THE TRESTLE BOARD
The Villages Masonic Lodge No. 394 F. & A. M.
June 2026
From the East
My Brothers,
It’s hard to believe we are half-way through our Masonic Year! Many of your Lodge Officers attended the 197th Annual Grand Communication on May 24-28 at the Rozen Plaza in Orlando. We elected the Grand Line for this year and voted on 20 resolutions as we discussed at the May Stated.
The new Grand Line includes:
MGrand Master – M⸫W⸫ Haskel R. Vest, Jr.
MDeputy Grand Master – R⸫W⸫ Frederick R. Wendling, Jr.
MSenior Grand Warden – R⸫W⸫ Robert W. Estell, Jr.
MJunior Grand Warden – R⸫W⸫ John F. Dragneff
MGrand Treasurer – M⸫W⸫ Richard E. Lynn, PGM
MGrand Secretary – M⸫W⸫ Jeffery S. Foster, PGM
Resolutions: 9 of the 20 resolutions passed, most votes being in line with Jurisprudence recommendations.
The Grand Master’s Official Visit is on Friday, 6 June, at the Lake County Shrine Club in Taveres. The Grand Master will also be conducting a Town Hall on Saturday, 7 June, from 0900-1100 at the Wildwood Masonic Lodge. Masonic Casual with Lodge Shirt encouraged. Please try to attend if available.
The new DDGM’s, R⸫W⸫ Mike Freach, Official Visit will be at the August 10th Stated. Please makean effort to attend and congratulate him and our new District Instructor, R⸫H⸫ Mike Gaudiosi.
We are still in the planning phase for our Investment Fund and will send periodic updates to the Craft as
our plan develops. I want to thank our Treasurer, WB Hawkins for taking on this monumental task of getting us legal and started.
As mentioned last month, we voted on a motion made at the April Communication to revoke our dues increase for 2027 that had been previously approved by the Craft. We will submit a new By-laws change.
Congratulations to R⸫W⸫ Scott Ives, who won the Gun Raffle that we drew at May’s Stated for the S&W .357
Magnum. We brought in around $1,100 profit.
This will be the last emailed copy of the Trestle Board as we transition everything to our Lodge webpage. We will send out a monthly reminder with the link to the Trestle Board: https://www.villagesmasoniclodge.com/the_trestle_board.
Once again, it takes the entire Lodge Team to be successful, so please don’t hesitate to provide any input to make OUR Lodge better. As always, if you would like to get in the Line, fill a chair in the future, or sit on a committee, please let us know.
Fraternally,
Brother Bruce Ferri
Worshipful Master
(559) 287-8332 or VML394WM@gmail.com
From the West
As May comes to a close, Summer has already made its presence felt. We are almost halfway thru the Masonic year for our Lodge. This past month, we presented a successful Master mason degree for brother Ian Ganci, our newest Master Mason.
The Grand Communication remains for our elected officers who will vote on important legislation and the new line of Grand Lodge officers who will guide Florida Masonry for the coming year.
Once again, we completed the annual distribution of bicycles for our “Bikes For Books” program, which benefits students from The Villages Elementary School at Lady Lake, The Wildwood Elementary School and the Wildwood Intermediate School. Students are required to read books and upon completion, receive entries for a drawing held at the end of the school year for a new bike. Plans are to expand this flagship program to additional underprivileged schools next year. We want to thank all the brothers who assembled bikes and assisted with the presentations. A special shout out to Worshipful Brother Jim Hawkins for spear heading this program.
June Lodge activity includes the monthly First Fridays Breakfast on Friday the 5th at the Bob Evans restaurant on rt 466 in The Villages. Our regular stated meeting will be held on Monday the 8th. The monthly Social Dinner is scheduled for Monday June the 15th at the Orange Blossum CC.
District activities for the month include Open Books on Wednesday the 10th and Masters &Wardens and Memorial Lodge on Wednesday the 17th. Once again, we are inviting all Master Masons of our lodge to attend Ritual Practice which we hold every Thursday between 12 and 1:30 pm at the Lodge. All brothers are welcome no matter what your experience level may be, even if you just want to observe.
I want to paraphrase something from The Freemasons Community. “A healthy man complains about many things, work, time, small frustrations. Details that don’t go his way. It feels like pressure, like a full list of problems. But it’s a wide life, Options, Movement, Room to choose. Then Health Goes… One issue replaces all others. Constant, Non-Negotiable. It doesn’t wait, it doesn’t share space, everything else becomes background. Irrelevant. That’s the shift… Not more problems just one that outweighs the rest. The lesson is easy to miss. What feels like a lot is often a sign of capacity of things still working, still available. Take care of what keeps the field wide, because once it narrows nothing else competes.”
