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Another Masonic Golf Tournament is in the books!

On Saturday 14 teams representing 5 Lodges competed for the #1 Good Team Trophy with a new winner claiming the trophy, MacNeer Waffle House, representing Oneonta Lodge.

We all enjoyed the fellowship, golf, food and banter that goes along with a good golf outing. Only one complaint, no one found a ball in the woods with TED marked on it! I would like to thank all those who sponsored a hole, donated their winnings back to the cause and helped with the sign in ( Tom Fransisco and Pat Sherry ). Also a big thanks to Alex Brannan who was visiting his Dad in Canada as he takes care of the financial aspects of the tournament. I hope that next year we can get all the Lodges to sponsor a hole and even participate in the tournament. Thanks to Colonial Ridge Golf and the Waffle family for their continued support of our event.

So here are the results

There was only 1 skin on the day and was won by Schenevus Valley Team with a 3 on hole #2

Closest to the pin winners were
Hole #3 MacNeerWaffleHouse
Hole #7 Iron Man Team
Hole #10 Iron Man Team
Hole #13 Iron Man Team

Grand Lecturer's Convention 2023

The course will be given in three sessions, if you are an Entered Apprentice you can only sit in on session one, which covers the EA degree. Fellowcrafts can sit through sessions one & two.

There is no charge for the course until the course is completed. So only MM’s who are taking the course are asked to pay $20 for their Certificate of completion and pin. If you are unable to cover the cost I will gladly cover it for you.

Also there will be no charge for the MVD course booklet, looking into my recent emails from the Leadership and Education Committee I found that the Booklet is outdated and no longer relevant so I won’t be ordering them to hand out. The L&E committee have started work on the MDC 2.0, an updated version of the current offering. Fixing errors and spelling to the Content and updating within current Grand Lodge standards. Until that is ready, we will be using a digital copy.

Please reply to this email and let me know if there are any conflicts with the December 3rd date.
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Fraternally
R.·.W.·. Christopher Peretin
Grand Sword Bearer
Otsego Lodge #138

13th Annual Masters & Wardens Golf Tournament Winners
1st Team Awesome Team 58
2nd Cherry Valley 1 60
3rd Father & Son 63
4th The Real SVL 64
5th Team Walling 64
6th Delaware River Bottom 65
7th Cherry Valley 3 65
8th Team Havens 66
9th The Beach Boys 66
10th Cherry Valley 4 67
11th Oneonta All Stars 68
12th Fore by Four 68
13th Cherry Valley 2 68
14th Laurens Old Guys 69
15th Cobleskill Wedgemeisters 72
16th Team Ranc 78

There were 3 skins
Delaware River 3 on hole # 1
The Real SVL 2 on # 8
Team Awesome Team 3 on # 15

The winner of the putting Contest Janet Brannigan Team Fore by Four

See Golf Tournament
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His funeral will be December 30 2019 at Tillapaugh Funeral Home
Calling hours are 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM. A Masonic Service will start at 1:00 PM

Williams "Bill" A. Rathbun, IV, 59, passed away Thursday morning, Dec. 26, 2019, at Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, surrounded by his family.

Bill was born on Oct. 26, 1960, in Cooperstown, the son of Williams A. Rathbun III and Virginia (Marr) Rathbun of Springfield. He was raised in the Springfield area and graduated from the former Springfield High School in the Class of 1980.

Following high school, Bill worked as a general contractor and undertook many projects of varying types for many local families.

In the spring of 1996, Bill joined the teaching staff at Milford BOCES, teaching students career skills in the manual trades. He first taught "Career Pathways" in special education which consisted of various career choices especially suited to his students desires and talents. A few years later he was asked to teach Welding and Auto Tech, which he did for more than ten years. Most recently and for the balance of his 23 plus years at BOCES, he taught Natural Resource Occupation, which involved such topics as logging and heavy equipment operation. Bill loved his students and his job. He often said he was born to teach at BOCES.

When not at BOCES, Bill put in long hours assisting his wife, Anna at "Finders Keepers," her antique and second-hand store on Main Street in Richfield Springs.

Bills hobbies mirrored his work. He loved going "antiquing" and working on and fixing just about anything that ran, clocks, watches, phonographs, gas and electric motors and antique "one-lung" engines. He was known for his ability to fix just about anything and was always willing to stop what he was doing to help others in need. He was community minded.

