Roma Lodge #1573 Tulare, CA

Roma Lodge has not met since its February meeting and has canceled future monthly meetings for the foreseeable future. The lodge is in the center of Tulare County which is on the governor’s watch list and may remained shut down for some time to come. During this time, we have had to cancel our 90th anniversary celebration, recognition of our scholarship winners, annual ravioli dinner fundraiser and junior member night just to name a few.

If the pandemic continues until a vaccine is developed, it may be well into next year before local lodges can meet and become active again. I understand what local lodge presidents are being faced with in deciding whether to try to meet or wait until society gets back to the “new” normal. As presidents we face the risk of losing members in January when the 2021 dues are being collected.

Roma Lodge dues are $75 for members of which only $.25 cents goes to the local lodge. In part, we encourage our members to look at their return on investment by being Roma Lodge members. If they are active, a family of four can get a net return of $842 per year for their dues investment of $162. However, if the lodge cannot meet, they cannot get a free dinner once a month, free ravioli dinner, Christmas party, Columbus Day BBQ or any of the benefits provided by the local lodge.

We have 300 members in our lodge with about 40-70 attending monthly meetings. For those 250 members who are not considered active in the lodge, what will be the incentive to pay their dues in the future? If this pandemic continues until 2021, I know it will be difficult for local lodges, especially those already struggling, to continue.

To be on the safe side it is important that local presidents listen to their membership and decide whether to meet or not. Many members are at one extreme or the other. Those who feel lodges should not meet until everything is back to normal and those who feel it would be okay to meet now and just practice guidelines given by the CDC. Time will tell.

We do want to wish our most senior member Agnes Pelous a Happy 98th Birthday. She has been a member for 56 years.