Howdy Brethren,

We all know the hardest subject to talk about is “finances” and we successfully accomplished this at the 2023 Annual Budget Meeting. We had one line item that was mistakenly inputted, and it was called out at the meeting. This was quickly resolved, and the rest of the budget was fairly painless. The Accounts, Ways and Means committee put in many hours on this budget and they should be applauded for their efforts. Cuts were made to stay within our means, and we closed the Budget meeting with it balanced.

As Deputy Grand Master, we are tasked with picking our officers and committees for the upcoming year. This has been an extremely difficult task. How do you pick Good Men, from Good Men??? Well let me tell you, it has kept me up at night and caused some more grey hair. But I do believe the Team that has been assembled will accomplish big things.

The dictionary defines Foundation as the body or ground upon which something is built up or overlaid. The foundation in Freemasonry is the Blue Lodge, without the Foundation, all other bodies will fail. I ask each of you to attend your Blue Lodge and put in the work that is needed to build up our Foundation. In the last few years, I have witnessed consolidations and recently a charter was surrendered. This is always hard to witness for me and I always think to myself, what could I or we have done differently? I am not sure there is anything we could do, but we should never stop trying. If we have Brothers that have not showed up to Lodge, ask them to join you. Bringing a Brother back to Lodge should be our focus. Remember, we have Brothers that would love to come to Lodge but cannot drive at night. It is incumbent on us to take care of all of our Brothers. We are our Brothers Keeper!

I am pleased to say the rollout of Grand View is going well. Not seamlessly but better than I would have thought. We still have a way to go, but slowly but surely, we will have all Grand View options up and running. RWB Tony, our Grand Secretary has done a great job taking the lead on this.

I have been working on a new award for next year. It will be called the “Ray D. Carpenter Lodge Excellence Award”, this award will recognize the Lodges that are doing the necessary commendable work that Lodges should be doing. More details on this will come in March.

Brethren, as always, it is my pleasure to serve you and the Grand Lodge of New Mexico. I am always available to each of you, if you have any questions, concerns, or issues, do not hesitate to reach out to me.