He was a former member of the East Springfield Fire Department, which he joined following in his dad's footsteps. He was also a member of the former Masonic Lodge No. 482 in Richfield Springs and when that Lodge closed, transferred to Winfield Masonic Lodge No. 581 in West Winfield, where he remained a member.

Bill is survived by his wife, Anna (Fort) Rathbun of the Town of Springfield; son, Williams "Alden" A. Rathbun V, also of Springfield; mother, Virginia Rathbun, now of Rotterdam; sister, Priscillia Burgess (Robert) of Rotterdam; niece, Lily Burgess; brother-in-law, William Fort and his children, James and Rachael of the Milford area; brother-in-law, Steven Yager (Cheryl) and family; and his "sister-in-law," Diane Mondore (Jerry) of Colorado and their family.
He was predeceased by his father, Williams A. Rathbun III, in 2000.

The family will be present to receive friends from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday Dec. 30, at Tillapaugh Funeral Home, 28 Pioneer St., Cooperstown.

Funeral services will follow the visitation at 1 p.m., officiated by Ronald Fralick, Pastor of the Cherry Valley Presbyterian Church.

Burial will occur in Springfield Cemetery in the spring.

Delaware River Lodge annual Past Masters Picnic that was held on Sunday, September 9 at Duane LaFever's camp in Bovina Center

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Saturday August 4,the annual Masters and Wardens Golf Tournament was held at Colonial Ridge Golf Course. The threat of rain never materialized and a fun day was had by all.

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Here are the results

Skins

Putting Contest
Jerry Young In the Hole

Roy Bilby Fishing Contest
Pete Oberacker Guessed 7 Roy caught 7

Next years Tournament will be August 3 at Colonial Ridge. Make plans now and come and enjoy a great day of golf and a wonderful dinner

It is time once again to begin a new masonic year. As your District Deputy Grand Master I will again be visiting every lodge and bringing our Grand Masters message and some masonic light as well. Many of you expressed an interest in having another exciting game to play this year. I received much feedback on my last game and had to ponder long on what to do to improve it this year. One of the biggest disappointments was hearing that our younger Brothers did not want to travel to play in last year’s game. So I thought long and hard on what sort of a game I could create that would get these Brothers involved, but not require them to travel. I created a puzzle game that would require Brothers from different lodges to team up to solve, but that could be done via email or social networking and was quite pleased with it. Use last year’s cipher to decode the following to get started (NOTE – If you are new or did not play last year the document describing the process can be found here: http://osdmasons.org/article133-DDGM-Masonic-Grail-Quest-Geocache-Challenge and the question on the coin was “What makes you a Mason?”) Get the new challenge: Game 2 Letter With Graphics

Good morning Brothers and friends. Happy Monday!

This past Saturday we held our 1st annual District Charity Gala at Justine's in Cobleskill. I'm pleased to share that our event hosted 30 people and was a success! The food was spectacular, drinks were flowing, great music and we all enjoyed fellowship and time with our guests. Most importantly, we were able to raise $220 to donate to Victim's of Traumatic Brain Injuries. Brother Steve Garreau and I are already planning next year's event, and will finalize details to share with you all in the fall.

We had such a great time, we have already booked our district summer party at Justine's for the last weekend in August. This will be a clam bake, and all are invited. We will share more details in the spring, but I am hoping we have a large turnout!

Keep your eyes on the district calendar for upcoming degree work and events around our district. It seems as more Lodge's are utilizing the district email system to keep everyone informed with their communications and events, and this is great. KEEP IT COMING!

The District Association (formerly Masters and Wardens Association) and Charities Corporation will be holding a combined meeting in late February / early March. We need to discuss changes to the 2 groups, and finalize details for the Murder Mystery Dinner as well as get going on the golf tournament. I will confirm a date and time with our officers this week and will keep everyone informed. It is important that each Lodge be represented at this meeting.

Saturday 2/25 is our District Ritual Competition. Our AGL, VW Adam Sokolowski has provided details to each Lodge, and I'm sure will put out reminders soon. This year's work will be from the EA Degree, so all masons can participate.

Hope you all have a great week!

Brother Jeff Shellenberger