Message From the State President

With the holidays past, we have had more time to work on the business of the Grand Lodge. The Council will be looking for a new Office Manager as of February first. We will be looking for a qualified member or someone outside of the Order, if necessary.

Several of the Council members assisted in the move to our temporary office. I would like to thank them publicly for their time and energy. Third Vice President, Louie Lodi spent a lot of time packing, loading items in San Francisco, and taking items to the new temporary office in Sacramento. Recording Secretary, Lori Rossi, spent a lot of time sorting items in San Francisco and then placing them in the new temporary location. Financial Secretary, David Lavazzari spent time sorting through many boxes of financial papers, making sure we weren’t shipping and storing duplicate information. He also worked with Louie to get the computers, still in the building, to Sacramento. I would also like to thank Dan Marinelli for his time driving to San Francisco to assist in picking up the computers that were in our Realtor, Bruno Baldini’s office. Our Treasurer, Lynn Lawrence Murphy, helped to consolidate files and marking what we were taking Our Second Vice President, Mark Vaona, came and installed our computer system, including internet and phone. He hooked up the server, and the copier so Lori can access our records from home. She will be coming into the office one day per week. We have not been advised as to when that might be. Arlene Nunziati came in and helped to identify historical items that we want to keep forever. Our Office Administrator, Ervin Siax, continued to keep our business going through all this mess! We will all miss Ervin but he has decided to become a member of our Columbia Lodge so we will continue to call him brother.

Please continue to call the office at 415-586-1316 and leave a message or contact us at sonsofitalyca.com. If you are mailing anything to the Grand Lodge, please use our new PO Box address, Grand Lodge of CA OSDIA, PO Box 2467, Fairfield, CA 94533. The mail will be picked up and addressed often.

Your Council has spent many hours on Zoom working to make the transition to our new location smooth. I feel that many of the decisions are the Council’s responsibility not mine as President. I love that we can discuss these things on Zoom and vote for the best interests of the Order. Don’t ever doubt that each decision is come to by assessing what is best for the good of the Order. We all work with that as our prime objective.

We have seen the results of working together here at the Grand Lodge. We were even able to get our Lion down from the hall of mirrors and the directory at the entrance to the hall of mirrors. I pledged to our Past Presidents that I would make sure that no part of our history would be lost. I spent time in San Francisco and Sacramento with our Council members making sure everything came with us. I would like to thank our Membership Chair, Dee Dee Drene for assisting me in sorting many files and putting them back into the file cabinets in our temporary office.

I would like to welcome all the new Local Lodge Officers. Please look to those that held your position previously. They can guide you as you proceed to make the Office your own. We on the Grand Council are also always available to assist when you have a question. Please feel free to call on us. You should all have a copy of our most recent Grand Lodge By Laws. That is the rule of the Order. Please contact the office for a copy if you do not have one. We can get it to you electronically if you are technologically able to download and print or just keep it for reference.

I hope you have contacted your Grand Lodge Deputies and area Vice Presidents to assist with the installation of your new Officers. It is not too late to do so. We will make every effort to assist.

I am asking for positive thoughts and prayers for our Past President John Tedesco for a full recovery. He is working with Physical Therapy to get back on his feet.

I want to thank all who have expressed concern for the First Gent, Ken. He is still under the doctor’s care with no real diagnosis yet on his back. If you could keep him in your thoughts, I would so appreciate it.