The Members’ Pathway offered all lodges a planned approach to attracting, introducing and retaining new members to the Craft. Lodges which used it successfully increased their membership.
I proposed the development of the Members’ Pathway in a February 2015 paper to UGLE’s then “Image Focus Group”, a sub-group of its Membership Focus Group (MFG). The Chairman of the MFG, RW Bro. Ray Reed, then Deputy President of the Board of General Purposes, asked me to develop the model and write the materials, and he engaged me as a consultant to UGLE to pilot the scheme.
The United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) released the Members’ Pathway using two different models or frameworks. The first (2017-2020) was a series of eleven “Steps” that a Lodge could follow to take a man who is interested in Freemasonry, but not yet a member, all the way through a journey to become a committed Master Mason. The second (2021-2025) was a four-stage planning loop around a “Hub,” which emphasised that membership development is a continuous process.
Click here for Release One. Click here for Release Two.
Both releases provided practical guidance, and easy to use tools and techniques drawn from the experiences of many strong and healthy lodges. These were organised in a series of layers so that users could go to the level of detail appropriate to their needs. The in depth material was essentially the same in both releases, as the content of the first release was repackaged to form the content of the “Threads” and “Elements” in the second. At the same time it was made gender neutral so that members of the women only Grand Lodges could use it if they wished.
Between 2015 and 2020 I was the main author and editor of the Members’ Pathway. Others who made a significant contribution included RW Bro. Ray Reed, who commissioned me to develop the material and championed its adoption through UGLE; W Bro. Shawn Christie, Assistant Grand Secretary, and RW Bro. Robin Wilson, Provincial Grand Master for Nottinghamshire, who chaired the MFG’s Recruitment and Retention sub-Groups respectively and worked with me to develop the model; W Bro. Chris Hirst, who developed the idea of Lodge Recruitment Officers, subsequently Lodge Membership Officers, and later became project manager; RW Bro. Stephen Blank, Provincial Grand Master for Cheshire, who gave me helpful feedback on the material; RW Bro. Gareth Jones and W Bros. James Bartlett, Nigel Harris-Cooksley, John Roscoe, Mark Lodge, Mark Eyles-Thomas and the late Mike Baker, who contributed their particular expertise at the drafting stage. W Bro. Mark Lodge and I developed various training packages and a self-learning guide, and Mrs Prity Lad developed our webinar capabilities.
The Members’ Pathway was overseen by several bodies at UGLE. Initially (2015-2017) it fell under the MFG chaired by RW Bro. Ray Reed. When the MFG finished its work, the various delivery projects came under the auspices of the “Improvement Delivery Group” (IDG, 2017-2019) chaired by RW Bro. Sir David Wootton (then Assistant Grand Master and later Deputy Grand Master), with RW Bro. Peter Taylor, Provincial Grand Master for Shropshire, chairing the Membership sub-group. From August 2019 it came under the “Membership Working Party” (MWP), initially chaired by RW Bro. Michael Ward (then Deputy Metropolitan Grand Master and later President of the Board of General Purposes), and then by RW Bro. Steven Varley (then Provincial Grand Master for Derbyshire and later Assistant Grand Master), with a “Pathway Working Party” (PWP) at first chaired by RW Bro. Steven Varley and later by RW Bro. Ian Copestake (who also succeeded him as Provincial Grand Master for Derbyshire).
I left the working groups in September 2020. W Bro. Chris Hirst became project manager for the development and delivery of the Members’ Pathway on behalf of the PWP.
The second release of the Members’ Pathway was essentially the same content but presented as a planning loop. This presentation was far superior to and more attractive than that in the first release and was in keeping with the original concept. I congratulate those who took the content to a point where it was far more widely used than in the early days, and to where it could play a key part in the delivery of UGLE’s seven year strategy.
In the summer of 2025, the Members’ Pathway and the Royal Arch’s own model, “Archway” were ‘harmonised’ to become “Building Together.” The majority of the content of Building Together originated from the Members’ Pathway, with adjustments made to broaden the scope to include Royal Arch Chapters. The new “Continue” section, which focuses on the Royal Arch, came from Archway.
