Visibility: Making the Craft Seen, Relevant & Welcoming

Visibility is one of the most misunderstood concepts in Freemasonry and the Shrine.

In Episode 4 of The Masonic Heartbeat Podcast, Trevor Eliott and Keven Kidder are joined by Sean Martin, High Priest & Prophet of Gizeh Shriners and Marketing Director for Region One, for a powerful discussion about why visibility matters now more than ever.

This episode explores how storytelling, community presence, mentorship, and authentic connection help ensure that Freemasonry and the Shrine remain relevant in a rapidly changing world.

The conversation dives into:

•  why visibility is about belonging, not ego 
•  how lodges can create stronger member experiences 
•  generational communication challenges 
•  family involvement in the fraternity 
•  the importance of fun, fellowship, and culture 
•  practical ways lodges and temples can improve visibility immediately 
•  why “if we’re not being seen, do we even exist?” 

Sean also shares insights into:

•  modern Shrine marketing 
•  experiential Masonry 
•  membership culture 
•  community engagement 
•  and how small lodges can grow through intentional brotherhood and storytelling. 

This episode is both philosophical and practical, offering real-world ideas for leaders, mentors, and members who care deeply about the future of the Craft.

Because when people can clearly see the good we do…
 they begin to understand the value of becoming part of it.

🎙️ The Masonic Heartbeat Podcast
Exploring how Energy, Mentorship, Visibility, and Purpose keep the heartbeat of the Craft strong.

If this conversation resonated with you, share it with a Brother who needs to hear it.

And if you haven’t already, be sure to follow The Masonic Heartbeat so you don’t miss future episodes.

You can also learn more and connect with us at www.mrfancyfez.ca.

Email Trevor at trevor@mrfancyfez.ca.

Email Keven at shrinerkevenk@gmail.com

Because the future of Freemasonry isn’t something we inherit.
 It’s something we build—together.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Heartbeat Podcast, conversations about the future of Freemasonry. I'm Trevor Burrus, Kevin Ketter. Let's talk about how we keep the heartbeat of craft strong.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Welcome back to the Masonic Heartbeat Podcast, a show about how Freemasonry stays strong, relevant, and meaningful for the next generation. Every organization has a rhythm, a pulse, a set of signals that tells us whether it is alive and thriving or quietly fading into the background. In this podcast, we explore those signals through the EMVP framework: energy, mentorship, visibility, and purpose. Together, these four elements form the heartbeat of a healthy lodge, a healthy temple, and a healthy fraternity. I'm Trevor Elliott, and I'm joined by my co-host, Shriner Kevin. And we also have a special guest, Sean Martin, with us today. Today we are exploring a topic that can feel uncomfortable for some Masons and Shriners, but it is absolutely essential for our future visibility. Because if people cannot see the work, they can't feel the impact. And if they can't feel the impact, they will never seek to be part of it. Joining us today is someone who brings practical experience in helping the shrine communicate more effectively in today's world. Sean Martin is the high priest and prophet of Giza Shriners in British Columbia, Canada, and serves as marketing director for Region One. Sean has been actively involved in helping shrine centers think more intentionally about communication, storytelling, and engagement. Sean, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Welcome to the Heartbeat Podcast and conversations about the future of free making. I'm Trevor Elliott and Kevin Ketter. Let's talk about how we keep the heartbeat of the craft strong.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Thank you so much, Trevor. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

So we like to start each episode with what we call checking the pulse. Something positive, encouraging, or interesting happening in the fraternity right now. Sean, from your perspective, what is something happening in Freemasonry or this shrine today that deserves more visibility?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