PS: If you are in need of a ride to Lodge, please contact any one of your elected officers and we will get you a ride for our next Stated meeting on Monday June 8th.
Fraternally, Carl Chew, Senior Warden
chewcl1@centurylink.net, or sprs33@verizon.net (215) 285-1048.
From the South
My Brothers,
This article from Brother Rob hit home in a big way. I hope you are so moved by its message:
“Hanlon’s Razor is usually stated as: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Relating this to Masonry, I would soften ‘stupidity’ to distraction, exhaustion, and forgetfulness.
“The Secretary did not return your email because he has 200 members on his rolls, a full-time job, and his wife just had surgery. The Worshipful Master did not acknowledge your idea at the last meeting because he was managing three agenda items and a plumbing emergency in the basement. The brother who promised to call you back and did not, was not sending a message. He was overwhelmed and your call fell off his list.
“Lodge politics runs largely on misattribution. A brother feels slighted by something that happened at a meeting. He interprets it as intentional. He tells another brother, who agrees it seemed deliberate. A narrative forms. Within two months, a genuine grievance has calcified around something that was, in its original form, someone being stretched too thin to pay attention.
“This does not mean malice never exists. It does. But it is rarer than we think, and the habit of assuming it first does more damage to lodge culture than the occasional actual slight ever could. A room full of men who assume good faith operates differently from a room full of men cataloging offenses.
“The practical version of Hanlon’s Razor in a lodge is a brotherly phone call. Before the story sets, before the narrative hardens, call the brother and ask. ‘I noticed you didn’t respond to my message about the event. Everything okay?’ Nine times out of ten, the answer is some version of ‘I’m sorry, I completely forgot.’ The tenth time, you have surfaced something real that needed addressing anyway.
“Most of the time, the simplest explanation is the right one, and the simplest explanation is almost never ‘he did it on purpose.’”
Don’t forget our First Fridays Breakfast Bunch, meeting on June 5th, at Bob Evans (2199 Parr Drive off CR466) at 9:00 AM. We’ve been having a great time together just Brothers with Brothers.
Then, our next Social Dinner will be at Orange Blossom Hills, 1542 Water Tower Circle in The Villages. Social hour at 4:30, dinner at 5:00.
Lastly, be sure to check our website often (at least weekly) for current updates and happenings at the Lodge. It’s a fun time here at The Villages Masonic Lodge!
John Markel, Junior Warden
410-746-1105
vml394jw@gmail.com
FROM THE JUNE SECRETARY’S DESK
Petitions Pending:
MAffiliation by Transfer:
MMJoseph Caban, David Borden, Randy Justiss, Randall Aman
Petitions to Receive:
MScott Bragdon, Affiliation by Transfer
MWalter Smalts, The Three Symbolic Degrees of Freemasonry
Petitions to Ballot: None
Degree Work: None
June Birthdays
Mx1 – Bill Boulden 15 – William Copeland
Mx1 – Bill Rickard 16 – Rich Koenig
Mx3 – Ronald Tanner 16 – Hal Welch
Mx6 – Gary Style 17 – Robert Mogavero
M10 – Bob McKnight 18 – Jack Wheeler
M10 – Roger Pryor 25 – Roland Robertson
M11 – Scott Barrish 28 – George Fiddler
M12 – Edward Nerges 28 – John Thomstatter
Brothers Raised in June
MGary Kadow, 6/6/1974 Stewart Davis, 6/22/1961
MKenneth Sliker, 6/9/1980 Jerry Warden, 6/23/1978
MAllen Gehrke, 6/10/1965 David Marston, 6/26/1965
MBruce Jayne, 6/11/1974 Alex Copher, 6/27/1995
MCliff Cable, 6/12/1990 Lamar Bishop, 6/28/1960
MMartin Farber, 6/16/2005 Alex Santoriello, 6/28/2018
MArmel Nutter, 6/17/1954 Clyde Hunter, 6/30/1976
MForwen Delarosa, 6/20/2006
The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Florida
MMMMMMMMMM2026-2027 Officers
MM⸫W⸫ Haskell R. Vest, Jr., Grand Master
MR⸫W⸫ Frederick R. Wendling, Jr., Deputy Grand Master
MR⸫W⸫ Robert W. Estell, Jr., Senior Grand Warden
MR⸫W⸫ John N. Dragneff , Junior Grand Warden
MM⸫W⸫ Richard E. Lynn, PGM, Grand Treasurer
MM⸫W⸫ Jeffrey S. Foster, PGM, Grand Secretary
District Deputy Grand Master: R⸫W⸫ Michael G. Freach, (610) 360-0880, mfreach7@gmail.com
District Instructor: R⸫H⸫ Mike Gaudiosi, (352) 348-1162, mrgaudiosi@gmail.com
