At one of my lodges, our June regular communication (before we go on break for the summer) is focused primarily on fellowship. Dress code is relaxed from jacket-and-tie to Hawaiian shirt and shorts, we have the shortest possible meeting, and then retire downstairs for surf-and-turf. Brothers who have moved too far away to attend regularly make a point to come for this, and it tends to be a popular night for visitors as well. We went through about 50 lobsters and 32 pounds of ribeye steaks this year.

Like a lot of lodges, my lodge hit its peak membership in the early '60s. By the late '80s a ton of brethren had retired to Florida. They would have annual, lodge-sponsored get-togethers so that the brethren could still stay in touch with the members of their lodge from the great white north. They stopped having those get-togethers in the mid-2000s when people were either too sick to come or had passed on.

My mother lodge meets in December just a few days before Christmas, and each year the meeting is followed by a ‘white table’ dinner and dance (so partners, children, family, friends etc are present) on a ship that makes its way along the Thames in Central London. We go past the Palace of Westminster, under Tower Bridge etc - it’s a lovely evening and I look forward to it every year.