by Dennis N Oakland
Ambassador to Alaska

Great things are happening in the Alaska Grand Council Jurisdiction. As our Grand Assembly approaches, our 3 Councils will be well represented at the 36^th Annual Assembly on March 2^nd 2018 at Fairbanks Alaska.

We have a sound financial foundation to keep our York Rite bodies functioning well into the future, however while the Grand Council of Alaska has nearly 500 members, (many of whom live outside of Alaska), we, like many other Councils, are struggling with attendance.

Those who choose to attend our meetings are being met with a whole new paradigm in meeting content. No more gavel in, do the basic business, and gavel out. We have, through good leadership, entered into a Cryptic Mason Education program.

At all of our meetings, the education portion overshadows the mundane routine business that plague far too many of our Masonic gatherings. No one comes to a York Rite meeting to hear last month’s minutes, they come to learn more about the meaning of the organization to which they belong.

This transition will naturally take time. Men stopped coming, in many cases, out of sheer boredom. Teach the Craft, men will return. But We are not naïve enough to believe this is a quick fix. We understand that what drove men away, will take a generation or two to recover.

We have at each of our meetings, a program that takes the Cryptic Degrees and breaks them into practical, esoteric and spiritual meaning and helps to impart them to the attendees. So far, so good. Persistence will pay dividends!

Dennis N. Oakland

Ambassador to Alaska

www.alaskayorkrite.org