I think something that's been happening, at least in our local jurisdiction, is basically a framework for how lodges run. Basically, what we've decided in our lodge, and with the help of some key members, notably a gentleman named Nathaniel Simf, who's a brother of ours, we came up with a manifesto. He basically outlined the core attributes that any sort of organization needs to thrive, but more importantly, Masonry. And so the success of the lodge will fundamentally be determined by how we make our brothers feel and how we make them feel when they come to Lodge. And so we've really been adapting this and adopting this in our lodge to not just through outreach, but what does it actually mean to be a Mason? What does it actually mean to follow your obligations and showing up for our brothers in those respects? And out of all the lodges in our area, I say that we're probably the strongest right now and growing quite rapidly compared to the lodges who maybe haven't adopted this framework into their lodge. And I think that from a leadership perspective and from what masonry needs globally, it just makes the most sense. Nowadays, kids men are overburdened, overcommitted. They don't need another meeting every month. They need to show up with the guys and it being a space where they can be themselves and not necessarily have to put on some sort of face. We all do that for work, right? But this is just where you can be you and we generally genuinely care about what's going on in your life and how you are feeling and living in and moving through it. So it's been a very interesting adoption, actually. And it starts with little things to making people feel welcome, like new membership, right? There should be a new membership package. We should have their name tag day one. Like you step through, you become an EA. Your name tag when you go to put back on your suit is already on your suit. Further, like it's just these little things that make people go, wow, in the moment that we really thought about how we onboard them. Another thing that that I think is valuable is within the six-step program here in our jurisdiction. We we've adopted that fully in our lodge. Basically, gone are the days where you can just apply for membership. You can you have to go through a bit of an ordeal, come to every meeting, help out for every meeting, set up the lodge, meet the brothers, tend the bar, help clean up after for five, six, eight months to a year before we even put a petition in front of you. We want to know your hobbies, your friends, your spouse, is she on board? We want to meet your kids. Like we might even want to meet your employers. Like it's just this other level that we can really get an idea of who a man is before we bring them in. And in doing so, we found that our commitment level has gone way, way up. That we're not initiating someone just to have them not show up, not attend and pay dues starting three months after the raising. It's being they're there, they're committed. Uh, they're tasked with coming up with an event or preparing a meal fairly quickly. Uh, they have to give a speech on why they want to be a Mason and what that means to them before we do the initiation. It's it's got a bit of uh work to it. There's some memory work as well that we would expect that you do in order to proceed forward. And then just really reaffirming that being a Mason and a shriner is not something you do on a weekend just for the fun of it. It's a lifelong commitment. And you will be having a life in Masonry moving forward. It's not just something that I'm gonna do one one day and then great, I'm a Mason now for the rest of my life as long as I pay my dues. It's yeah, it's been altered the way we've structured things. And another thing was just really concentrating on education. We managed to keep our meetings down to about 45 minutes to an hour by doing most of the business during a GP meeting. So all the uh arguing and whatever happens in that meeting, our meetings are about an hour, 45 minutes to an hour, 30 minutes of that is education, where we engage everybody, and then a meal after. We found that instead of we started tile at 7:30, and when we went past about nine, so that's an hour and a half, it was a mad rush to the door. If we finish by 8:30, the first time we did that, we had to kick people out. We were like, guys, it's 12 o'clock now. You gotta go home. Some of us have to work tomorrow. We weren't expecting this because they think about, oh, I got half an hour, let's stay, and then half an hour turns into an hour, and then an hour turns into two. And next thing there's this live discussion, debates, we're singing songs. Yeah, it's been really transformative in how we we do stuff. We don't run a meeting to pay rent, we don't run a meeting to talk about dues or whatever. That'll happen at the GP meeting. Their meetings are focused on education, building upper brothers. If someone's had a milestone, then we might hit to recess and have a toast. We might invite them up to say a few words. There's all sorts of recognition that's happening too. But this carries inside and out of side of lodges too. If all you're doing is meeting once a month, are you really forming that brotherhood? So we meet outside of lodge. We have wing degrees where you know for every wing that you finish is the degree that you're at for the wing degrees, so you can get 35 wings. Well, I'm 35 degree. Um and and then whoever finishes the most is the like equivalent to worshipful master for the next one. We do that at a local pub. But we're always wearing our something Masonic, whether it's a ball cap or if it's a shrine or fez or or whatever. Because if we're not being seen in the community having fun and enjoying ourselves, what are we really doing? Our biggest brand is who we are. If you wear the square encompass, if you have it on your hat, if you have a ring, if you're wearing a fez, people notice, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Yeah. Sean, you you use the term GP, a GP meeting. Can you uh explain what that is?

