News From The Ninth Arch

Nebraska\’s 2020 Virtual Sessions – Lessons Learned

Categories

Contributions

Since 2018, there have been close to 200 articles submitted to the General Grand Council. THANK YOU to all who have contributed – your work is appreciated.

Add to the Collection

Contributions are WECOME! Please consider taking a few minutes to write a 250-750 word article and provide a picture (or three). Some of our most solicited articles are:

  • Events
    • Grand Assemblies/Sessions
    • Festivals (Local or multi-jurisdictional)
    • Educational Seminars
    • CMMRF
  • Education
    • Leadership
    • Esoteric
    • History
  • Award Presentations

Email to submit your article. Our Editors will review and follow up with you! 

Nebraska’s 2020 Virtual Sessions – Lessons Learned
Submitted by Dennis Newman, Grand Recorder, Grand Council of Nebraska

\"Dennis
Dennis Newman
Grand Recorder, Grand Council of Nebraska

 

On April 18th, the Grand York Rite of Nebraska held their shortened session by electronic means using Freeconferencecall.com. (If you use freeconferencecall.com, it is worth paying the $3.95 charge to have a dedicated phone number instead of using a password by phone). Nebraska held our Grand Chapter, Grand Council and Grand Commandery on the same call. Each session lasted for 1 hour each.

The Grand Council Assembly had 42 companions online at some point. For the election of officers, the Grand Recorder, myself, sent out the ballots by email to the delegates. The ballots had the names of those in line along with a space for a write in. They were sent back to the Grand Recorder for tabulation. The elections went very smoothly.

The proposed budget was sent out the same way, and companions asked to reply with their vote. Also if they had any questions on the budget, they were asked to submit them. We also sent out the pre-printed reports to cut down on time. Nebraska did not have any resolutions this year. But if we did, they would have been in the pre-printed reports that were sent out, read, discussed, and voted on.

We came up with an agenda for the conference call. We held a shortened installation of officers.  The shortened agenda and installation ceremony can be found here: (PDF/ Word Document).

The feedback that I received was that everything went well. The negative aspect is that everyone needs to keep their computer microphone or phone on mute. The mics pick up a lot of background noise like kids, dogs, television, etc.

Companions could bring things up or ask any questions they had. On the call from General Grand Council were the Deputy General Grand Master, Bill Snyder, General Grand PCW (representative for the Grand Master), General Grand Recorder and the Deputy General Grand Master for the North Central Region.

If you want to follow the agenda and depending on the time of the session, you can change the times. This would keep everything of schedule. On the installation, depending on your state\’s constitution, if you want you can pass on explaining the duties to keep it short.

Everyone stay safe and healthy.

Shopping Cart
Scroll to Top