The North Carolina Mason

Editors Note: This is a periodic feature focusing on new ideas emerging from lodges across North Carolina. Got a great program to share with your brothers? Send a story to ncmason@glnc.us! LION from page 8 January/February 2020 The North Carolina Mason Page 9 Let's all agree: it's hard to get your message out these days, even to those you know are interested. We are all flooded with emails, alerts, "breaking news," sales pitches, reminders, news updates, and cat videos from all sides. So when you want to tell the world your news, it may help to go "meme." Over the last few years, the brothers at Cannon Memorial #626 in Kannapolis, have gotten more involved with the community, pushing to become a more recognized name locally, through road cleanups, food drives, community awards events and more. "With that said, however, our online presence was lacking," said omas VanEtten, secretary at Cannon Memorial and new member of the Grand Lodge Board of Publications. Brother Srujan Katanguri had an idea, and began making memes to help catch the eye of social media. It didn't take long for the brothers to see that this approach was working, drawing attention to the lodge and the brothers' work. Katanguri began making more memes. He generally creates them from scratch using Photoshop. "What began as a single instance – a picture to remind brothers what Masons are, the men we should aspire to be – turned into a series of evolving pictures. He took more pictures and added words to remind brothers of upcoming holidays, meetings, events and activities," VanEtten said. e North Carolina Mason has begun using memes to remind brothers that the submission deadline is coming near, or to alert the Craft that the latest issue of the paper has been posted online. e reaction has been great and a wave of stories and photos usually follows the posting of a meme, said Editor Beth Grace. e use of memes is growing in other Masonic juris- dictions. e Michigan Masonic Charitable Foundation posts at least one meme per day, always a message about brotherhood and Masonic thoughts. ey make their own in some cases, or "facelift" them from other Face- book pages. If you have the skills, making a meme from scratch can work, but for those who are not blessed with such skills, there are many online meme generators. ey are incredibly easy to use and most often are free. (Some offer upgrades to get fancier fonts or some design changes, but you can get a lot done on most sites for free.) Some good meme generators include: www.imgflip. com, www.iloveimg.com, www.spark.adobe.com. New and noteworty ideas from lodges across the state Communicating creatively with memes meme (noun) 'mēm 1: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture 2: an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media Merriam-Webster Dictionary "were scheduled as a sincere effort help lodges do what they need to be doing, and to get recognized for work they're already doing. e purpose of this whole thing has always been to help lodges pursue and achieve excel- lence." Plans are also under way to structure the program to ease transition to a new group of leaders when PGM Cobb steps back from this work down the road. He would like to organize a regional L&P director for the east, west and central parts of North Carolina. "I had no idea this program would become so successful," he said. "My soul is lit up by that. Now, it's my goal to groom future leaders to take this program wherever it will go next." Cathey, Hinton James Scholarship application period opens Ah, springtime, when a parent's fancy turns to … college costs. Brothers with college-bound high school seniors in the house should take advantage of Masonic scholarships, now open for applications. The Cathey Scholarship, founded by Past Grand Master Charles Cathey and funded by NC's Freemasons, rewards high school seniors who have demonstrated academic achievement. Eight scholarships of $1,000 each will be awarded for the 2020-2021 academic year. The Grand Lodge Scholarship Committee selects recipients. Applicants must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0, or the equivalent average under the school's grading system, and be enrolled in an accred- ited North Carolina high school. The scholarship committee will consider factors including scholastic achievement, participation in extracurricular and civic activities, involvement in the community and personal recommendations. The application form is available here: grandlodge-nc.org/the-grand-lodge/ grand-lodge-scholarship The Hinton James Masonic Scholarship is for study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Funded by Lux Libertas #772, Freemasons and indi- vidual donors, it rewards a high school senior who has demonstrated academic achievement and community service. One $1,000 scholarship will be awarded for the 2020-2021 academic year. To be considered for the scholarship, applicants must have a minimum cumula- tive GPA of 3.0, or the equivalent average under the school's grading system, and be enrolled in an accredited North Carolina high school. The scholarship committee will consider factors including scholastic achievement, participation in extracur- ricular and civic activities, involvement in the community and personal recom- mendations. Applications are available at your local lodge, or here: mfnc.org/news/hinton- james-scholarship-application-available- The Lux Libertas Scholarship Committee selects recipients. Deadline for applications for both scholarship opportunities is March 15.

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