SPEAKER_00 8:36

General purposes, it's just like a board of general purposes. We sit down, we have basically our regular lodge meeting and then a GP meeting every night, every month. So first first second Tuesday of the month is lodge meeting, fourth Tuesday of the month is GP meeting. And that's where we'll go through the business of the lodge, anything that needs to be done. A lot of people don't want to be a part of that, right? They choose to opt out. And I think that's really the officers to lead most of that, but it is open to any member. They're welcome to come and share their voice. And then we kind of decide what business is going to actually carry forward to lodge and what business is going to stay there. And if you had any contestion or anything that was like controversial, that's where you would bring it up. We don't want to air our dirty laundry in the middle of a lodge room where there might be visitors present. You can't have people yelling and having a or not yelling, but having an argument back and forth in the middle of a lodge meeting when your district deputy grandmaster, grandmaster's there visiting, it just doesn't work. So we asked them to have it there. And certainly anybody can add anything to the agenda before our regular meeting, but if it hasn't sat at a GP meeting, it's it will likely be, unless it's really time sensitive, postponed to the following meeting to give the officers time to prepare for answers. And no one wants to be cut off guard or made to look like they weren't prepared. So we try and give everybody time to do that.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yeah. Kevin, do you have anything at uh add to that? No, that was a lot to take in, uh, a lot of good information in there. I want to go kind of back to uh what I'm gonna call it the hangaround stage where they come for the six months, a year. Are you guys uh alongside them and kind of doing a mentorship at the same time with them? Or you just like here you oh no.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Someone's assigned, someone's assigned. We have a coach who leads them through and we're tracking everybody coming around, right? We would expect that you show up to generally before our stated meet or our regular meeting, we would go to a pub for dinner as a group, and we no one really has to cook, and we all get something that we really like rather than I guess down there it's green beans. People tend to be a little bit yeah, right our secret. Yeah, right. So we get you get something that you like, it's your one meal out with the boys, right? So let's have some fun, have a beer or whatever. So you you come to that, you come up to the lodge room. Lodge, we open the doors maybe an hour before we actually sit. So if it's we tile at 7:30, 6:30, anybody can come and they can have a drink. There's uh array of drinks. If you want a scotch, it's there, but we also have many non-alcoholic options as well, uh, and just sort of hang around and get to know everybody. We would make the seekers at that point uh tend the bar because everybody's gonna come by and get a drink, right? So you're gonna meet everybody from the lodge. And then we, as they fill out their paperwork, we dis disseminate that to the brother, and so they can get a good idea of who they're letting in. Because what we found is you have to be so careful about who you let in. A whole lodge can be basically derailed by one or two members, right? If they really wanted to get in into it, and there's no mechanism in masonry to say, hey, maybe this isn't the right fit for you, you should go somewhere else. They have to leave on their own volition once they're in, right? So we just kind of guard that and make sure that they're going to be the right fit for our lodge. We invite them to go to other lodges in our area. They might be a better fit there, right? So if you have friends at one of the other lodges, what are you doing with us? Go over there. That's gonna be the spot where you want to be, anyways, right? And trying to eliminate that sort of buyer's remorse. We also give them like a couple different books to read, one of them being Freemasonry for dummies. I think that has a really good overview of what Freemasonry is without divulging any of the stuff that we would term as secrets and that people can go through and read at their own pace and decide if this is for you. It's like a dating thing, right? So you wouldn't sit. Nathaniel says this quite often. If we went out on a date with someone and the first date we were like, I love you, marry me, you just sign here. Like they'd be going, Well, that's kind of what we do in Masonry. You come to our lodge once and we hand you a petition, please join. Like it's it's we want to get to know you before we invite you in. See if you're gonna be uh a fit for us because it does take a lot of work. And when you're building those types of relationships that are really strong, it's gotta be mutually beneficial, right? It's we've both got to put in the effort, it can't be just one-sided.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

No, 100% agree. So what's your number? Uh are you guys growing a net growth in your local lodge by uh implementing this?

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah, so we're a pretty small town, but there's 30,000, and there's three lodges in this area. None of the other lodges are really growing, and we initiated, but we've got four in the last year, seven in the wings, three affiliate members wanting to come over. Now what which town and lodge are you with? I'm uh Comax Lodge, number 188 in British Columbia, Yukon. And before that, I was I was uh past master of Victoria Columbia Lodge number one in Victoria. I did that in 2015. One of the youngest to ever hold that position, actually. But it was great and it was the right timing for me. I don't think now with my shrine commitments and my kid commitments that I would necessarily take on being master uh of a lodge, but uh just uh done you know university and stuff, and I was just starting my career, I didn't have kids, and so it fit perfectly with the timing.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

That talking about kids, I heard that you just I guess had a new bundle of joy to see your uh family here recently.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yeah, baby Finley was born on April 9th, and him and mom are doing great, and our two girls are ecstatic about it. So I have two daughters, eight and six, and now a boy. So family is something that's really important to me and it is supported by our Masonic community. Everywhere I go, if I tend to get the right answer where I go, hey, I can't make it tonight because I gotta look after the kids or whatever, and everybody goes, yeah, family first. And if it was anything other than that, I would be out the door. But like, okay, yeah, well, okay, sure, I can deal with that. Family, then my job, then masonry is how I view my hierarchy.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Congratulations on a new addition. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

He's a shriner in training. I I'm trying to find a little fez to put on and take a picture. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

So, Sean, what gives you optimism right now about where our fraternity is headed?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

