Wies Kuiper - The Netherlands
In our Dutch Section, a quarter to a third of the members are unattached to any local group. In addition, the Section has nine Lodges (some of which own their own buildings but whose members are mainly older) and seven Study Centers (whose members are often younger). No new Lodges have been chartered for some fifty years. Yet most of the Study Centers have seven or more members, some as many as twenty-five members. The Study Center members do not want to be concerned with the organizational details of a Lodge, such as formal rules and officers.
I suspect that the Netherlands is not unique in this situation, but that other countries also have many unattached members and more new Study Centers than traditional Lodges.
The Society’s international rules envision a nineteenth-century structure that is not realistic for the twenty-first century in many countries. How should those rules be changed?