Daylight Meetings! One of the recurring themes we saw in the responses to the Membership Survey was that darkness deters many of our members from attending meetings and other Chapter Activities. Many of our members are no longer comfortable driving at night. Others have to get up early the next morning so do not want to be out late.

One way to resolve this dilemma is for a Chapter to hold some meetings during the daytime. This has been attempted in a few Chapters with mixed results. Alpha Chapter in Brainerd, Granite Chapter in St. Cloud and Pickwick Chapter in Pickwick have done this. None of the Chapters saw an increase in attendance. All three Chapters reported that the same members who attended the evening meetings showed up for the daytime meetings.

• Alpha Chapter meets on the second and fourth Mondays at 2:00pm from November through March and at 7:00pm April through October.
• Granite Chapter used a mixed schedule-most meetings continued to be held the first Monday of the month at 7:00pm. They added three Saturday meetings – in April, September, and October at 1:00 in the afternoon. A fun event or charitable activity always accompanied these meetings.
• Pickwick Chapter changed their regular meeting schedule to the first Saturday of each month at 11:00am.

What went wrong? Many factors affect meeting attendance. It could be that the change wasn’t communicated well to the members the Chapter wanted to entice back. Maybe those members didn’t feel welcome. Maybe they had other commitments during the daytime. Maybe there were other reasons they do not want to be actively involved in Chapter and addressing the night-time issue did not resolve other barriers.

Another option is to form a separate “Daylight Chapter” made of members from several Chapters who wish to be involved in Eastern Star but don’t want to meet at night. Plural membership makes this possible. It takes 20 people to form a new Chapter. See the Code Book for details (Miscellaneous Provisions-Instituting Chapters). If there is a group of members who are interested in trying this talk to the Worthy Grand Matron or Worthy Grand Patron and GO FOR IT!!
You never know what you can do until you try.

Jackie Benn
Worthy Matron Granite Chapter #5
Grand Chapter Membership Committee, Pro-Tem member
April 2024