I see that men nowadays are looking for that connection. They're looking for more than ever because they don't have it. We've gone mostly mostly digital, and that's great. You can go online and hang out with your buddies or whatever. Who's gonna help you get show up when things are difficult? Or who are you gonna share the joys and maybe even the pitfalls of your life with? And I think the more that I study our fraternity and I learn about it is that masonry and shrine offer something that's a little bit different than other clubs that you would be a member of. I have been a Rotarian, I was a Rotary Use Exchange student. I have been members of other things, from ham radio clubs to martial art dojos. And the brotherhood that masonry has is really unique. They genuinely care about you and they genuinely want to see you succeed. And not just in when they're working together, like rotary or martial arts. It's outside of masonry too. I have five or six friends on my or text on my phone constantly every day, if I don't answer to to check in and stuff like that, especially since we've had baby, right? Because it's tend to be a little bit scattered right now. And they're constantly looking to take things off my plate to help me in any way possible. Some have cooked meals for us and dropped them off at our house. It's but I don't expect any of that. And we do it back too, like if someone needs their lawn mode or help move or whatever it is. It's just this. When I moved to Victoria, I left behind all my friends and family in the small town that I was at. It's about two hours drive away. And I said to my dad, I don't have any I had people in my small town. If I gave them a call at three in the morning, they would be there with chains on on their truck to help pull me out of the ditch if I had gone off the road. And I didn't have anybody there in Victoria like that until I joined the lodge. And then as soon as I joined the lodge, I had 150 people who at a moment's notice, if I sent up a flare, would be there to help. That type of camaraderie and brotherhood, you just don't find anywhere else.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Yeah, absolutely. So for our listeners joining us for the first time, we frame these conversations through the EMVP model. Energy creates momentum, mentorship creates continuity, purpose creates meaning, visibility creates opportunity. Visibility is often misunderstood. It's not about ego, it's about self, it's not about self-promotion, it's about ensuring the value of the fraternity is understandable, accessible, and discoverable. Because people can't join something they don't understand. Sean, when you think of visibility in the shrine context, why does that matter?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Happen to think that visibility is relevance in today's era, it's like currency. If you're not on social media, if you're not out in the community, there's a million other things that people can be doing, right? Never before in the history of man have we had such wealth of entertainment at our very fingertips. So really, we're not competing with Rotary or Flying's Club or Koanis or Arid Toastmasters or anything like that anymore. We're complete competing with a machine in your living room that if you hit play on it, you have hours of entertainment, video games. And trying to balance that with and an outside commitments can be very difficult. So you have to show them why they would want to be a member of an organization like this and what it does. And if you're not being seen, do you even exist? I always used to say that to be one, ask one is a great slogan, but you have to know one to ask one and know what it is to be asked and know what to ask when you get there. And there was a gentleman in uh Victoria's name is Rick Cosley, and he actually changed that. All his branding for his Masonic clothes and paraphernalia is uh M one, are you one too? And then people go, what? I'm glad you asked. It's a pretty easy conversation to have there. Ask one what? So I think if we're not being seen in our community, then yeah, it no one knows of our services and no one knows what we do. It's really sad to me, actually, because in our small town here, there's a museum and there's uh a portion of the shrine parade from like 150 years ago, 100 years ago, where they're coming down main 5th street, which is the main street in town, and there was 150 shriners in that parade. 50. For a small town like Courtney. And our potentate this year was trying to cross the border with some shirts for the team. It was just for the team. They were asking him what there's a shirts for, so that he doesn't have to pay taxes because it's not for business and stuff like that. And he said, Oh, there's the shrine. And the 10 people behind the desk went blank, they had no idea who or what the shrine was. And so for me, that's really sad because we do so much good work in the world to have that such disconnect from a hundred years ago. Everybody knew what a shriner was and wanted to be one. And today nobody knows what a shriner is or how to join. And in a hundred years, we went from the epitome of philanthropy and organizations and good men trying to do great things to no one even recognizing our symbols. It's not enough anymore to have the shrine logo or a square and compass on on the building. No one knows what those are. The one way we can get people to know who we are is by being active in our community and being relevant on social media. And that doesn't necessarily mean you have to post constantly about hurrah, here's what we do. But at least from when I manage uh social media for Giza Shrine, I was trying to post aspirational stuff. I think that every man wants to be the hero of their own story in their life or someone else's. And I find that masonry and shrindom in particular is a very easy way for you to be a hero to a lot of people, not just your family, because my girls and my wife fully understand what I do, and they understand that it takes me away from them sometimes, but the work that we do is important in the lives of hundreds of kids, thousands of kids over your membership. It's really quite remarkable. And I don't think any other organization really has that power to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Yeah, absolutely. So now, Kevin, yeah, you're the membership director of the same region, the same region one. Now, what do you think is important about visibility in terms of its impact on membership? It has everything to do for impact on membership. Like you said, if we're not out visible in community, nobody knows about it. So I'm Yo, especially younger generation, like, oh, what are you doing this weekend? I'm going here for our Shriners. Who are the Shriners? It's like, oh, you're killing me. So I think getting back out, just everyday thing. So, like here in Montana, we got our East Wash football shrine all-star game coming up here in June. So all the closing units are starting to do their dinners from the players and cheerleaders. A lot of them do them at restaurants. It's two things. You're celebrating these young guys for having a great high school career football. You buy them dinner, but we're also out there in our fezes and the community scene what we're doing for these gentlemen. And we've actually got a few of these guys throughout the years become shriners and basements out of doing these dinners for them. So yeah, if we're not out in the community, a hat, even your name tag, hey, brother, like you said, brother, whatever, from you guys. Nobody knows who we are. So they go hand in hand. Marketing membership. That's why we're marketing and membership. Yeah. So now for our listeners at home, maybe you can help us understand what where your two roles meet and well where they diverge a little bit between the membership and the marketing director. I don't know if they actually really diverge. I think we're both kind of on the same path, which is different, we're different drivers of the car. He drives the left side of the road, I drive the right side of the road. So, Kevin, yeah, you're really trying to drive membership it itself, right? So you're trying to get trying to use visibility to show the impact of membership and the benefit of membership, etc. Right. And Sean, would that Sean, would that mean that uh you are more marketing the philanthropy piece of it itself?

