Advisors Who Play Together… Stay Together

“Dad” Thomas R. Labagh, Executive Officer, Pennsylvania DeMolay

Work hard. But play hard, too!

One of the signs of a healthy and growing Chapter is an Advisory Council that enjoys working and being together. When the Advisors are having fun, the Chapter is not a stressful activity for them. People have enough stress in their lives, and volunteering in an organization that creates more of it gets old fast.

Making service as a DeMolay Advisor fun is a responsibility of all Advisors. When it isn’t fun, or when it becomes a hassle, the Advisors should talk to the Council Chairman who will make it a priority to find a solution to the problem.

Some Advisory Councils schedule regular “advisor-only” events where the advisors and their spouses get together for social time. A dinner party, a board games night, a trip to the races, a theater program, a card party, or a night at the movies (without a discussion of the Chapter or its activities) can go a long way in boosting the morale of the Council members.

Sure, work hard. But play hard, too! Have fun and be successful!

Ten Ways to Use Facebook for DeMolay

Facebook is simultaneously one of the most talked about and misunderstood web platforms today.  Many users inside and outside of the DeMolay community find Facebook to be an essential component of managing their day-to-day activities. By using Facebook as a professional tool, the social networking experience can become everything you desire plus so much more.

With this in mind, lets look at ten ways Facebook can benefit Chapters, State Officers and Jurisdictions as a whole.  The more connected you are to your brothers and advisors without being intrusive, the better your fraternal relationship.

10 General Tips for Users:

1.) Add friends selectively.  Contrary to popular belief, Facebook is not all about “collecting” friends.  The quality of your Facebook experience will be based on the quality of the people in your network.  Create a “limited profile” list of friends that you might not want to have full access to your electronic lifestyle.  By default your limited profile contains everything in your full profile, so take the time to edit it down.

2.) Don’t complain about your job, advisors, or brothers in “messages,” statuses,” or “comments.”  Any negative comments about your advisors or brothers (even if not specifically named) should be avoided at all costs.  These comments reflect poorly on you, the organization, and the persons that you criticize.  Examples of inappropriate postings may range from a comment about the competency of your advisor to a comment about how your brothers always show up late.

Complaining about friends, family members, or work related issues online is not the same as doing so to a personal confidant face to face. All online communities are public forums, and your postings can easily be discovered by others who seek them.   Negative or derogatory comments can lead to claims of defamation and slander as well. Avoid any status updates that discuss other brothers which may implicate unprofessional conduct.

You should avoid statuses like, “I’m tired of visiting those annoying kids from Old Colony,” or, “Dan was watching music videos online at the visitations.”  Statuses that imply that you or others are unreliable, dishonest, deceitful, or unprofessional may jeopardize your membership in DeMolay. Later on in life, this conduct could even affect your employment status.

3.) Don’t misrepresent yourself or others.  You should be sure that what you post about your training and education history is accurate and consistent with the information that you have provided your employer or school.  Your employer has the right to check out statements you make from a variety of sources, including your social networking profile.For example, if you call in sick and later that day you post a status that says, “Off to the beach for the day to go surfing!”, and your employer is made aware of it, they have every right to enforce disciplinary action against you.Also, if you claim on your job application that you have a college degree but your on-line profile states that you did not yet obtain a degree and are still going to school, your employer may question the accuracy of this conflicting information.

4.) Add apps selectively.  Right now, there are over 2,000 apps that you can add to your Facebook account.  While you may be tempted to try each of them individually, you should avoid some of these at all costs.  Applications like “Love Quotes” may be amusing to browse through, however, when analyzing yourself in terms of your professional career, you need to be aware of how apps like these appear to potential employers.  Read each application’s description carefully, determine exactly what you may be signing up for, and which  privacy settings are affected before you subscribe.

Think of the purposes of apps in two ways: what you want to see, meaning what appears on your news feed, and what you want the rest of the world to see, which is the information appears directly on your profile.  With this mindset, you might consider adding an app that you does not appear on your profile at all, but which uses the collective wisdom and usage patterns of your network to provide you with valuable information. By visiting your Facebook home page often, you can stay more organized independent of your friends’ actions.

5.) Edit your profile and security settings. Take the time to browse through the Facebook Privacy Policy and see how your information is distributed. Give careful consideration to who is able to see your Facebook profile.  Do not settle for the default settings, which tend to expose more information than you may be comfortable with.

