Can non-members go into the lodge or building and just look around? I was born in the Elks lodge in a small town in northern Michigan, and I’d be curious to see it.
Well - it WAS a hospital at the time, but when the hospital built a new building, they sold the old one to the Elks.
Many Elks clubs will rent out all or part of their building for special events. Contact the Lodge, and you can almost certainly get a tour. If you know a member, they could take you in as their guest when the bar is open. The only time that a nonmember can’t be present is during a meeting.
We are related, I believe, in theory.
Illuminati…hello… I so saw you at the meeting last week
Oh I wasn’t supposed to say that huh…
Before it shut down, I went to several quinceañeros in the Elks-99 lodge, in Koreatown, Los Angeles, at Western and 6th.
And I often have to vote at the Masonic lodge at Franklin & Vermont in East Hollywood. It has no windows, and feels like a funeral home inside–like a tomb.*
*None of its officers live anywhere at all nearby.
What are quinceañeros?
I’ve been an Elk since 1986, so I’ll field that one. Yes they are, and yes we do. No antlers, though. What we actually have are West Side Story-style dance fights.
Coming of age parties for young Hispanics – girls, usually, equivalent to “Sweet 16” parties and “coming out” (when that meant as a debutante, not as a gay person). Held on or about the 15th birthday, hence the name (which means, roughly “fifteenth-year-ers”).
Are there any non-smoking lodges? Our town has a smoking ban, but private clubs are exempted, which means that our local Eagles and Moose (and AFAIK Elks) are all choked with cigarette smoke. That’s one of the things that’s kept me from joining a fraternal organization.
It goes on a lodge-by-lodge basis. I made my lodge non-smoking when I took over as Exalted Ruler a year ago. We replaced the carpet and window coverings, which got rid of the stale tobacco smell, and it’s really a much more pleasant place now.
The new law in Montana is interesting. Restaurants and bars must be non-smoking now, and private clubs are not exempted as long as they have employees. We have a few part-time employees and one full-time employee, so we couldn’t allow smoking now even if we wanted to.
Can the exalted ruler prohibit or permit smoking by decree, or do you have to put it to a vote?
I’m not a Mason but I saw the inside of the El Segundo lodge quite a lot. The band I was in had its one and only gig there, and they let us practice in there, leading up to the gig.
Well you already answered one question, “what does BPOE mean?” I didn’t see anyone ask the obvious question, how do you become an Elk?
It’s interesting that near my house there’s a Mason lodge, a BPOE, and an Order of Odd Fellows all within sight of each other. There must have been some sort of real estate conspiracy…
When I became an Elk, an existing member had to propose you for membership. New candidates were voted on by the general membership. Nobody from my “class” got blackballed, but it had been known to happen in the past.
Do you have a theory about the brontosaurus?
If you know an Elk, ask him/her to propose you. If not, stop by the Lodge, ask for an application, and find someone who will propose you.
The application is pretty short and sweet. There are a few questions that sound like Senator McCarthy wrote them, but it’s mostly just what’s your name, where do you live, and so on.
Your application will be read on the Lodge floor, and the investigating committee checks you out. In our Lodge, that’s pretty informal. We don’t interview your friends or come to your house or anything like that. Then you get voted on.
I’ve seen blackballs cast (actually, we use white balls for “yes” and black cubes for “no”), but I’ve never seen enough to keep someone out. It’s not like the old days when a single black ball blocked you.
He got blackballed.
I can actually answer this one (in excruciating detail if I get to my notes at work)… they exist in some lodges, not in others; there are quite a few Antlers programs in New Jersey, New York, and California, and they’re a lot rarer pretty much everywhere else in the country.