SPEAKER_00 23:38

So I I do do some of the philanthropy part, although I I actually believe we're and second. If if without the fraternity, there no philanthropy, to be to be honest. Kevin focuses on the membership and recruitment and benefits of membership and and how uh individuals grow. And I focus on communicating that in a way that makes sense to to people who are are watching from the outside. Because a lot of the stuff enshrined in masonry isn't necessarily tangible. You're not going to be able to say, like, oh, I got all this business from being a shriner. It's it's not gonna, you know, but there there are definitely internally great rewards to being a member, right? And so how do you communicate that? And how do you we show people that we want members and want men just like them to for good people and pillars of their community to to to be to to join and and help mentor others through? And so uh Kevin, correct me if I'm wrong, you you focus on membership and people through the pipeline of membership their the their experience through and I work more to the the other the people on the outside, their own members, the benefits of of being a member. So I I do do some of the philanthropy stuff. Um I send out Facebook posts blast from some of the and work on. I mean now we're working on an FRBC to wilderness kit to go out to all the doctors and hospitals, just so that they know, because they are not our biggest referrers, and and they I feel like they should be. If they want kids to receive phenomenal care, like really no other sort of hospital system, healthcare system in the world can deliver. I think Shriners has it, but how do I communicate that to them? How do we make it so that they hear that from not me trying to sell an organization, but from people who share the same voice as them? So when we're developing this, we're working on it with Giza Temple right now. We have emails that have gone out to the various hospitals and to share the doctor's experience in working with Trans children, what they can offer. So that when doctors are reading it, they're hearing doctors' words and jargon. Uh and it's not me trying to sell them something, getting hold of a doctor and trying to sell or a healthcare professional trying to sell them something is like pulling teeth, to be honest. It's it's very difficult. But if they have that conversation and it's natural and it flows like it's coming from their peers, then that that changes the dial a little bit. We have a number of uh like commitments in in that front. Unfortunately, you know, uh it can be difficult because budgets are constrained and you're trying to do everything uh on uh volunteer power, but I think it we work hand in hand together. It's it's two sides of the same coin, as as Kevin was saying.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Yeah, pretty much you know, as so when I try to tell the temples in our our region, uh their membership directors locally, their dive in, and try to help them try to be more proactive. So reactive and I think I used this in for our first episode. We gotta be more proactive instead of reactive. And then my look my my my temple, you know, I'm the membership director for my temple, you know, um try to order my potentates throughout the uh throughout the years. Hey, let's we're gonna have more fun. Let's bring more fun into this. Because that's what we're here for. That's what the shorts were started for, is drooping guys to have some fun outside of masonry, which was the serious side of things, which still is the serious side of things. So I'm I'm personally trying to get back to that and bring that kind of back to the forefront. Like you said, we're a fraternal organization first with the phone piece second, and I try to follow that same route as well. Yeah. So when you guys uh look at a Freemason, the the brothers in our lodges, the there's some who naturally navigate towards the shrine. There's some who, you know, they're very adverse to the shrine. When when you look at that, what have you guys seen that either attracts or repels people from the the shrine? Well, what what is it about uh our uh fraternity that makes it so polarizing sometimes? Say they detract from us. I I how I've even how I've seen some of it is there's some lodges that don't let their members oh don't want them to come shriners because then it takes them away from the blue lodge, and they've hey you join a masonry for the blue lodge, you're in it, you to win it, you're you're a blue lodge for life. So they really discourage it, and I think that's where we lose that dis dis discourse uh between the temples, some of these temples in the shrine. A lot of a lot of uh lodges they don't mind. I know I'm me, I'm a mason slash shriner, and I'm I'm involved with both pretty heavily. My wife's gonna kill me one of these days because I can't say no to stuff. So I've got that disability of the thing. Yeah, that's how how I feel. I see it.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