Take the time to go through each link in the Privacy area and make necessary adjustments.  You might not want people who are “Facebook stalking” to know who your friends are, or to have the ability to “poke” you.  You also might not want a public profile available to those outside of Facebook (although, quite honestly, if that’s what you desire, you might not want a profile at all).  Be sure to browse through the “Sharing and Finding you on Facebook” section of the Data Use Policy for more detailed information on how to control your profile information. Remember, Facebook postings can come back to haunt you later on in life.  Posts on your wall, picture album, etc are visible for up to three years.

Remember: Whenever Facebook experiences an update or revision in their privacy policy, your settings are often reset to whatever the default listing may be. As a result, you must constantly be aware of change and review your privacy settings periodically.

6.) Join Groups related to DeMolay.  Many groups on Facebook are nonsense.  There are quite a few that can provide useful information and professional connections.  Rather than trying to search for groups, watch the groups that your friends are joining, often you will find them of interest for yourself.  After all, your friends are in your contact list because you have something in common.  You might even think about using Facebook to virtually address our causes, like the growth and development of DeMolay.

7.) Look for events.  Stay interested in what our brothers are doing across the state.  Most Chapters these days are posting event pages and reminders on Facebook for their dances, installations, and other social events. This is a great tool that all Chapters should take advantage of if they are not doing so already.  When you come across an event page, be sure to join in and contribute to its development. Invite your own friends and Chapter members, and see if they have an interest in what DeMolay is doing. Sometimes the best way to recruit a new member is to get them to ask questions about what they see appearing on your Facebook profile.

8.) Limit time wasted on Facebook.  Facebook is one of the top procrastination culprits that students deal with today. Remember that your responsibilities exist for a reason.  You will not accomplish your school work or your job if you fall behind on projects and assignments because you were too busy playing Farmville.  If you find that you are spending too much time reading Facebook messages, looking at pictures, or chatting, you need to set limits for yourself.

9.) Don’t use social networking while engaged in DeMolay activities.  Access to social networking sites on your personal devices should only occur in absolute down time as you would use a personal cell phone when at work or school.  It is inappropriate to post statuses or to view social networking profiles while with other brothers or Chapters. Use Facebook to supplement your DeMolay experience and not to replace it completely.

10.) Respect copyright and fair use laws.  For yours and DeMolay’s protection it is critical that you respect laws governing copyright and fair use of copyrighted material owned by others, including DeMolay’s copyrights, logos or images.   You should never quote more than short excerpts of someone else’s work, and you should always provide proper credit. It is good general practice to provide a “link” to the original source of your posting.

Chapters and Facebook

It is recommended that your Chapter have and use a Facebook page.  Ninety-seven percent of the active membership of DeMolay inMassachusetts subscribe to Facebook.  -So naturally being where they are is good.

The Facebook page should be updated regularly and the membership should be encouraged to post to the wall.

• Current events with a Who, What, Where and When should be listed and be updated regularly.
• There should be at least three responsible DeMolays and one advisor listed with “administrative rights.”  Be sure that the privacy settings are such that photos of Chapter activities and members are not visible to those not “friended.”
• Let your members request to join the Facebook site.

For Advisors

It is recommended that you try a Facebook account for yourself.  It is a great way to hear what is going on in member’s lives and to understand their interests.  You may be better enabled to comprehend their attitudes and desires and to incorporate them into the term program.

Advisors should not solicit “Friend” status from an Active DeMolay, but rather wait for the invitation in reverse.

• Posts and pictures in your Facebook account must not depict “un-DeMolay” like behavior.

For Active DeMolays

The world is not always a safe or forgiving environment.  Be sure to maintain your privacy settings and be cautious who you “friend.”  Try not to give out any information that would allow a stranger to pinpoint your exact location or worse find your home.  Be careful about the pictures you post, the things you say in posts and things that you write of other’s walls.

• Posts on your Facebook are “findable” for up to three years.
• Inappropriate postings and pictures have lead to not getting the job you want or even not getting into the college or your choice.
• Be sure that anything that appears on your Facebook profile or on your wall or things you post on other’s walls would not be offensive to your Mother or Grandmother should they see them.

2011 Membership Statistics

We are pleased to announce that as of today, the jurisdiction of Massachusetts is reported to have initiated a total of 75 new members into DeMolay for the 2011 calendar year.

