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The largest Grand Lodge
in the world, with over
272,000 individuals,
but 40% of members
have been lost in the
last 30 years
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I start with the disclaimer that the views
expressed here are my own and not
necessarily those of Grand Lodge. As Pro
Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge
of England, and therefore the most senior
representative of the Grand Master, one
of my responsibilities is to try and steer
the Craft in a direction which I hope will
be beneficial to its future.
With nearly 300 years of experience
under our belt we must be doing something
right, so why should Freemasonry in, say,
25 years be any different from the model
we have today? We may be by far the
biggest Grand Lodge in the world with a
membership of 272,000 individuals spread
over the four quarters of the globe, but
something is wrong with Anglo-Saxon
Freemasonry.
An enormous amount of effort has been
invested in our future both in London, the
Provinces and Districts, and many brethren
are working hard to recruit, retrieve and
retain members. But the overall picture is
not satisfactory.
Although statistics were not available
before and during the 1980s, we have lost at
least 40% of our membership in as little as 30
years. Our recent losses are often blamed on
the fact that we consecrated 1,000 Lodges in
the five years following the Second World
War to accommodate men returning from
active service and wanting to join a
fraternity. But that is not the whole story as
most of those brethren have long since passed
away and we have continued to shrink at the
rate of between 2-3% every year.
While the decline has lessened in the past
two years, we are by no means out of the
wood, and with an aging membership we
face an uncertain future. However, while
membership numbers have shrunk so
dramatically, the number of Lodges has
actually increased, and we now have a very
large number of Lodges that are struggling to
survive with few members.
The situation is made even worse when
you factor in low attendance figures. It is not
easy to see how we can correct this situation
except by encouraging Lodges to consider
closing or amalgamating when their
numbers drop below a viable level.
The danger of having too few members
in a Lodge is that, in their desperation to
survive, brethren may accept candidates
regardless of whether or not they fulfil the
conditions for initiation laid down in the
ritual. Worse still, because at best they only
manage to attract one new member each
year, they rush the poor candidate through
the three Degrees without giving him
any time to pause and contemplate what
it all means.
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Candidates are often stewards before
they are Master Masons and on the officers’
ladder as soon as they are raised. Six years
later they are either in the Master’s chair
or have made some excuse to drop out,
never to return.
A recent survey in Buckinghamshire
showed that 30% of all Master Masons
ceased attending their Lodges within three
years of being raised. I don’t blame them.
The pressure of having to learn so much
ritual in such a short time, before you have
bonded fully with your peers and without
any real understanding of its meaning, must
test even our most committed candidates.
This is not Freemasonry as it should
be practised, and only slightly better than
the mass one-day classes we all deplore in
America. If Lodges start to initiate men
regardless of their suitability because they
are desperate to increase their numbers, then
we should be worried about any long-term
future for the Order. The quality of our
members is more important than their
quantity, but it is possible and preferable to
have both. There are plenty of ‘just, upright
and free men of mature age, sound judgment,
and strict morals’ in society, if we could only
attract them to join us.
Until we can find ways of increasing the
size of our Lodges, thereby giving more time
for progression to the chair and more time to
learn and understand the rituals, we must
make do with encouraging Lodges to share
out much of the work among the Master
Masons and Past Masters. It often makes
for more variety and therefore more
enjoyment, and involves many more
of the Lodge members at every meeting.
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Copyright 2002-2007
MQ Magazine
Web site created by Mark Griffin
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