2010 Shriners International Development Conference

I arrived home last night after spending the last three days in Tampa, FL at the 2010 Shriners International Membership Seminar. I represented the Grand Lodge of MN. The seminar was filled with great presentations and speakers. Some of the topics included Recruitment, Masonic Relations, Retention, Mentoring, Communication, and Technology.

They held special sessions presenting two new websites that are approximately one year old. The first one was called, "beashrinernow.com" It focuses on attracting new prospective Shrine members. It contains several fantastic tools built into the system such as, virtual mentors, e-mails to top individuals, follow contacts, and tracking of the status of the individual throughout their progress to becoming a Shriner. Since it first was rolled out on October 1, 2009, it has had 1280 candidates sign up, with 26 in the month of September, 2010. Sixty percent were below the age of 40 years old and 40% were already masons. They have had 1224 Nobles sign up as virtual mentors. The Shrine International is doing national advertising in USA Today, NSCAR, and other areas.

The other new web program is call "Shriners Village" and is designed for the current Shriner. You have to log onto the system with your name and your membership number. It has several great tools such as: current breaking news, membership benefits, power point presentations, calendar of events, etc.

They had one whole presentation on Mentoring. Taking mentoring to the next level and why it is so important. They discussed having the right attitude is critical to make any program work and become successful. They also discussed that temple should partner up with 5-6 lodge and work on membership and memtoring together for membership retention.

I felt this seminar was very beneficial containing great ideas and I had a lot of fun visiting with other nobles and brothers from different juristrictions.

Pictured above are as follow:

Top picture (left to right) Zuhrah Shriners Divan Representatives: Adrian Skytland and Ross Hjermstad.

Bottom picture (left to right) Osman Shriners Divan Representatives: Richard Purcell and Roger Berge.