From The South

Welcome back!  I hope that these last few weeks away from Lodge have been rejuvenating, and that you’re re-energized for an eventful year.  We have a lot planned: great meals, festive celebrations, fun for the family, and opportunities to labor in the quarries with the Brethren of our Lodge.  Ambitious plans rely on dedicated effort, and we need your support to make this year a success!  Reach out to the officers of our Lodge to find out how you can help with our activities this year.

Refreshment

Please join us January 3rd for a delicious pork chop dinner, followed by our monthly Stated Meeting.  We’ll be reveling in seafood on January 24th during our crab feed, complete with salad and pasta.  Call Annie at the number provided to make reservations.  Please be sure to note that food may not be available if you’ve not made reservations by the deadline.  As always, we’ll be serving hearty refreshments before we begin our labor on the remaining Tuesdays of the month.  Even if you’re not interested in Masonic Education or degree practices, you can still contribute to our mission of fostering Brotherly Love by joining us for fellowship over dinner.

Masonic Education

I’m pleased to note that we have Masonic Education activities scheduled for eleven of these next twelve months.  After experimenting with several formats these last few years, our very successful Masonic Education Forums have been re-dubbed our “Lodges of Education.”  You can expect a satisfying meal and lively conversation as various Brethren present on diverse topics of Masonic interest.  You can join us for this year’s first Lodge of Education on January 31.  Please contact me if you’re interested in presenting on any topic of Masonic interest — all of our Brethren have something unique to contribute, and we welcome the opportunity to bask in whatever Light you offer.

Table Lodges

In addition to our Lodges of Education, we will also be hosting quarterly Table Lodges in celebration of our Craft and in furtherance of our Masonic knowledge.  As with last year’s well-loved Table Lodge, we’ll enjoy fabulous food, rousing toasts (as well as a commemorative toasting cannon), thought-provoking readings of Masonic interest, and jovial fellowship.  Our Spring Table Lodge is scheduled for March 21.  Be sure to save that date on your calendar and make reservations as soon as possible.

Lodge App

I’m also pleased to report that our Lodge now has a smart-phone app to improve communication among our members.  Our new app is available free of charge, and allows our members to post articles, information, and pictures, RSVP for events, and send messages to other members.  Please contact me if you’d like to learn how to add this app to your Android or Apple cell phone.  This is a fantastic tool for staying plugged in to our Lodge!

I’m really looking forward to the activities that we have scheduled this year, and to the opportunity to work alongside the great friends I’m proud to call Brethren.  Take care, and we’ll see you soon on a Tuesday evening.

Fraternally,

Michael Ramoneda
Junior Warden

From The West

2017! A very Happy New Year to all of you! Another new Masonic Year for our Lodge.  Our Worshipful Master, Henry T. Dosdorian, Jr., Master in 1970, 1983, 1984, 1990, 1993, 2002 and now is still dedicated to Masonry and serving the Lodge when a need exists. We are extremely fortunate to have Worshipful Hank serving again as our Officer’s Coach, a responsible position indeed, but have no fear for Worshipful Hank enjoys the job and does it well. Our Master has a full schedule of events planned for this year which, I know, you will be looking forward to attending. Please read your bulletin, check your Trestleboard and make note of those dates.  We also have new candidates getting ready for their degrees. I cannot emphasize, brethren, too strongly our participation in supporting these new candidates as they receive their degrees. 

We have a “new” line of officers. Some are old timers, some have been through it before and some are relatively new. All are extremely interested in doing what they do for Golden Gate Speranza Lodge.

Brethren, this is to thank you for your confidence in electing me as Senior Warden. I have come back into the Line to fill a need – simply put – because someone has to do it.

I hope your Christmas Holidays have been full of joy and happiness, and the New Year be happy, healthful, safe and prosperous.  I would like to end my first article of this new year by sharing my favorite poem with you – Live Each Day to the Fullest by S.H. Payer – and it has been a source of inspiration and encouragement for me through the years. I hope it will have the same effect on you as it has on me.

Live each day to the fullest

Get the most from each hour, each day,
and each age of your life.
Then you can look forward with confidence
and back without regrets.
Be yourself but be your best self,
Dare to be different and to follow your own star.
And don’t be afraid to be happy.
Enjoy what is beautiful.
Love with all your heart and soul.
Believe that those you love, love you.
Forget what you have done for your friends,
and remember what they have done for you.
Disregard what the world owes you, and
concentrate on what you owe the world.
When you are faced with decisions,
make the decision as wisely as possible, then forget it.
The moment of absolute certainty never arrives.
And above all, remember that
God helps those who help themselves.
Act as if everything depended upon you,
and pray as if everything depended upon God.

Sincerely,
Vrej Mekhalian, PM
Senior Warden

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Candidates’ Report

Our newest Entered Apprentices, Brothers Keith Gabriel and Alaeddin Mistikoglu, have both been very active since their initiation, and have been making progress on their 1st Degree proficiencies while working with Worshipful Brothers David Walda and Edward Sadler.

Keep up the good work, Brothers Keith and Alaeddin!

Vrej Mekhalian, P.M.
Senior Warden

From The East

BRETHREN,

Where did the year go? I just went to a stated meeting in 2016 and here it is 2017. 

We will have a new format for 2017. Starting in January everyone has to make a reservation for DINNERS and other EVENTS. As you know you cannot get a dinner for $5.00 anywhere else. We all enjoy the meals we receive at Lodge. These dinners cost the Lodge about $20.00 per person. From now on if you don’t make a reservation you will have to wait until everybody is served to make sure there is enough food to go around. At times we have had some of our brothers go without a dinner because someone else who did not make a reservation enjoyed his food. Fair warning brothers, no reservation, no dinner.

On the 24th of January we will enjoy a CRAB DINNER. In addition to the crab there will be a salad and pasta dish. The crab is cooked, cleaned and cracked, all for just $10.00 per person (limit of four). Where else can you get a deal like this?

But, remember, no reservations, no crab dinner.
The number for reservations is in the bulletin.

Henry Dosdorian, Jr., P.M.
Master

Message from the South

Greetings from the South!

We’ve had a very busy couple of months — complete with the initiation of two brethren, a night dedicated to Masonic Education, and our annual Grand Lodge Communications. As the evenings continue to lengthen and the weather cools off, I’ve been relaxing after all of our hard work and spending time considering the more esoteric aspects of our Fraternity — both re-reading some of the texts that would be appropriate for our newly-initiated Entered Apprentices, as well as delving into new and unfamiliar material suitable for our more exotic Masonic Education evenings. If you tend to find the Autumn and Winter months a time for introspection and contemplation as I do, then I’d like to invite you to explore our Lodge’s library. Our members are welcome to check out any of the fantastic titles we keep stocked in our bookcase. Consider spending a portion of these darker months basking in some Masonic Light.

For our newest Entered Apprentices (and as a reminder to all contemplative Masons), I’d like to reproduce a paragraph from Carl H. Claudy’s Introduction to Freemasonry: Entered Apprentice Degree, concerning our use of allegory and symbolism.

ALLEGORY AND SYMBOLS
Freemasonry is "veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols" because these are the surest ways by which moral and ethical truths may be taught. It is not only with the brain and the mind that the initiate must take in Freemasonry but also with the heart. Mind speaks to mind with spoken or written words. Heart speaks to heart with words which cannot be written or spoken. Those words are symbols; words which mean little to the indifferent, much to the understanding. The body has its five senses through which the mind may learn; the mind has also imagination. That imagination may see farther than eyes and hear sounds fainter than may be caught by ears. To the imagination symbols become plain as printed words to the eye. Nothing else will do; no words can be as effective (unless they are themselves symbols); no teachings expressed in language are as easily learned by the mind as those which come via the symbol through the imagination. Take from Freemasonry its symbols and but the husk remains, the kernel is gone. He who hears but the words of Freemasonry misses their meaning entirely.

Claudy’s Introduction to Freemasonry series can be found in our library, and is bound to give any Mason a deeper look into the ceremonies of his initiation.

