Interview: 'Meet, Act and Part' with Roger S. VanGorden

My friend, Brother, and longtime Masonic mentor, Roger S. VanGorden, was interviewed last week by Bill Hosler, Darin Lahners, and Greg Knott on the Meet, Act and Part podcast about the Masonic Renewal Committee and the Be A Freemason public awareness campaign. 

If you aren't familiar with Roger, you really should be. He's a Past Grand Master of Indiana, the founding President of the Masonic Society, and he's been a tireless champion for the fraternity for over four decades now. His program for the MRC about improving Stated Meetings is excellent.

Roger isn't just spitballing somebody else's ideas. His concepts and recommendations have been borne out of direct experience with resurrecting at least two formerly foundering lodges, helping to create a new one from scratch, plus steering countless local appendant body chapters or groups. After every Masonic meeting for as long as I've known him, his overriding concern is always, "How did you feel the meeting went?" He wants to know what worked, what didn't, what was good, what was dull, did everyone like the food, and did everyone enjoy themselves. Most of all, was the lodge or other group providing the very best possible experience for its members? And he is a firm believer in constantly communicating with members.

"All Freemasonry is local," has been Roger's mantra since the day I met him, and I've never found any evidence to convince me otherwise. For the last several years, he's been taking his evangel about fixing stated meetings on the road, and he's been trying to influence the guys who can do the most good with the message. He's given programs at the last few Conferences of Grand Masters in the hopes that grand masters will steal the ideas and claim them as their own. But nothing precludes anyone from acting. Take it upon yourself to fix your lodge and your meetings, and your membership worries will begin to fade.
(You should see an inline player below, but if not here's the link:)


Listen to "Meet, Act and Part Episode 4-MWB Roger S. VanGorden" on Spreaker.

Over the last two years, the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction's comprehensive "Not Just A Man. A Mason." advertising campaign for Craft Freemasonry has been enthusiastically adopted all across the U.S. and elsewhere by grateful grand lodges and individual lodges alike. Not content to rest on their laurels, the campaign has launched an entire website dedicated to explaining just who and what Freemasons are, what we stand for, and how to join in your state or community. 

The new website www.beafreemason.org is co-sponsored by the Scottish Rite Northern and Southern Jurisdictions of the Scottish Rite, as well as Shriners International, and it builds off of the Not Just A Man, A Mason campaign. The new site is tasteful, well written, well conceived, and beautifully executed. It is deliberately generic enough so that any grand lodge jurisdiction, local lodge, or even appendant body can confidently direct the public to it to effectively explain and promote the fraternity, and provide a way to seek more information about joining a lodge.