Hillcrest Lodge #1318

Our annual Christmas party will be at Love Field Lodge on Thursday December 17th. Please feel free to bring a side dish or dessert.

Brethren, it is that time once again for our annual toy drive. Once again the officer's of Hillcrest lodge have voted to donate toys to the new
Children's Hospital at Legacy located in Plano. This hospital has only been open a year and a half now and is a part of the Children's Medical Center downtown, however this hospital ONLY receives toys that are donated through private toy drives and fundraiser's that the new hospital is able to complete. By now the playrooms are getting empty and the kids that are in the hospital over the holidays will be without toys. Last year Hillcrest Masonic Lodge was able to come to the rescue and provided many children with a very nice Christmas present.

Deadlines being deadlines, this is being written in November prior to Thanksgiving. As such, the November Stated meeting is still fresh on my mind. I wish to thank all of you who were in attendance. We enjoyed an informative talk by our Junior Warden, acknowledged our veteran’s in attendance as we had just celebrated Veteran’s Day, and discussed a very full slate of activities for the coming weeks. And Past Master Patrick Briody proved that an unfamiliar kitchen is no deterrent to the preparation of a great meal for our members and guests.

Brethren, I recently finished reading Dan Brown’s latest novel, The Lost Symbol. I thought I would offer a few comments to spur interest in this fascinating tale, which uses Freemasonry and especially the Scottish Rite as its backdrop. As almost everyone is aware, Dan Brown is the author of the wildly successful The Da Vinci Code and his readers have eagerly awaited his next novel, which was preliminarily titled The Solomon Key, with an expected late 2008 release. Well, both the title and publication date changed and now The Lost Symbol is finally in bookstores.

I wish to thank those of you who attended our initial Stated Meeting at Love Field in October. It was perhaps a bit awkward and somewhat unsettling to be in a new location but that was to be expected. I am sure there were similar feelings at the first Stated Meeting held in the McKinney Building. For those of you who could not attend perhaps you would have been entertained as we fumbled with unfamiliar surroundings. From different light switches to unfamiliar cookware to locks that did not want to initially cooperate, there were a few glitches along the way but we worked through them to the best of our abilities. But I have no doubt that things will run smooth as clockwork as we become more settled at Love Field.