Brethren,
As 2021 is coming to a close, I wanted to take a moment to share some of my reflections of this past year. It’s been quite the ride from starting with remote zoom lodge meetings, to finally being able to open back up again and see all my brothers in person and getting in several long-awaited degrees.
I think every Master looks to their year with ambitious plans and hopes to accomplish at least some of them. My goal was to focus on an excellent education program, which I believe was a success thanks to our amazing Education Committee, Jack Auld, Raul Sayno, and Scot Trodick. We were able to have seven high quality education nights from various speakers all on brand new topics for our lodge. The original plan was for 12 education nights, but the schedule of the pandemic challenged that and ultimately, we wanted to get our brothers some long overdue degrees, which I’m thrilled our lodge was able to accomplish. By my count, we got through 12 degrees in the span of only 6 months. A worthy achievement for any lodge.
I want to give my truly sincere and heartfelt gratitude to all the brothers of our lodge who weathered the pandemic so successfully and were able to continue without my presence. This could not have happened without the hard work and dedication to the craft of all our officers and brothers who offered their services for officer roles. I especially want to thank our Junior Warden and “almost” Worshipful, Michael May, who was thrown into the frying pan and did a masterful job filling in the pedestal positions. I know the lodge is in great hands. I also want to thank my Secretary, W. Kenneth Bennett for the tireless work throughout the year making sure everything runs as smoothly as possible. And finally, thank you to all the officers and brethren who reached out and supported me through the difficult time I had this year.
Coming into this year, I fully expected being Master of the Lodge would be a difficult challenge. However, I slowly realized how much I underestimated the effort necessary to run such a thriving lodge as ours. As a result, I have an even deeper respect for ALL our Past Masters who have shown such grace running our lodge over the years.
I wish all of you and your families a wonderful New Year’s celebration and great success in 2022.
Sincerely and Fraternally,
Michael Ballou
Worshipful Master 2021
Saddleback Laguna Lodge #672