…presented at Brant Lodge No. 45, Brantford, March 13, 2007.

Right Worshipful Sirs, Very Worshipful Sirs, Worshipful Sirs, Distinguished East and Brethren all.

Tonight, I would like to continue my talk reviewing the Grand Lodge Committee reports. For those of you who were not at my official visit at Reba Lodge, I discussed committees that many of you may be quite familiar with; The Lodge Buildings Advisory Committee, Blood donors committee, The Library Museum and Archives committee, Long Range Planning, Public Relations, Computer resources and Masonic Education committee.

Tonight the committees may not be so familiar.

Gregory Hazlitt heads a group of men I believe all of them past District Deputy Grand Master's that travel the province to help the Aspirants look at the demands of being DDGM of their district. I had the pleasure of accompanying Wor. Brother Jack Herron to his session in November. I'm sure that he found much of the information and pointers useful as I did when I attended in 2005. The committee is now trying to get approval for a program to provide District Secretaries with helpful information to get a handle on the demands of their job.

Communications committee helps conduct the flow of information from Grand Lodge to its members, between District deputies and between Lodges and the brethren. It has gathered all of the DDGM trestle boards and emailed them to the Grand lodge distribution list. District Chairman Names and addresses are extracted from those trestle boards and made available to the committee chairman for their mailing purposes. This year R. W. Brother Don Hamilton compiled a list of official visits to their mother lodges. This task will now be continued by the committee. An itinerary list is maintained to inform the brethren of the presence of the Grand Master and the Deputy grand master. The Committee is also responsible to determine the winners for the current Year of the Awards Program for lodge summons, Newsletters and Websites.

Friend to Friend and Mentor Committee try to promote masonry by getting new members into the lodge, then keeping them interested in Masonry by having programs that help them to feel needed for the betterment of the lodge. These two programs are time tested on being twelve years old and the other twenty-one respectively.

Fraternal Correspondence reported that they receive the Annual Reports from 40 Grand lodges. This committee looks at masonry on a world wide scale.

Fraternal Relations works with the requests for recognition from other Grand lodges. This committee has received requests from places such as the Congo and Ukraine this past term.

The Ontario Mason Magazine Committee has provided a means for brethren of the various districts to mark their accomplishments by publishing pictures and articles to promote milestones of Masonry. Sadly this committee is facing rising costs and lower revenues. These demands and the promotion of modern influences have prompted the committee to go to an electronic format. The result of this can be found at theontariomason.com. The grand Master can now at his discretion do an audio visual presentation to all of the brethren through this web site. Included in this web site is the capabilities for the districts to have their own section or sections.

Computer resources are headed by Brian Bond. Oh how far we as masons have come in accepting the computer into the lodge. All the secretaries of Brant District now are computerized. The next step is to make them all email capable in order to save the secretaries' time and the lodges DOLLARS every month. Remember Brethren for every notice sent by email the lodge saves at least 60 cents. The secretary and his assistant save time to compiling them. Another plus for emailing your lodge summons is that each and every brother of the district could be on your mailing list thereby improving communication throughout the district and beyond.

Brant Lodge has used these expert brethren in order to enhance its lodge dedication ceremony in October. These Committees are available for the lodges of Brant District to use in order to improve and promote Masonry. . With the use of the committees of grand lodge Brethren you can improve your own lodge. Please use the many resources available to you from your Grand lodge.

Brethren Thank-you for the kindness you have afforded me this evening and I close with words of wisdom about Daylight Saving time: