Proceedings 211th 2008 J. John Jones - Grand Chapter State of ...

Host to please escort Right Excellent Carl Hassum to the East. I have asked Gerry to assist
me in presenting this award to you. Right Excellent Carl, it is my pleasure as the incoming
Grand Lecturer to present you with this medal which you most richly deserve. Thank you
for your efforts. Right Excellent Hassum said that actually the one he has to thank the most
for this is Most Excellent Walter Hilsenbeck. Grand High Priest, I appreciated meeting you
when you came out to visit with us and this is an honor I didn’t expect. I thank you very
much.
As I said, we have a second award to present and that goes to our new Grand Lecturer,
Right Excellent Gerald Irwin. It is my honor to present this to you Gerry.
The Grand High Priest then asked Most Excellent David F. Stoy, the representative of
the General Grand Chapter International, to address the Companions.
Most Excellent Grand High Priest, Most Worshipful Grand Master, Right Worshipful
Deputy Grand Master, my distinguished colleagues here in the East, all Most Excellents,
Right Excellents, Excellents, and Companions all: Good Morning! I do bring you the personal
greetings and also the apology from our General Grand High Priest, Most Excellent
Larry Gray. He assures me that he wishes he could have been here with us this year, but he
is out of the country doing the work of the General Grand Chapter. I forget if it is in Portugal,
Puerto Rico or someplace with a ‘P’. Maybe in Pennsylvania, I don’t know. He is working
hard for General Grand as he has done for the past three years. Our Grand King and
Grand Scribe are out in the State of Illinois. Their at the East Central York Rite College
general meeting there trying to convince the Grand Chapter of Illinois to become a member
of General Grand. They felt that was a very important duty to do. Our Deputy Grand
High Priest, Right Excellent David Billings, from Maine, also had another commitment.
This means that you are stuck with me.
Most Excellent Larry Gray did send me a list of things that he wanted me to talk about.
All it was was a list, so what I did Monday is call Most Excellent Ted Harrison to get a little
explanation. Two hours later, when I got off the phone, I guarantee you I got an explanation
of everything, but I am not going to take all your time today to go through all those.
There is one particular thing I do want to stress. That’s the fact that the tri-ennial will be held
in Indianapolis, Indiana, on August 27 - 30, 2008. There are tours scheduled for August 27
and the morning of the 28th. In the afternoon of the 28th the opening ceremony will be
held. Those of you that haven’t seen the opening ceremony it is a very, very impressive ceremony
to see. The General Grand Chapter meets on Friday, the 29th and the General Grand
Council meets on Saturday, the 30th and the banquet is on the evening of the 30th. Most of
the representative to General Grand Chapter should have already received this information
in the mail, but anyone who wants additional information can get it through the internet at
www.yorkrite. At this triennial one of the big things they will be discussing will be the increase
in the percapita charged to the members. The percapita presently is 45 cents. The
vote will be to increase this to a dollar. Percentage wise it seems to be a large increase, but
monetarily it really isn’t an awful lot as far as General Grand is concerned in that they have
not had an increase in the percapita for a number of years. So that is probably the biggest
thing that will be voted and discussed at General Grand Chapter this year. I do encourage
as many as can of the New York Companions, not just the actual representatives, to attend.
Because, as I said last night, we are committed to be the Host for the tri-ennial in 2014.
That will be the year that Ted actually goes out of office as General Grand High Priest and
will be his big day I guess. So I do hope that as many of our Companions will attend the session
in August of this year. The General Grand Chapter has developed Bibles that can be purchased
for presentation to the newly appointed High Priests when they are anointed. This
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2008