Coconut Grove Lodge No. 258, F&AM
Message from the Worshipful Master
December 2001
My Brethren,
I have just come back from the last officer's meeting of this year, and cannot help but muse about what will soon be my former tenure. In exactly seven days I will be an official lame-duck master. It gives me a feeling of nostalgia and satisfaction rolled into one.
It has been a great year. Just last meeting, before our Thanksgiving dinner, I was able to present the Miami-Dade Public library with a sizeable donation that will go a long way towards completing the Patriot Rolls microfilm collection. It is an extraordinary tool for those researching the American Revolution, as well as those tracing their ancestors through revolutionary times. And when they do so, they will know that these materials are available to them through the generosity of Coconut Grove Lodge masons. Also, our secretary is giving the final touches to a donation of dictionaries to an elementary school in Dade County. There will then be a number of children who will benefit directly from that same generosity. These are but two instances in which our Lodge is having a direct and positive effect in our community, and the plans I hear for next year tell me that, if anything, we will be doing more.
Within the pillars, we have done quite a bit, too. Six members of our Lodge did their Third Degree proficiency, and we have a new silver-card holder. By February or March next year we should have a Second Degree for the first time in a long while. I must confess it gives me great pleasure to see ritual work back in the lodges.
We have also put up our website. You can visit it at
www.bradleyfoundation.org/Lodge/index.html for a preview, but by mid-December it will be at its permanent home at www.CoconutGroveLodge.org. We all hope it will become the cornerstone of a new and more efficient way of communicating among members and to the profane.Perhaps the most important aspect of this past year has been the fellowship and the comradery as we looked for new ways of carrying out our work. It will be up to the next master to determine what is worth repeating, and I trust he will make the right choices for the continuing betterment of the Lodge. I wish him every success in that endeavor and place myself at his command.
But there are a few activities left for this year yet. On the 29th of November some of us will go to Indian River Lodge No. 90 in Titusville and watch the Shuttle go off from their grounds. On the 3rd of December we will have our election of new officers, and on the 17th we will have our last dinner with friends and family members. The installation of our new officers will take place at the lodge on the 5th of January, and the Past Master's dinner on the 12th. I am sure our secretary will forward timely reminders, but you can always check the information on the website!
On a different note, during our Thanksgiving dinner we had the unexpected visit of our J.G.W., R.W. C. Edward Gonzalez. R.W. Eddy had had to cancel a previous meeting because he had been hospitalized with a blood clot in his arm. Some would have taken that as a sufficiently good reason not to show up! Not R.W. Eddy. Barely out of the hospital, he came to our meeting to make up for the visit he had promised. We all had a good time, and I believe we all learned a few quiet lessons about what it takes to be not a good, but a great Mason.
Finally, it has been a pleasure serving you this year, I have enjoyed every moment, and I will always be thankful for the opportunity you have so graciously given me. I will now return to work in the line, and hope that serving the next masters to the best of my ability I will in some modest way repay the many kindnesses that I have heretofore received.
Yours in Fellowship and Brotherly Love,
Saul M. Montes-Bradley
Worshipful Master
Return to Messages from the W\M\
Webmaster - Saul Montes-Bradley, 32°, W\M\
© 2001, Coconut Grove Lodge No. 258