Greetings from the East

I would like to start out by wishing every Lodge Member, OES Member, Bethel Member and friend’s, a Happy Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year.

As many of you know, due to my work situation, my family and I will be moving to Blair, Nebraska (just north of Omaha) within the next few months.  In preparation for our move, it is becoming increasingly more challenging to perform all of my duties at work, home and at the Lodge.  I have been talking with our Senior Warden Brother Don Rieck and we discussed that at the first meeting in January, he will begin to assume the duties as Master of MN River Valley Lodge, since I will not be present.  According to information, provided to me by our Grand Lodge, the Grand Lodge of MN Code requires that I complete my term in office, until the elections and installation in May.  During this time, I will rely on and fully support Brother Don Rieck in my absence.  My last activity that I am planning for the lodge will be the Valentine’s Day event and then Don will assume the Lodge’s day to day activities in January.

In regards to the Valentine’s Day event, I have just received the information from the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres about the day.  I have made a flier and I will be sending it out to those parties involved, in early December.

We also held the 2^nd degree for Brother Paul Tuttle on November 10 and it was a great time.  I would like to thank all the Brothers who attended and

 filled in for the chairs that were missing.  A very big thank you to Paul Nosser (spelling?) who is a friend of Bill and Paul Tuttle’s from Missouri, who came up with Bill and performed the Stair Case and Letter G lecture for us. 

We are currently working on the date for the 3^rd degree for Brother Paul Tuttle, and will notify everyone when the official date has been set.  The location has been determined and it will be held at the Masonic Home in Bloomington.  

See you at the next lodge meeting on December 5, 2000 at 7:30 pm.

Fraternally Yours,

Steven Scheffert – W.M.

A message to all members that previously belonged to King Hiram Lodge #31

With the joining of the Lodges from Belle Plaine, Chaska, and Shakopee, we no longer have the fund’s set aside that would cover the dues of certain members, these members were those that had 50 years and/or over the age of 80 years.  All members of the lodge will receive a letter from our Secretary, requesting payment for their 2001 dues cards. 

I looked at several options to continue this for all of the new Lodge members, but it still was not feasible.  We have an extremely large portion of our membership that is over 80 years and we have about 5 to 10 members a year that will receive their 50-year award within the next several years.  One option was to pay for life memberships for these members, with a discount from the Grand Lodge for a 50-year member.  The cost was about $5,000 to pay for all members that met the criteria.  With the large number of people soon to qualify for this, the cost grew very fast.  Unfortunately, our lodge is getting older faster than we can bring members into it.  I hope that in the future, this will turn around, and then the new Lodge would be able to reconsider a fund like the one King Hiram had.

Please contact the Lodge if you have any questions.

Steven Scheffert – W.M.

Greetings

OES NEWS

OES Chapter #90 had their stated meeting on Thursday, November 16 where we honored Mason's and veterans. It was wonderful to see all the men that came and notable, that when the veterans in the room were asked to stand, every Mason in the room rose!

We voted on a petition for membership and will be initiating a new member, Gina Vitali, on Tuesday, December 12. Gina comes from a family of Eastern Star members, including her mother and sister and, her daughter is a member of the Job's Daughters' Bethel #85. I encourage everyone to please join us on this special evening to welcome Gina into our chapter.

We collected 55 more pounds of food for the local food shelf, bringing our total up to 142 pounds. Please continue to bring your non-perishable items to the December meeting so we may reach our challenge of 192 pounds.

Auctioneer, Bob Deloach, did a great job of presenting everyone's decorated bottle for the bottle auction held that evening. We raised over $200 for this years project "Gift of Hope" which is the Grand Chapter's cancer project. Great job, everyone, for the imaginative work and generous donations. (we must have had some auction amateurs as some people seemed to have been bidding against themselves.) This is an especially meaningful project to our chapter since one of our own members, Marge Bischoff, contiunes to fight her own battle. Please continue to keep her in your prayer's.

Our next stated meeting will be Thursday, December 21 at 7:30 pm, preceeded by a Christmas potluck dinner at 6:30 pm. Hope to see you all there!

Sincerely,

Robbin Kottwitz

Worthy Matron

Financial Committee

            By Charles Richter

This month’s article in from the Motley Fund- a weekly syndicated investment article found in the Mankato Free Press Nov. 13, 2000.

How do you know if you have too much of your portfolio invested in one company’s stock?

First, think if terms of  total value, not number of shares.  You might have 100 shares of one stock, worth $15000 and 200 shares of another stock, worth $18,000.  Don’t think that 1000 shares is too much or that toois toolittle,  Focus instead on the percentage of your portfolio that each stock represents.  

