MV Makes the Virtual Move, temporarily
By "Dad" Mark Alvarado, Chairman of the Advisory Council of Mohawk Valley Chapter
March 18, 2020, I was supposed to be at the local Legion of Honor Observance because I requested the night off from my second job to attend. We were going to have the honor of having our current Grand Master of Masons present to break bread as he is an Active Legionaire, Past Grand Master of DeMolay International and Past Executive Officer for New York DeMolay. Little did I know, a couple of weeks ago, that the world would be in self seclusion and practicing a new term called “social distancing”.
About a week ago, amid cancellations and limitations all over the place, I had to confer with our Chapter Advisor about the possibility of doing things in DeMolay a little differently. For 96 of 101 years Mohawk Valley Chapter has always held face to face meetings. Some meetings were around a table but most were opened and closed but still face to face. In the light all happening in the world; we were faced with a new challenge. What do we do to keep moving forward? The Chapter has some members that regularly attend, had a blast at Winterfest and were looking forward to trips around town and elsewhere.
Well, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!
To celebrate DeMolay Month and the very day that DeMolay was started, Mohawk Valley Chapter embarked on a new journey. We entered the virtual chapter realm. We already had Facebook and with it a Chat Room set up. We have one for the Advisors as well. We needed to start from somewhere. So the Chapter Advisor spoke with the Master Councilor about boundaries and procedures for the virtual
Chapter. They announced that the meeting will still be happening, just a little differently and to meet us on the chat at 7PM on March 18. When we got there a few others that don’t interact much with the chapter were on as well. We started with boundaries and procedures and went from there. It was a productive meeting in that we planned a fun event for the Summer time. We are looking to have a
PAINTBALL event at the War Club in Rome at high noon on Wednesday, July 22, 2020. We plan to invite other chapters and prospective friends. They discussed how many they had anticipated for prospects.
Next, we discussed what else can be done while we have some time on our freshly washed hands. We discussed what LCC’s and RD’s were and mentioned that if they wanted any help to contact us and we will be glad to assist. We had some members that have been working hard on memorizing their obligations/proficiencies. To continue that virtually, when ready, the member will contact the Chapter
Advisor or Chairman and they will facetime or skype or do a Facebook video chat during this time.
The idea is that we had to start somewhere to keep the works of Dad Frank S. Land going. Afterwards, we had a quick evaluation of the virtual meeting with the Advisor’s Chat then the Chapter Advisor will be asking the Master Councilor what his thoughts were after he evaluates with the members. All in all an interesting way of doing things but I think the consensus is that we all prefer the face to face
meetings with the ritual.