San Francisco’s 153rd celebration of Italian Heritage came back with a roar, even with Covid-19 restrictions in place. On Friday night, October 8th, the Italian Heritage weekend began with the crowning of Queen Isabella, Grace Ann Cardenas, the knighting of Christopher Columbus as portrayed by Joseph Cervetto, Jr., and the presentation of the Royal Court (Princess, Duchesses, Contessas, Ladies in Waiting, Crown Bearer and Scroll Bearer) at the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club in North Beach. This was followed by a public presentation of the Queen and Court in Washington Square Park, and then Sergio Strozzi, Italian Consul General, flipped a light switch that illuminated Saints Peter & Paul’s Italian Cathedral and the Club with the colors of the Italian flag. Even City Hall was aglow with the Green, White, and Red. Beautiful! The next night, there was a lovely reception at the Italian Consulate for the Court, their families, and the Board of DiSunday morning started with a solemn High Mass at Saints Peter and

It’s that time again! We are looking for participants for the upcoming Royal Pageant for the 2022 Grand Lodge Convention in Southern California. The contest officially begins on November 1, 2021. Deadline for participant notification is Sunday, November 14, 2021. We are encouraging not only our young ladies, but also our young men to get involved. Remember this is one of the few opportunities that we have to highlight our youth. So we are hoping that more of our lodges will join in and find someone to represent their lodge. It is important to let me know if you have a candidate as soon as possible. The candidates must be between the ages of 15-26, single or married and a member in good standing of the Grand Lodge of California.

Again, the contest officially starts on November 1. Tickets can be ordered from the Grand Lodge. The more tickets you sell, the more money your lodge will receive back. For the last pageant, more than 50% of the monies received went back to the participating lodges. All participants must have a minimum of $2,000 to qualify. Any tickets sold beyond that will determine their placement of the top five in the Royal Pageant. All monies must be mailed to the Grand Lodge in the registered mail envelope provided by the Grand Lodge. The envelope must be postmarked by Monday, April 25, 2022. Placement of the Royal Pageant will be announced in May. More information will be sent from the Grand Lodge detailing all the rules at a later date.

Remember, we need to know no later than Sunday November 14th, if you will have a participant to represent your lodge. Email me

Roma Lodge #1573 officially began meeting again at our September meeting. Since then, we have met in October and had our Columbus Day celebration at Mooney’s Grove Park in Visalia. Our December Christmas party and meeting will be held on December 5th.

The smoke seems to have cleared for most of us. I hope your skies are clear. Since I last wrote you, there have been several Zoom calls with National. All were interesting but one was very interesting. All the National Committee Chairs were on this Zoom. Our National President Robert Bianchi told us what he expected in the way of action and reporting. He also told us to feel free to reach out to other committee chairs for assistance with activities.

I was impressed with this idea of sharing assistance with each other. We certainly can do this on a Grand Lodge or Local Lodge level. If our committee has a project they are working on and find themselves in need of help from a technology or membership committee, they should feel free to reach out. The best chance we have for continued success is

I will be including in brief some information regarding Membership & Leadership in my article each month “Back to the Basics”: simple ideas to keep members engaged in Retention and Recruiting members.

For some members of our Order, recruiting is the easy part. Membership retention, however, is sometimes the most difficult and important. It’s great that you got those members in the door, but how do you make them stay?

The Lodges have learned that former members