Fraternally Yours,

Michael Ramoneda,
Acting Junior Warden, GGS #30

Message from the East

Greetings to you all as we enter another holiday season. As the year starts to wane with 2017 just around the corner, I think it is a good time to reflect on this year's Lodge accomplishments and activities. The theme for the year was, " Stretch a little and get out of your comfort zone!" It was a call to all of our members to try new things and allow themselves to participate in new experiences. Several of our Lodge Brothers took this to heart as they headed up activities and introduced other members to new and interesting concepts. All in all, we as a Lodge and as individuals are richer for those experiences. To recall several of those activities this year and the Brothers responsible for their success is easy to do. Through the efforts of Larry Boysen, we were treated with an evening of San Francisco history specifically the once mighty Fox Theater. Another activity featured Ray Ward presenting and describing a precious converted Super 8 film of the GGS 30 golf tournament and dinner of 1976. Through the efforts of a few more Brothers specifically Michael Ramoneda, Irving Sambolin, Ray Zerbib, and Eric Sadler our Lodge was able to host two formal dinner events this year: An educational agape (dinner and educational evening) and a formal Table Lodge with all of the bells and whistles!

On a more casual note, we had members step up to help organize two Bingo Nights this year as well as our yearly Fisherman's Wharf group luncheon at Fisherman's Grotto #9. Not all of our activities required our members to prepare in advance. For example, just last month we were treated to a Bethel Job's Daughters special presentation that included complex ritual and floor work performed by the girls. During that same month, we had the opportunity to go out to the ball park and watch the Giants play baseball from our cool club level seats!

This year we had other Lodge brothers like Dave Walda, P.M., Eric Sadler, Jim Poulos, and Hank Dosdorian, P.M. play key roles in the 50 year Golden Veteran presentations for three of our qualifying brethren. This work included organizing, rehearsing, and in one case driving a distance to the brother's home to perform the ceremony. Earlier this year, Brothers Don McKinsey and Gordon Whiteside, P.M. joined me and a couple other members for a Lodge visit to San Leandro Lodge for the purpose of presenting a beautiful plaque of appreciation to our well liked and respected inspector, Br. Arnie Tabinas, P.M.

This Summer we enjoyed our Lodge picnic in South San Francisco's Orange Park thanks to the planning efforts of Glenn Whiteside, P.M., Luis Martinez, P.M. and Ray Zerbib among others. We also recognized our Mason of the Year, Hank Dosdorian, P.M. with a wonderfully planned dinner and plaque presentation ceremony.

What is a Masonic Lodge without degree conferrals right? We had a few Brothers step up in roles and practice hard to deliver quality ritual and floorwork for the benfit of our newly initiated Brethren. A special thank you goes out to Carl Zwanzig and Vrej Mekhalian, P.M. for filling in so nicely in their important roles. I also want to take this moment to thank two of our officers again but for something different this time. Jim Poulos and Don McKinsey took it upon themselves to sand, prime and paint our Deacon Rods as well as polish and solder as necessary our Officer Jewels. Thank you for taking the initiative on these projects!

Our Lodge has spent the last several years planning, organizing, and conducting many Masonic Educational Forums. We do so many of these forums that we have become known as an Educational Lodge with a Lodge culture steeped in Masonic learning. I am very proud of this because Masonic organizations should constantly shed and spread the light of Masonic knowledge! To this end, we have hosted seven forums this year and over 15 of them in the last three years alone! I thank all of the Brothers who have played a role in each of these events over the years.

As the year comes closer to the end, I want to alert everyone to the final two Lodge hosted events. The first will be on the weekend of November 12th-13th, when a group of us will go to Yosemite and Hearst Castle on a bus tour and November 18th, when a contingent of Lodge Brothers will go to Oakland to participate in a wonderful Prince Hall Third Degree Raising complete with a collation/dinner. Lastly, the biggest thanks goes to Anne, my wife, who has made countless meals for our Lodge Brothers and their family members over the past four years. The thing I remember the most is that Anne would make a home cooked dinner for every Brother prior to his degree conferral and cook only the food that he liked most! Can you believe that?

Yep, we did an awful lot this year as a Lodge and I have been honored and proud to be the Master of Golden Gate Speranza #30 for these past two years. What a ride it has been!

Take care everyone!

Ed Sadler
Master, GGS #30