You guys might see something different from up there in Canada or just your own personal views of things, but what I've seen is uh at least what I'm I've had brothers come up to me and say, Well, why would I join? Because uh, there's nothing really there to teach you. Masonry has a number of moral lessons, and as you progress through them, you eventually if you put them into practice and internalize them, you become a better man. But there's nothing there for the shrine, and I I actually think nothing could be further from the truth on that. I think every facet of masonry is something important to teach you in various degrees of uh of of your learning. And I think the shrine's relevance is that you can do things that are impactful and still have a good time doing it, and not to take yourself so seriously that you know think that the world spins spins for for you or one organization. The best times that I've had in Masonry, the most fun encounters I've had, probably actually in my entire life, have been at shrine events. Do I enjoy like the banquets and and the formality? Yes. Do I enjoy the sometimes not being in a tuxedo and having to you know follow the forks in and then do a full-on banquet? Definitely. And anytime we can sit down and sort of let our hair down a little bit, we're all just people and we're looking for a variety of experiences. And I find that uh in masonry and cryptic right and Scottish right, uh, they they lean heavily on the formality and the tradition. I love that. And I gravitate to those specifically for that. However, when I'm looking for for a good time and to do things that are interesting and hobby-filled, I look at the shrine and I think it's really what you make it, right? That was my biggest revelation when I what made me want to be part of the Divan was so if I find that that the shrine is deficient in something, like no one does the hobby that I want to do or there's no club for it, I can start one, like tomorrow. It's not hard. All of you know, signing one piece of paper basically, and and congratulations, your club. Now find three other people, or maybe I have a list of people, I know people that I can help you start that. So if brewing clubs and fishing clubs and gaming clubs and ham radio clubs and camping and hunting and like if cycling, if you have a niche that you want to be a part of that you think there are brothers who who want to be a part of that too, then let's let's do it together. Like you don't have to do it on your own. We we're just starting to talk about a Lego club here in a Giza Temple because uh a lot of the younger guys play Legos with their kids and are just, you know, they they have these giant Millennium Falcons or Titanic models with all the wiring in it, it lights up. It's quite remarkable. And it was really funny because uh there was a 90-year-old guy at our meeting when I was discussing this and that they wanted to bring it up, and he said, What what grown men's play with Lego? And uh I went, Well, you should try it, man. And so we rather rather than he like him going away from that, I went out the next day and I bought him a Lego set, uh, one of the art ones, and uh and gifted it to him. And the next week that I saw him, he said, You know, I had so much fun doing that. I don't bought three more. And I went, you know, don't you know knock stuff till you try it. And that's what the shrine is about. Let's discover new things together. We're we're trying to get a kiteboarding group started. So we all go down and take lessons and stuff together, and then we can it's kind of windy here in in the wintertime. So kiteboarding out in the water is fun and and would be interesting to a number of men who ha have that event. There's all sorts of stuff. We're we're brewing clubs and coffee brewing clubs and whatever you want, you can make it happen. And it's up to you to do it. Uh, we as men can't do everything, right? So, like Sean's not gonna start up all those clubs, but if you have an interest in it, come see us and we'll make it happen.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

Yeah, come on, Sean. You know the uh philosophy of the blue lodge or or or craft lodge is that uh it makes good men better. And my I guess my extended philosophy to that is that well, if the blue lodge is where you learn to be a better man, then the shrine is the playground where you get to put all of your Masonic teachings into practical and purposeful use. One thing uh a lot of a lot of us forget about is we're all we all meet on the level, and I think we tend to forget that a lot.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

You know, it's such a cool organization, and I I love that in masonry there's something for everybody, right? And uh I I I honestly think that some of the best leadership training that I've had in my life, and I work for uh quite a large corporation here in in Canada, and even better than than some the leadership training that I got from them was the shrine leadership training. So I I do think that uh in doing and uh helping others is where leaders are sort of forged. I think shrine is a good uh sort of battleground, playground for for people to test that aspect of their Masonic careers out. Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

I mean one of the things, greatest things I think, you know, one of the one of the biggest strengths of Shriners is that leadership uh training, and they've got so many different avenues for training, right? I mean, they've got Shriner's U, the Cornerstone Academy, and you know, that also have the membership and marketing series. And I I believe that the that this year's big conference is in uh Washington DC this year. Yeah. Yeah. You guys uh maybe yeah. Can you elaborate on what that's all about and and what Shriners and and other uh Masons would how they would find value from that series? So look, the online series, uh there's always great value, different speakers. Each there's four uh different online throughout the year, different speakers. It's it's not given to hey, here's how you're gonna have to do it. I view it as here's some groundwork for you. Now you go build your own membership from this. And same thing with the in-person this uh November. Not only do you learn, but you build more uh friendships and brotherhood that way too. Because you're gonna meet guys from different temples world, actually. I think we have people come from the Philippines and Mexico. So you build that brotherhood too, but then you also want more of in-person stuff. You have guest speakers, and again, it's not here, here's how you have to you're gonna use this. Here's some great uh groundwork foundation. Now they go build membership. They give us the tools, we gotta utilize the tools. So if you put all those together, accumulate it. I mean, that's where I learn a lot of my stuff and a lot of stuff I bring up in our virtual uh monthly meetings that we have for our associations based off of some of the stuff I've learned through all that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

