From the East:

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and all are anticipating a fun and active New Year for our lodge. Toward that goal we are planning for the annual "Sweethearts Day." This is a great opportunity to get some points in with your mate and/or sweetheart and display your care for our Masonic widows. This event is a Valentine’s Day luncheon with a show at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater on Sat. Feb 12, seating time is at 11:00 a.m. for lunch and curtain time at 1:00 p.m. The price is $31.00 for Masons with the sweethearts paid by the lodge. The performance is "Can Can". Please RSVP on the form enclosed and mail it to the event chairperson Brother Steven Scheffert no later than January 12, 2000. His address is provided on the event form.

We currently have 100 seats reserved so I urge all to attend for what will surely be one of the fun events of the year.

Gordon E. Bane - WM

Secretary's Corner:

Thanks to all who have sent in their annual dues. There was some confusion about the life memberships. Those Lodge members will be sent their cards without any additional charge. Any life member who paid 2000 dues will receive a refund.

The following Brothers have birthdays in January: Doug Bade 6th, Sando Hanson 8th, Charles Marston 10th, Robert Davis Sr. 11th, H. Larimors MacNamara 17th, Harry L. Johnson, Moreau Sankey and LaVern Johnson 18th, Daryl Zuelke and Don Bloedow 25th, George Bender 28th.

Property Committee

The Lodge has voted that we engage a real estate agent to represent us in searching for property in Jordan. All Property Committee members will meet at Clancys in Jordan on January 17th starting at 7PM. We will be meeting with Lodge Brother Gary Nagel a licensed real estate agent to determine our options. Committee members please RSVP to Randy Maluchnik 368-4460 if you can attend.

District/Area News

I am pleased to be the newest member of Minnesota River Valley Lodge. This is an exciting time for this new lodge. A lot of great things are in progress and I look forward to watching this become one of the premier lodges in Minnesota.

There are a couple events coming up that the members need to be aware of and I encourage the brothers to get involved in these and other activities that come along.

On January 8 the Actual Past Masters Degree will be sponsored by the St. Paul Scottish Rite and the St. Paul Masters and Wardens. This is for sitting Masters and Past Masters only. The day will start with breakfast at 9:00 a.m. with the degree following. The festivities will take place at the Grand Lodge building on Plato Avenue. RSVP to W.B. Larry Wert at (651) 222-2676. Bring a hat to wear.

On January 22, there will be a Leadership Seminar, also at Plato. This event will start with coffee and rolls at 8:00 a.m. and continue until approximately 3:30 p.m. I have seen the agenda for this seminar and assure you, that you will get things you can take back to your lodge and use. This is not just for lodge officers, but for anyone who is involved in their lodge activities. There is no fee for this seminar and lunch is included. This is what some of your per capita goes for, so be sure to take advantage of it. You will need to call the Grand Lodge office to get your name in the pot for lunch. Get a carload together and have a great day!

S.W. Steve and I are still planning to set up a school of instruction to be hosted by Minnesota River Valley Lodge. The Brothers at Glencoe would also like to host a school. Watch for more on these later.

Again, I will encourage you to get involved in these activities, especially the Leadership Seminar. It will greatly enhance your Masonic experience.

John Loutzenhiser, DR #19

LETS GO TO THE LODGE TONIGHT

Say, Son, let's go to Lodge tonight;
We haven't been for years,
Lets don our little aprons white.
And sit among our peers.

I feel a kind of longing, boy,
To climb up those old stairs,
I know we'd get a touch of joy,
And lay aside our cares.

I'd like to get out on the floor,
Come on, let's get in line,
I'd like to face the East once more,
And give the same old sign.

I think the Tyler would let us in,
Though he might hesitate,
And then we'd see his same old grin,
Come on, or we'll be late.

Pass up your bridge or picture show,
Your wrestling bout or fight,
Switch off the darned old TV set,
LETS GO TO LODGE TONIGHT.
(Anonymous)

Dick Friend, LEO

Finance Committee Report

The trustee/finance committee is busy organizing the budget for the year 2000, in order to have a controlled cash flow we must have a realist budget from all committees.

The following reports are requested by January 15, 2000:
Properties Chairman - Randy Maluchnik
Publications & Promotions Chairman - Steve Scheffert
History & Heritage Chairman - Richard Friend
Steering Chairman - Gordy Bane
Membership Chairman - Marc Peterson

All reports need to be sent to the following Address: Charles Richter Finance Chairman
RR 1 Box 31-A
Montgomery, Mn. 56069
E-Mail richter.8533@usfamily.net

Publications and Promotions Committee Report

As you all read in the article from our Worshipful Master, we are preparing for a "Sweethearts Day" festivity on February 12, 2000. Enclosed in this newsletter you will find a form that I would like everyone to fill out and mail back to me by January 12. This is required because we need an accurate head count for this event. I have also decided to take the opportunity to put a questionnaire on the form. Then we can build up our database of information about the members and friends of Minnesota River Valley Lodge #6. If the members of the OES #90 and Bethel #85 would like, please fill out the information and we can enter it in to our system. Please mail it back to the address provided on the form. I will also email a copy of the form to those that I have email addresses for. Then you can send me a message back with the attached form from your computer.
We have also completed the addition of the members of the Shakopee OES #90 and the Shakopee Job’s Daughters – Bethel #85 to our mailing database. I would like to thank Sandi Deloach for pulling together the list of members from these two organizations. Please let me know if I have doubled anybody up. We are still trying to send only one newsletter per household. For those OES members, the newsletter will be addressed to the husband. This is because of the database. Sorry for any confusion that may cause.

