Brothers,

My work responsibilities of late have prevented me posting this earlier, but I am pleased to do so now. What an exciting few weeks we’ve had a Temple Lodge #65! An exciting year in fact. It’s been a season of degrees as membership and momentum continue to grow at our fine lodge.

And as we are now duly and truly embedded in the summer break, I just wanted to recap some of the highlights of the past few weeks.

On May 22, we continued our run of degrees this year with the initiation of brothers Dean Van Nest, Scott Ellenbogen, Steven Purtle who received the Entered Apprentice degree. We proceeded straight into a Fellow Craft degree at our following meeting on June 12 where brothers Evan Bowen, Matthew Kunkes and Scott Ellenbogen were passed to the FC degree.

And coming into the finish line before the summer break we conducted our second Master Mason degree of 2008 on June 26. In my absence, Brother Senior Warden Wilson Dinielli sat in the East.  The degree work was performed by the new District 1 Ritual Society established by RW Brother James McWain, with Walter Kaechele sitting as WM. Brothers from  participated in putting on a fine degree.

Brothers Ken Sosnoski, Kevin Cuseo, Evan Bowen, Matthew Kunkes and Scott Ellenbogen were raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason.

Special highlights included the fact that of the 5 brothers raised, there were 3 father/son participants, which I believe is a record as far as anyone present can recall. Also, we were pleased to welcome visitors from Excelsior Lodge #1177 of the Grand Lodge of the State of New York, a lodge formed by Guyanese immigrants originally and the visitors included founding charter member Benjamin Agard, along with his son Charwin who visited Temple Lodge last December. Three other past masters of Excelsior also attended.

At the June 26 meeting, we carried forward the continued interest in Masonry and Temple Lodge #65, no less than 5 new applications were read into the lodge. Committees will be assigned and meetings held during the summer break.

Have a great summer and see you all back at Temple Lodge #65 for our first regular business meeting on Sept 11.

Fraternally yours,

John Kahler, WM

Temple Lodge #65