Brothers and sisters of Burlington Lodge 2223
By the time you receive this meeting report,
the holidays will have been behind us and I hope everyone had a wonderful
Christmas despite all the threats of COVID, the Delta variance and now
Omicron. It seems like the pandemic will
never end. BUT, we know it will because
I believe God is on our side in the long run!
Meanwhile, if we follow the protocols of wearing our masks and avoiding
large crowds of the unvaccinated we'll be just fine.
December was a banner month for our lodge in
both membership growth and activities.
We submitted new membership applications for 10 new members to the Grand
Lodge and current plans are to hold initiations at our January meeting on
Tuesday, January 18, 2022.
On Sunday, December 12th, we held
our annual Christmas dinner at Lucia's in Winchester and it was exceptional
both from the taste and quality of the food as well as the attendance of 38
people. From all I observed, everyone
had a wonderful time. The meal was great
and plentiful, the camaraderie was overflowing and overall it made up for
Christmas 2020 when COVID stopped us from having our annual celebration
of the holidays.
And then on the 21st, despite it
being a time of year with all the goings-on of Christmas week, we had a great
turnout for our monthly, end-of-year meeting with plenty of pizza and a fun
time overall. The 50-50 raffle was won
by Maria Lombardo who generously donated her winnings to the lodge.
My
encouragement about our lodge's future continues to grow after I had to seek
out the COA's maintanance man because he had set out
only 25 chairs and we needed more than that!
Increased membership is a good sign and it means Burlington Lodge 2223
is back!
By the way,
on the subject of a membership drive, I submitted a notice to be published in
both the Burlington local newspaper and the Burlington edition of the Woburn
Daily-Times Chronicle. The article,
"ATTENTION ITALIANS", is a general invitation to join us in the
preservation of Italian culture and language.
On another
topic, we have had our monthly movie offering posted officially on the
Burlington Library's on-line calendar.
It currently has us scheduled for the 4th Wednesday of every
month at 6:30. I will follow-up the week
before each showing with an ad in the local newspapers. If the idea of a monthly Italian movie that
is open to the public catches on, it should help us grow our membership. The movie for January will be "Bread and
Tulips" with English sub-titles, a highly acclaimed romantic comedy. I
invite our members to attend on the 26th of January.
I'm beginning to feel
good about our efforts to rebuild our lodge based on what we've seen happening
with our membership's new enthusiasm. I hope it will continue through
participation at our next meeting on Tuesday, January 18th at 7:00 where we will be
initiating our new members and continue through 2022. I'm
hopeful of creating an 'activities' committee.
Bring your ideas to our next meeting and let them be heard. Let's make our lodge one where people WANT to
belong.
Finally,
members were reminded that our Financial Secretary, Jo Parrella,
has sent a notice to every member to remind them of the fact
annual dues need to be paid by January 1st. The response has been
exceptional for the most part with but 5 delinquents. With that in mind, to those unpaid, we'd
appreciate your immediate attention to this need. Last year (2021) no dues were assessed due to
the lodge shutdown caused by COVID but now we need the money for expenses and
to pay per capita assessments by the Grand Lodge.
I hope this
note finds everyone in good health and looking forward to the new year, 2022. It
has to be a BETTER year than 2021 was where the pandemic created all sorts of
problems and hardships. I look forward
to seeing you at our January meeting where we'll initiate new members and then
enjoy good fellowship and refreshments upon adjournment.
And I wish all my brothers and sisters of our
lodge a happy, healthy 2022.
Don McGowan
781-272-0529