I would also like to extend the invitation to other organizations that want to submit information on a regular bases into our newsletter. Please call if interested.

I have heard some good news for our budget, that we submitted in November, that our Worshipful Master may have found us a copier machine that we will be able to have for the newsletters and lodge. That will save us a lot of money if we can make our own copies.

The committee will try to meet early in January after the holiday season. We are still looking for any more volunteers to help with this committee. Please call me if anybody is interested or talk to one of the other committee members.

Steven Scheffert – Committee Chair.

Order of the Eastern Star

Thanks to all who participated in the Christmas dinner and brought toys and gifts for the needy children. Our next meeting will be January 20, 2000. We will be honoring our Associate Matron, Robin Kottwitz and Associate Patron, Mike Kottwitz. We will begin the evening with a potluck supper at 6:00 p.m. Please call Bev Friend at 496-1910 to let her know what you plan to bring. For the officers it will be long form and for the ladies long dress. We plan on having a fun evening and hope all will be in attendance.

Once again, the Masons have invited Eastern Star members to join them to see the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres production of Cole Porter’s "Can Can." If you and your sweetheart would like to attend and do not have a Masonic affiliation with Minnesota River Valley Lodge #6, Shakopee #90 will pay the ticket price for your guest if you pay for your own ticket. Please fill out the enclosed form and mail it to Steven Scheffert by January 12, 2000. His address is provided on the form.

At our meeting in March, we will be voting to increase our dues from $10.00 to $15.00 per year plus per capita, which in 2001 will be $5.00 per member.

RaVelle Smith – Worthy Matron

Again we must pass along the sad news that; we lost another Brother of our Lodge. Orson Hahn passed away on December 20, 1999. His previous Lodge was Rough Ashlar #177 in Belle Plaine.

From the West:

Greetings:

I would like to begin by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. What a year 1999 was. We saw many things happen this past year with the combining of the four lodges from Belle Plaine, Chaska, Jordan, and Shakopee. It is amazing how fast the year went. Just look back at the accomplishments that took place. We have really come a long way from last January, but I still believe we have a long way to go.

I’m very excited that we have new members that have already joined our lodge and are attending meetings with us. Not only do we need new members, but we must also focus on getting or keeping the current members coming to lodge. It still troubles me that the majority of the meetings that I have been to are usually the same 15-25 people. Where did we go wrong with all those people that use to come to lodge? Why aren’t they coming now? Will getting a new building solve the problem? Will we get a new building and still only have 15-25 a meeting? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I want people to think about it. Please, don’t get me wrong about the building. I am in full favor of us getting a new building, so that many of our other brothers who can’t make the steps can join us for the meetings.

What concerns me is that we are getting so busy with our everyday activities that we can’t even take at least 2-3 hours out of the month to come to a lodge meeting. I too find it more difficult to have time to do everything. Are we concerned that if we would attend lodge, we would be asked to do more or put in charge of a project?

With our busy activities who wants another project? You should not feel that you are obligated to take on a project or be put onto a committee just because you attend lodge. With the starting of the committees, we are trying to take the business part out of the lodge and focus on Masonic work. I believe that the LEO officer has one of the most important roles in the lodge and that is to teach us about Masonry or to refresh our memories about "WHY" we became a mason. It comes back to the last three newsletters where I asked the question for everyone to think about and that is "WHY" we became Masons.

I again want to put a request out that we start filling all of the lodge seats at least one meeting a month. The lodge holds about 60 people in the normal chairs. It would be very exciting if we had to bring chairs in for all of the people. I would hate to have us build a wonderful new lodge and have only 20-25% of the chairs filled. I believe we all want Masonry to survive, but we still need to do our part in making that happen. The way to help us is by coming to lodge, let us know your ideas about what the lodge needs to do. Then we can be very successful and become even bigger. I believe that this issue will have to be addressed in the coming year by the Steering Committee, Membership Committee and everyone else in the lodge. We need to come up with a way to help lost brothers find there way back to lodge.

We can start filling all of the chairs with our next meeting on January 4^th at 7:30 p.m. at the lodge building in Shakopee. Hope to see everyone there.

Fraternally Yours,

Steven Scheffert – Senior Warden.