Illustrious Potentate Robert DeCarlo Message
I would like to thank the nobles for their confidence in electing me as your Potentate for 2012.
My theme for this year is “Picturing A Bright Future” There are two reasons for this theme one of which is obvious from the design on my pin and that is the reference to photography, which is a favorite hobby of mine. The other is because we have installed a young and energetic Divan to lead us into this future. I am the youngest potentate of Pyramid Temple since the 1920’s and if elected in 2015 year, Al DePaulo will become our youngest potentate ever. Gentleman this is our future. We will continue to focus on building our future by recruiting and retaining younger members, we will do this by creating a more family oriented shrine center, an organization that will focus on young families and children, for they are our future. But within this focus we are not straying from our past we are, instead, learning from and building upon it. How many of us remember our not too distant past when we had Easter egg hunts, and holiday parties for the children. We will re-establish and reinvent these events along with others like the ham shoot, dinners and our raffle. We will launch new events that will hopefully become old traditions. My lady Wendy and Al DePaulo’s lady Nicole are working on a cookbook fundraiser. We are planning a family day at Lake Compounce, and a bus trip to the casino. And we are working on some very attractive prizes for this year’s that we are confident will sell tickets.And to close out our year we, as a temple, will deliver toys to our children’s hospitals in Springfield and Boston. These are just some of the exciting events that we are working on for this year.
We are indeed picturing a bright future.
But in looking to our future we cannot forget our past….
I would like to thank the past potentates and our temple “elders” for creating our history that is rich with these traditions and for leading us here today, for without them I would not be standing before you as your new leader, excited about our future.. We will continue to rely on their wisdom and guidance to carry us forward. We must learn from our past to insure our future. To bring our past and our future together we will be implementing a long term planning committee, to develop and implement short and long plans for our temple. This committee will be comprised of the divan officers as well as our past potentates and will hopefully become a permanent addition to our leadership team.
I would especially like to thank our two immediate past potentates Illustrious Donald Still and Illustrious Richard Epstein. Although it has been a long time coming, with dwindling membership and rising costs, Illustrious Don had the very difficult distinction of being potentate in the year that we found ourselves having to sell our building, our home for more than 20 years. As we are all very much aware it could have been anyone of us in the recent past or near future that found ourselves in this position. Don had a successful year as potentate which could be overshadowed by the need to sell our building and I commend him for his leadership through that difficult time. Illustrious Rich had the equally difficult task of running our temple with no building in which to hold our usual fundraisers. He and his divan had to begin to reinvent the ways in which we do business and in which we raise and spend our funds. Under Rich’s guidance I believe we can say that 2011 was a successful year as we have begun to streamline our operations and reinvent ourselves.
I am very confident that your newly installed divan will continue the work of our predecessors of both the recent and distant past of rebuilding ourselves. I look forward to serving all of you in continuing this endeavor. We will honor our traditions while building anew and I KNOW we will succeed.
Remember that it is not a building that makes a shrine temple, it is the people who make a shrine temple “That house NOT made with hands!!!
Your in The Faith
My theme for this year is “Picturing A Bright Future” There are two reasons for this theme one of which is obvious from the design on my pin and that is the reference to photography, which is a favorite hobby of mine. The other is because we have installed a young and energetic Divan to lead us into this future. I am the youngest potentate of Pyramid Temple since the 1920’s and if elected in 2015 year, Al DePaulo will become our youngest potentate ever. Gentleman this is our future. We will continue to focus on building our future by recruiting and retaining younger members, we will do this by creating a more family oriented shrine center, an organization that will focus on young families and children, for they are our future. But within this focus we are not straying from our past we are, instead, learning from and building upon it. How many of us remember our not too distant past when we had Easter egg hunts, and holiday parties for the children. We will re-establish and reinvent these events along with others like the ham shoot, dinners and our raffle. We will launch new events that will hopefully become old traditions. My lady Wendy and Al DePaulo’s lady Nicole are working on a cookbook fundraiser. We are planning a family day at Lake Compounce, and a bus trip to the casino. And we are working on some very attractive prizes for this year’s that we are confident will sell tickets.And to close out our year we, as a temple, will deliver toys to our children’s hospitals in Springfield and Boston. These are just some of the exciting events that we are working on for this year.
We are indeed picturing a bright future.
But in looking to our future we cannot forget our past….
I would like to thank the past potentates and our temple “elders” for creating our history that is rich with these traditions and for leading us here today, for without them I would not be standing before you as your new leader, excited about our future.. We will continue to rely on their wisdom and guidance to carry us forward. We must learn from our past to insure our future. To bring our past and our future together we will be implementing a long term planning committee, to develop and implement short and long plans for our temple. This committee will be comprised of the divan officers as well as our past potentates and will hopefully become a permanent addition to our leadership team.
I would especially like to thank our two immediate past potentates Illustrious Donald Still and Illustrious Richard Epstein. Although it has been a long time coming, with dwindling membership and rising costs, Illustrious Don had the very difficult distinction of being potentate in the year that we found ourselves having to sell our building, our home for more than 20 years. As we are all very much aware it could have been anyone of us in the recent past or near future that found ourselves in this position. Don had a successful year as potentate which could be overshadowed by the need to sell our building and I commend him for his leadership through that difficult time. Illustrious Rich had the equally difficult task of running our temple with no building in which to hold our usual fundraisers. He and his divan had to begin to reinvent the ways in which we do business and in which we raise and spend our funds. Under Rich’s guidance I believe we can say that 2011 was a successful year as we have begun to streamline our operations and reinvent ourselves.
I am very confident that your newly installed divan will continue the work of our predecessors of both the recent and distant past of rebuilding ourselves. I look forward to serving all of you in continuing this endeavor. We will honor our traditions while building anew and I KNOW we will succeed.
Remember that it is not a building that makes a shrine temple, it is the people who make a shrine temple “That house NOT made with hands!!!
Your in The Faith