We initiated the tenth-most members worldwide in 2011. Even more impressive is that 31 of the 75 were initiated from November 1st onward. If we could keep the enthusiasm for membership recruitment as high as it was these last two months for the duration of 2012, we could be boasting about a 200+ membership class for the year! Wouldn’t that be something? Go out there and make it happen!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank each of you: the members, advisors, and parents who make the day to day operations of our organization possible. We could not achieve this success without each of your efforts!

A New Year and a New Challenge

Building a Better DeMolay Through the DeMolay Experience

Together, in my tenure as Executive Officer, we have made it our goal to develop an exceptional DeMolay experience through advisor training, diverse state events, member education, quality communication, sound membership programs, and a stable State Officer corps.  I believe that this philosophy has played a large role in placing our organization on a consistent path for positive growth.

Moving forward into 2012, I want to suggest adding a new dimension to our thinking.  Up until now, we have concentrated solely on building a better DeMolay organization itself.  We should also be concentrating our efforts on growing the individual DeMolay member in ways that only DeMolay is capable of providing.

When DeMolay was founded in 1919, most teenagers could count on their public school education to give them a basic foundation in math, reading, and writing skills.  High school clubs were not a component of the educational system. Sports teams were also highly competitive and were offered only in a limited capacity.   Today, the average high school in Massachusetts has more than 150 clubs, sports, and student activities.

For most of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, DeMolay provided an opportunity to participate in athletics and other organized group activities that could not be found in many other places.  DeMolay was once a unique forum for self-government, public speaking, debate and performing arts.  As a result, DeMolay provided experiences to its members that might otherwise have been lost.

While all of these are still offered by the DeMolay program today, the fact is that these areas have now been incorporated into the common curriculum of most local school districts.  While the rest of the world has evolved and changed, DeMolay has remained at a standstill far too long.

Where does the DeMolay program fit in today?

DeMolay can compete by making activities and programs a priority that a middle or high school cannot, by its very definition, provide.  By keeping in mind our basic principles of acceptance, brotherhood, leadership, and personal growth, we will be able to identify those areas that are consistant with our core values.

Watching State Officers retire each Conclave clearly demonstrates that we are a fraternity: a brotherhood to the very core.  Our members may quarrel occasionally, but when the time comes to buckle down and get things done, they fight for one another.  DeMolay can be a place where those who may not perfectly fit in at school find social acceptance, inclusion and toleration. It can be a place where those who do fit in work to provide others with the social experiences they want and need.

DeMolay provides the opportunity to follow and to lead.  DeMolay provides the opportunity to succeed and to fail while practicing leadership.  We tout self-determination and no other youth organization, school or community provides the hands on learning experiences that DeMolay offers.   By identifying our organizations strengths and a school system’s weaknesses, we can improve the quality of the experience we offer our members.

DeMolay will be looking at every aspect of being a teenager today and looking for ways to make our members more prepared for their future. Below, I believe, is a program initiative that is a step in the right direction toward achieving our goal.

We started a Priory at the last Conclave.  It is the mandate of the Priory to serve the interests of the older DeMolays.  To that end, the Priory will be sponsoring a personal finance program at Congress.  We will be offering a program aimed at members who are 16 years of age and older.  We are going to teach the basics of money management, how to understand tax withholding, and how to read a paycheck and understand the deductions that occur.

The Priory will be sending a program and an invitation directly to our older members.  We are going to offer education and programming for our members that is not offered in the schools.  We are going to compete with the public schools by offering what schools do not or cannot offer.   We are going to offer a quality experience that they will not get anywhere else.  This is our cause, this is our mission.

For our younger members at a future event, we have invited Gillette™ to join us and teach beginners how to shave, etc.  We are also looking at a series of sessions, maybe for Conclave, Congress or another dedicated event where Active DeMolays can meet with Senior DeMolays and talk about careers and career choices.

We would like to engage advisors, parents, and members in discussions meant to discover where DeMolay can be most effective in the lives of our young men.   We are going to define ourselves by the growth of our members as individuals while still holding true to our core principles.  If we provide for our members, then the value ofDeMolay membership grows.  As a result, so will our membership, our member retention and our beloved organization.  I guarantee it.

I hope everyone has had a happy, fun, and safe holiday season and new year. I look forward to working with you all in the coming days, weeks, and months to achieve our vision.

For God. For Country. For DeMolay.

Fraternally,
Brian S. Noble
Executive Officer
Massachusetts DeMolay