It's it's phenomenal, actually. I actually think that saying that it's a shrine event is selling it a little short. I try and get I've invited our grandlines, I've invited chapter grandlines. If you go down to those or watch those series, if you go down to that conference or watch those series, if you just replace Shriner with Lodge or Temple with Lodge and Shriner with Mason, it's instantly applicable to whatever it is you're doing. And some of the best ideas that I've heard about like recruitment and mentorship and experience, experiential masonry and shrind them have been forged in in those in those series, especially the one in person. I think that's where I met both of you guys, actually. And and I have friends now from all over the world that messaged me when I posted pictures of my son, how excited they were, and that they couldn't wait to see me at the next one. I'll never miss one of those. It is so valuable and so relevant to what we're trying to accomplish as a whole organization that it should almost be if you're in a leadership position in any of our bodies, concordant or pendant, that you check it out. Because some, like I said, they have the most phenomenal speakers. You come out of a uh a meeting like that, completely jazzed and ready to go. And one of my brothers here, who is a noble, he said, I knew that the shrine was the right track for you when you came back after them, your first membership of marketing committee. I've never seen you so excited about masonry in the last 20 years that I've known you. You come out of that with so many great ideas and uh a new lease on what we're trying to accomplish and the energy to push it forward. And I I think it's really important that we as an organization take the time to do that. It's it's fundamental to what we're trying to accomplish.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Absolutely. Like you said, it's open to uh Masonic Brothers. It's also open up to like the ladies of the Armasonic families to Stars of Nile, I think is it the ladies of the shrine or the that other one, you know, Eastern Star. They're all invited because we are we're trying to help everybody grow, not grow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Even just wives and family. Like my I I was shocked because uh the first time I went down, everybody was asking me where where Leah was, my my spouse. And I said, Well, she's looking after the kids. And they were like, Well, why didn't you bring them here? And I was like, I didn't think they were allowed. They're like, No, are they up in the hotel room? You should go get them. And I was like, Okay, well, I'll see. And that at the time they hadn't booked plans, but uh they came down and joined us for lunch and and got to meet different people. And they said that was the first time in in sort of a Masonic event that they truly felt like they belonged at that event rather than or just a second thought. Yeah. That's something that I'll carry, you know, take away from. Really try when you when you do incorporate that family aspect to it, it does make a big difference, especially if you have a young family. If my kids went out to a shrine event where we were doing an installation, and I was dressed up in a tux and a f and a fez, and so I said, Okay, you guys can get super fancy too. And they put on their princess gowns and we're wearing tiaras and and whatnot. And now every year they ask me if we're going back. Every year around that time, but it won't be associated with a good experience. 100%. And so, do you know how easy that makes it for me to be there when my kids are asking my wife if they're they're they're allowed, like we want to go with dad to the shrine event? She was going, well, we weren't gonna go this year, but I guess we have to.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

So that's an optimal visibility right there. Yeah, now uh I'll I'll ask you guys another question. Well, with all the work that we do with marketing, communication and and training and all these courses and this what do you think? What do you think is com some common misconceptions about marketing and communications within our fraternal organizations?

SPEAKER_00 39:34

I would say that it has to be all about the philanthropy side or membership oriented. Think uh I think you can just show that people had a good time, and that'll probably get you more views and clicks and likes and follows than um any type of marketing plan that you could put together. We had uh a couple of nobles go down to the Victoria Day Parade and met one of the trustees of the hospital and a doctor and took pictures with them. They were just there to visit and they saw the fees and over. And that one post got more likes and follows and subscribes than than any of our other ones. Um because it just showed like something that was natural and human to everybody. And it doesn't have to be complicated, but I think focusing on themes tends to to work and focusing on storytelling, whether you're telling the story of nobles at the Shriner Parade, or I have a care couple characters that I like to uh repost about that are one of them's Larry, who had lived a boring life before he became a shriner, and the other's uh an expi who uh who became a shriner and does looks for like missing rubber duckies or why the kids are sad, or or like he he's got a storyline that he follows this stuff with. And uh I think it has to be complicated, but stick with the things that you like. Because chances are if you like them, other people like them too, right? Like it doesn't have to be focused on shrine or masonry, it can be focused on the stories of of impact in that too.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

Mention uh like misconceptions of it and as I think a lot of some of the misconception is we're just guy-oriented and give men, but like Sean said, his family's involved, and now the girls love it. And I'm pretty sure if you never brought the girls, some of the brothers might take him up back and beat her for not bringing this family now. They're they're invested with him. That's how they think that will help, I think, help is drill. You get the families invested, like these girls are all about dressing up and so you're you're you're a potentate. If you make it that far, they better have their crowns on, they better have their dresses on. Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think it is that uh some of our lodges and and uh individual Freemasons sometimes resist visibility so much? Change. It's not how they used to do it, it's change, it's new, it's different. They still some of the older gentlemen that they still kind of buy in and believing in that secret society.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