If one of your holdings represents 50 % of you entire portfolio, for example, that’s probably too much risk for most people. If anything happens to that one holding, your portfolio will take a big hit.  If you hold too many stocks, though, and your biggest  holding amounts to just 3% of your portfolio, that’s not ideall, either.  If that stock doubles or triples, its overall effect will be minimal.  

            For mist people, 8-15 stocks is a good number to shoot for.  You want some diversification, but not too much.  And you want only as many companies as you can follow.  Offering contrary advice is Mark Twain, who said, “Put all your eggs in the one basket and – WATCH THAT BASKET.”

If I invested  $10,000 in Yahoo! When it went public, what would it be worth today?

            Yahoo! Came public on April 12,1996.  If you’d invested  $10,000 in it then, it would be worth more than $500,000 today.  (Of course, Yahoo'’ stock has been quite volatile.  Back in January, you holdings would have been worth $2.3 million.)  You  needn’t look for new economy rockets, though,  In these recent years of strong market growth, money invested in such consistant performers as Wal-Mart or General Electric would have quadrupled.

Membership committee by Marc Peterson

Bloomington Visitation was great.

12 Lodge brothers braved the snows and ventured into the big city of Richfield for the visitation of the Bloomington Lodge. The Richfield Lodge
Hall, which is located behind Wally McCarthy Oldsmobile, is home to 3-4 different south metro lodges, Bloomington is one of them. Along with the car dealers the lodge hall is being demolished to make room for the new Best Buy Headquarters. It is to bad, it's a beautiful lodge hall.

The prior to the meeting a dinner was prepared in the lodge kitchen by the brothers and a great dinner it was with all the trimmings, including Apple
pie and Ice cream. As I understand it they have a dinner before every meeting.

Thanks to Brother Mike Pierce for going through the "due examination" and then vouching for the rest of us so we were allowed into the meeting.
Because they are being forced to move there was plenty of discussion about it. They are going to meet temporally at the Lake Harriet Lodge. However, they are very interested in working with some other area lodges on the possibility of creating a south metro Masonic center. HHHuuummm- very
interesting.

It was a great time- it will be fun to plan another.

Christmas Party - at the printing of this newsletter we have not finalized plans for one. We are

 open to suggestions.

Property Committee Proposal

          By Don Rieck

I have located a 60 acre tract of land southeast of Jordan in St. Laurence Township, that the owner is willing to divide.  He is asking for  $16,000 per acre.  However, Scott County ihas declared a moratorium on all land development in the unincorporated areas.  This area was first zoned commercial industrial, then ws changed to an urban expansion area.  I contacted of our township supervisors.  He told me he didn’t know what the status was at this time, but he will check it out. According to the old reules, any building site required a minimum of 10 acres.

I then contacted the realtor and after explaining that I was acting alone, and didn’t have the authority to make any firm commitment I suggested we would pay $100,000 for 10 acres.  He said he would need something more definite before entering into negotiations.

I then made a rough survey using a magnetic compass and a bicycle wheel over gopher mounds and though the weeds, laid out a ten acre plot.

The building site I selected is along highway 160 midway between St Paul and Mankato.  I understand 60% of Minnesota’s population regularly travels this road. If we put up an A-frame building with a square facing southeast, we would have the biggest Masonic sign in Minnesota if not the nation, visable from the highway. I propose we put up this type of building. Then later it can be converted to a storage shed when the funds become available for a really fine meeting.

The site has an easy access from the highway.  The soil is sandy so we shouldn’t need a  paved parking lot.  The land is gently rolling so it has good drainage. It is eighty feet above the Minnesota River so we shouldn’t  have a flooding problem.  There is a  power line along Valley View Road, but we will have to provide our own water and sewerage systems, however, with 10 acres and the gentle slope we shouldn’t have any problem with an adequate drainfield. 

Bloomington lodge is going to lose their building because it has been condemned to make room for BEST BUY Corporate Headquarters.  I suggest we look into moving it to Jordan, but we will have to more pretty fast because it has to be gone by March, 2001.

Dues  Information and More

By  Kermit Bischoff

Dues card billings were sent out on Nov.1^st. So far the brothers are responding very well.  

Lodge had a good table lodge at Chaska.  Was a good night as I received by 50 year certification and pin from to Grand Master.  This meant a lot to me – to think I have 50 years as a  Mason. 

As you probably know, W.B. will be  leaving us in the near future.  We hope Steve and his family will have a good life in Nebraska. 

Nov. 19^th we had our Thanksgiving here at the Lodge.  What good food and it was set out so nice.  Thanks to the Jobs and advisors, mothers,etc.