August 4, 2008

Time is moving on! The first Visionquest meeting will be on 13 September in Springfield at the York Rite Masonic Temple, 1930 West Catalpa. The meeting will begin at 1:30PM.

The second meeting will in St. Louis on 20 September. The location for this meeting has not been finalized. But it too will begin at 1:30PM on that Saturday.

A special note about the St. Louis meeting. We definitely need to hear from persons interested in serving as panelists for the St. Louis meeting. No one has come forth yet!

The third meeting will be at Oak Grove Lodge, Oak Grove, Missouri on Saturday 27 September, starting at 1:30PM.

Ron Miller, Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Missouri will be attending each of these meetings and will briefly discuss the membership efforts of the Grand Lodge.

The structure of each meeting will consist of 10 minute presentations by current OES members. There will be six members on each panel.

Each panel member is asked to present their thoughts and comments about any aspect of current OES structure, activities or goals. The comments may include more than one topic but they will be asked to restrict their remarks to not more than ten minutes.

Topics suggested so far include chapter conflict, Grand Chapter activities and costs, the role of introductions, confusion pertaining to advertising and use of the emblems, increasing our visibility within communities, redistricting or somehow reducing the number of inspections/receptions, etc.

There are probably many ways to structure your remarks. One way is to identify a problem area and discuss the implications it has for OES activities. The next part if desired, would be to present a recommended solution for the problem.

A special word here. We are all aware of the many regulations, policies, traditions, etc which have application to OES activities. We are all aware of the regulations of General Grand Chapter and their implications for subordinate Chapters as well as the regulations of our own Grand Chapter.

My suggestion is that rather than worry about whether there is a policy or regulation that is applicable to your topic, that you assume that there are no restrictions that may apply to your suggestions and that we would worry about possible restrictions at a later time. Then, if needed “ we would ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission.” or some variation thereof.

Paul Lineberry

July 28, 2008

It makes you feel good to find out that someone is using materials that you may have presented at an earlier time.

Recently, I talked with Bob Detherow, WP of Crescent # 21, who had attended the Membership Development session in Springfield.

Bob is also the VP of the 45^th District Line Officers Club and is using some of the materials presented at the Membership meeting for programs at the Line Officers Club.

 One of the things they seem interested in, is the concept of a population generation or the idea that a population of people born during the same time period will have similar outlooks and opinions.

Of particular interest to the Line Officers group is the differences in the outlook and opinions of the next generation.

These differences may be important as OES chapters focus their membership development efforts on the younger generation.

Bob’s general objective is to encourage members of the Line Officers Club to develop their own plans and objectives for increasing membership in their own chapters.

Way to go, Bob!

Paul Lineberry

Vision Quest -- What Is It ??

July 6, 2008

Visionquest, either one word or two words, depending on your preference, refers to a search for a vision of Missouri OES of the future.

PGM Pearl Harrell and PGP Paul Lineberry, General Grand Chapter Committee Members, are cooperating to present three Visionquest meetings in September.

Purpose of the meetings are to allow members to present their thoughts and comments about the current structure, activities and goals of OES in Missouri.

Individual OES members are being asked to serve on six-member panels at each meeting site.

Each panel will consist of four regular members and not more than two past grand members.

Each member is asked to present his or her thoughts about OES in a ten minute period.

No questions will be allowed from the floor but interested parties may contact speakers at the conclusion of the each meeting.

The meetings will be held in September. The first one, to be held in Springfield, will be on either September 6 or September 13. The second will be in St. Louis on September 20 and the last one in Kansas City area on September 27.

Exact locations of each of the meetings will be announced after the sites are confirmed.

We hope that from these meetings will come ideas and suggestions that might add to the attractiveness, appeal and benefits of the Order for old and new members.

It is also possible that there may be clarification of possibly controversial suggestions prior to Grand Chapter in October.

Paul Lineberry

A STUMP SPEECH FOR MISSOURI OES FOR 2008

June 29, 2008

This is the season for ‘stump’ speeches and so I thought we might have one on OES membership.

There would be about three basic concepts in the stump speech.

First, a general description about ‘aging in place’ a common phenomenon, but one that has particular relevance to Missouri OES.

The second concept to be included in the stump speech would be concerned with describing a target audience for any membership effort and the third concept would discuss differences in generations.

Aging in place refers to simply growing older while in the same situation or locality.

In the case of Missouri OES, as our membership has declined the average age of the membership has increased.

This occurs because the decline in membership is partly due to the death of older members and the withdrawal of other members from the organization (suspension for non-payment of dues)

A ‘target audience’ refers to the identification of the group which will be the focus of any effort to increase membership. The ideal target audience would seem to be women around the age of 45 to 50 years. Such an age group is likely to have finished the child-rearing process and the women are liable to have more free time. Joining an organization does require a commitment of a person’s ‘free time’ and free time is viewed as extremely precious by most people. Thus, while this target group is likely to have ‘free time’ they are also liable to be very concerned about what it is used for.

Differences in generations or how our children may differ from us is likely to be a surprise to us.

A generation is a group of people defined by age boundaries. They are born during a certain era and share similar experiences during their formative years. As a result they develop similar values and attitudes in some areas.

This has particular importance in the area organizational membership. It may effect their interest in joining organizations, their interest in certain organizations and their interests and expectations about certain organizations.

Paul Lineberry