I never really bought into that because I I go, well, if we're secret society, we've we we've done a really important job of this. We openly wear our symbols and plastered them over buildings. Uh yeah, yeah, I think it's just how how it was done. And I I I feel really sad about my heart breaks for every father that kept a petition in his wallet hoping his son would ask him, but his son never knew that he had to ask, he thought he had to be invited. That type of thing happens probably more times than we could count.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

And I've heard that story twice in the last year.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

Right. And uh I I just think that the resistance of it comes from perhaps a lack of energy.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

Kevin, I know that you've done a lot of work around trying to understand modern communication tools, especially as it's as it applies to different generations. Uh generation X uh communicates much differently than Generation Y or Z. Well, what when we look at visibility and that perspective, uh, what are some of the things that you think that we need to consider? Well, we need to consider everything from snail mail still. Because you know, there we still have boomers, some of the earlier Gen X's, they still like that snail mail. Uh then we gotta start looking all the way into TikTok. I mean, TikTok's a big thing for uh is it Gen Gen Y and uh Alpha? Gen Alpha, you know, Gen Alpha's at 15. I think they're 15, 0 to 15 range right now. So if we you can't just pick ones and avenue and hit it, you gotta hit every avenue. Snail mail, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, phone trees. I know there's still some lodges here in Montana that still use the phone tree. I call you, you call that guy, you know, then you call two guys, and they call two guys. So you gotta hit every avenue. You can't just hit the one that you're gonna, you know, I'm a Facebook guy because that's my generation. I can't previously it's it it's been uh primarily Facebook, but now we're looking at we're looking at Instagram and TikTok and right. So how how do we balance the traditional form of communication with the accessibility? Because we don't have an unlimited amount of time to communicate in a million different ways. Let me ask you this how many guys, how many brothers do you have on your membership committee? I they a lot of temples that uh struggle to uh struggle to even have a a couple of guys. Correct. So if you have a membership committee and you have each generation represented on that committee, it's only five minutes a week or five minutes a month. Each one of the guys would have to do their uh communication style. You know come up with a shape you'll put it out your style. Yeah. So now for leaders listening to the dive in members, etc. The topic of visibility can sometimes feel overwhelming. But improving visibility doesn't necessarily require a large budget or specialized expertise. Often it starts with small habits, you know, capturing moments, sharing stories, calibrating impact, celebrating milestones, highlighting people. What do you guys think are some of the simple ways lodges or temples can begin improving visibility immediately, Kevin? Well you kind of one of the things you just said highlight a brother or a noble our marketing guy for Baghdad here recently he's done a couple noble highlights. You know we have a noble who's very big at the community in Butte and he uh I can't remember what he did but he put them on there, you know, teeth so and so Baghdad Shrine out doing this put it on their Facebook page. I think that's great kind of what you were saying uh visibility that way. You know highlight and it kind of goes you know Sean said you know visibility of handing that certificate hey congratulations you became a Mason that's another great one I that you guys have just brought up so I'm gonna go with that. Well one thing I've always said is that any meeting or event that uh is run has to inject energy. You have to have more energy when you left than when you came because if it doesn't if it's something that just drains you then brothers won't come back. So now we like to close our episodes with a short speed round. We call it the EMVP speed round and these are short answers practical ideas Kevin one communication myth that needs to disappear I think again going back to communication myth that needs to disappear is it's only guys only and these that communication needs to go away. That's kind of what we're talking about communication wise here. Yeah the the shrine is a family oriented organization. Kevin last question uh one thing an individual Mason can do this week to improve visibility you're out in the public you know go beating a dead horse here but wear something that shows that you are a Mason you are a shriner uh York right Scottish right any Masonic family wear something out in the public to show that's who you are and maybe have a discussion about what they are I'm a shriner here we do. Absolutely all right well when we talk about the future of Freemasonry we often talk about membership relevance and engagement visibility touches all three of these if we improve visibility what opportunities do you see for the fraternity what happens if we don't have final thoughts from you Kevin what happens if we don't improve visibility we cease to exist we fade away slowly brothers visibility is not about being seen for the sake of being seen it's about making it easier for the right people to find a place where they belong because when people can clearly see the good that Freemasonry and the shrine do in the world they begin to understand the value of becoming part of it. John thank you for joining us today and sharing your perspective be sure to take care of your new addiction for our listeners of this episode please consider sharing this with a brother a lot or a friend who cares deeply about the future of the craft like Sean Kevin or I do because conversations like this help ensure the heartbeat continues strong steady and visible until next time keep the light on the