Lodge committees and chapter leadership change every year. How does your lodge keep from losing the institutional knowledge that builds up over the course of time? One lodge uses chapter and committee binders. These binders store the policies, procedures, expenses, and all other paperwork pertaining to each chapter and committee. The binder is passed down from year to year from committee chairmen and chapter chiefs. Each binder becomes very different. The ceremony team binder, for example, contains scripts and regalia designs, while the chapter binders contain historical budgets and rosters. Each year, the chapter chief or committee chairman inputs a summary of what he learned and what the committee or chapter accomplished that year. Nothing is removed from the binder. When the binder is passed down, the new chairman or chief instantly has access to a vast amount of information on how the program has operated in the past.
The above resource was submitted by Tamegonit Lodge in Kansas City. The lodge uses approximately thirty-eight binders to pass information down through thirteen chapters and many committees. Although the practice was recently implemented, the lodge expects it to yield great benefits over the years. Send your best practice to @email.