Brethren,

Thank you for the support and confidence you have shown in electing me Master of Temple Lodge 676 for 2010. The Lodge officers and I are excited to get the year started and are ready to go to work. Please feel free to contact me, any officer, or any committee member at any time if you are in need of assistance, have suggestions, or would like to volunteer your services. Contact information for each officer and committee member will be listed in every Temple Tales published this year.

Temple Lodge experienced encouraging growth in 2009. We raised five new Master Masons: Dr. Tim Counts Jr, Dr. Jason Dorn, Albeiro Loaiza, Steven Seiler and Josh Rimany. We conferred the First Degree on three new brothers: Pat Finn, Randall Hoose, and Napoleon Thompson. We will confer the Second Degree on Brothers Finn and Hoose on January 28. Details can be found on the Trestle Board. Brother Thompson is leaving for Afghanistan at the end of December and will receive his Second Degree at a military lodge while there or at Temple Lodge when he returns home for two weeks in April. Please keep Brother Thompson and his family in your thoughts and prayers. All the brave men and women serving our great nation deserve our prayers and support but Brother Thompson is one of our own so be sure to keep him at the top of the list.

The first Stated Communication of 2010 will be Thursday January 7 at 7:30 PM. Dinner will be served at 6:30 and our new Junior Warden Eric Tamandja promises me a fine meal. We will be balloting on affiliation for Brother Grady Jessup. Brother Jessup has been attending Temple Lodge regularly this fall and submitted his application for affiliation in November. He is a practicing attorney here in Charlotte. We will also be giving our new finance committee suggestions for the 2010 budget. The finance committee will then meet and present their budget for Lodge approval at the February Stated Communication on February 4. Finally I will be presenting my goals for 2010 and issuing challenges to the Brethren like the following:

2010 Attendance Challenge
Every officer has most generously agreed to put $10.00 in the collection plate at any Stated Communication in 2010 when 25 or more Temple Lodge 676 members are present. There are 11 officers which translates into $110.00 in donations to our Masonic Charities. If you make this happen every month, Brothers, you will be responsible for $1320.00 in donations for the year without spending a dime out of pocket. Make it happen! Make us pay!

This is going to be a fun and exciting year. If you have not attended lodge in a while, please come join us. If you are in need of transportation, please call me at 704-258-6541 and I will be happy to arrange a ride for you, to and from any event you wish to attend. No Mason who wishes to attend a Temple Lodge event will ever be forced to miss out due to lack of transportation in 2010.