Greetings My Fellow Elks:
I hope everyone’s year has started off well. I see that Covid has raised its ugly head again. I just hope that no one gets it. We only have 2 months left in our physical year which ends on the 31st of March 2022.
We will be nominating officers for the year 2022-2023 in February. I’m asking that members get involved in the daily running of the lodge. It takes a lot of time and compassion.
A proposal has been made to raise the lodge's dues $5.00 per member. A vote on this proposal will be held at the second meeting in February. The proposed dues may be $130.00 for the year because the Grand Lodge has raised its dues. The dues notices for 2022-2023 will be going out in the mail soon. The members’ dues are what operates the lodge side of the budget. The Trustees and the committees have started working on the budgets for 2022-2023. The club and kitchen were able to maintain their budgets despite the rising cost of food and supplies. We don’t know what the new year will bring with the cost of food and supplies. I know that we will come up with ideas that will work with the rising cost.
I want to thank Tim Anderson, Donna Miller, Mary Jo Fox, Pam Berry and Rhonda McDonald for attending the District Deputy Clinic that was held at the Orangeburg Lodge on the 15th of January. Our state officers were impressed with what your Lodge has been doing the past 4 months. There were a lot of WOWs.
Currently we have 366 members in the lodge. We have 33 members that haven’t paid their dues. We have initiated 49 new members since the start of the year. We have 6 candidates waiting to join the lodge. We are going to try to get them in soon. However, I don’t want you to stop talking to friends. Invite them out and ask them to join our great organization. The House Committee has a lot of events coming up. We have had great turnouts on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. I want to thank everyone for working and coming out those nights.
Again, thank you for supporting your lodge. We have a lot of members doing great things around the lodge.
Angus Patterson Jr.
ER