better.

As the year approaches its end we look forward to a tour of the Nike base on the Marin headlands conducted by Brother Kreutzinger on November 11th, who will also tell us about how the SF Bay has been defended from the earliest days of written history. Finally, Installation of Officers is just over a month away (December 9th, 5:30 sharp) and we have a Sweethearts Luncheon on December 16th at 11:30am. We look forward to seeing you in Lodge.

I never cease to wonder at how multi-dimensional is our ancient, gentle craft. On Tuesday September 19 we had the distinct privilege of passing Scott Zimmerman to Fellow Craft Mason. Scott belongs to Antioch Lodge which, as you all know, has had significant problems with its Lodge Building. There were brothers from four lodges present and three lodges participated in the ceremony. Your degree team acquitted itself well in this always moving ceremony.

When we consider the science and engineering reflected in the degree and consider that the ritual is over 300 years old it reflects what a cutting edge organization the craft has been through its development. And even now, the geometry we celebrate is foundational to many modern capabilities including: Finite Element Analysis; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Cosmology; and so much more.

We trace our Masonic roots back way before the first formal Grand Lodge 300 years ago. And as we review the Regius Document of 1390 we see reference to Masonry coming to England with the Phoenicians who last traded with England three centuries BC, buying tin to support the Bronze Age.

And so we move to the future as we prepare for yet another peaceful transfer of power at our annual installation – an example of political grace that the whole world can learn from. We are indeed blessed to be Masons.

October’s Stated Meeting Dinner and Happy Hour is focused on Oktoberfest and the Stated Meeting is Advanced Stations. November sees our election of Officers while in December our Junior Warden will talk to us after dinner about protecting ourselves on the internet. Finally on December 9th we will hold our installation and the new officers will celebrate with a Sweethearts lunch at Lodge on December 16th. The Lodge looks healthy, though as ever we struggle to fill the line without imposing on Past Masters, a tradition I hope we will maintain. And looking even further ahead, 2021 is our 100th Anniversary. You can be sure we will be in full party mode for that!

So the dog days of summer, the rising of the dog star Sirius with the Sun, were this year enhanced with a solar eclipse, a couple of pool parties and a visitation to the historic lodge of Mendocino where our Past Master’s team of ritualists exemplified the second degree.

The Mendocino Lodge was built by the first Master of the Lodge, who placed on its roof a carving he made from a huge redwood stump. The carving depicts a scene central to the Masonic Third Degree. After the visitation, we took the opportunity to have a pretty special barbeque at a pretty special place. The Tunzi Ranch has, since 1946, been in the hands of four generations of the Tunzi family (with Frank, the Fifth Generation, arriving just 6 weeks ago). Larry the current owner and third generation, helped his father build the Masonic location, complete with outdoor lodge for degrees (particularly Royal Arch) and complemented with a cookhouse, hot showers and all modern conveniences. The BBQ pit is huge and fueled by wild Madrone wood that burns down to magnificent ashes. Twenty five attended the BBQ, including six of the Tunzi family. Four of us camped overnight at the Ranch while others found accommodation in nearby Fort Bragg.

Coming up, on August 31, Orinda is hosting an open house where Tony Cimmarra, AGL of Division III, will perform the Lodge “walkabout” ritual. This meeting is open to all, Masons and Non-Masons, where you will learn the meaning behind many of the features and appurtenances of the Lodge. Dinner is at 6:30 (email me for reservations by COB Monday before). Ceremony is at 7:30

This Stated Meeting (September 5th) features our oft delayed official visit of our Worshipful Inspector who will present Brother Gerald Patchen with his 50 year pin and certificate. Come join us in the Reception of a Grand Lodge Officer and the Presentation of the Flag. The October Stated Meeting will be Advanced Stations

And lastly, on September 30th, Island City Lodge is hosting a day of Masonic Education led by Worshipful Kenneth Nagy of San Diego, followed by the celebrated Island City Festive Board. If you are interested, email me for details.