Sports and DeMolay
DeMolay and sports activities goes hand in hand! There are many opportunities to take part in sporting activities within your chapter locally or at state and regional events with other chapters.
Sports plays an important role of imparting character values and is great fun. Playing sports can help teach honesty, teamwork and fair play. Learning to follow rules and respecting teammates and opponents key. Experiencing the role of a graceful winner and loser teaches you about being humble, and competition in general can teach individuals about self-respect, confidence and managing stress. Taking on leading roles within your team also teaches leadership. Our goal is that every participant is having fun. To help ensure this, we make sure that everyone plays.
Come join in on the fun and exercise!
Fun! Fun! Fun!
So far, you’ve learned a lot about how DeMolay helps teach you important skills and gives you opportunities for personal growth and advancement.
The best part of learning how to plan and execute a fun event is being at the fun event! DeMolay Chapters are constantly organizing fun gatherings, from dances, to movie trips, to bowling trips, to sports tournaments, to anything fun you can think of doing. Because you have the ability to create your own events, you and your friends get to decide what you want to do. Board game nights? Easy. Lockins? Piece of cake. Video game tournaments? They’re everywhere. All the fun get-togethers you can dream of are possible with your leadership and the help and guidance of your advisors. Sometimes that’s just meeting up at a park to have pizza and talk about life, other times it’s having a grand, formal banquet. The sky is the limit.
If you’re like most young men, you’re probably going to have a lot more fun at DeMolay events when there are girls to socialize with. Luckily, there are Job’s Daughters and Rainbow Girls, which are just like DeMolay, but for young women. Job’s Daughters Bethels and Rainbow Girl Assemblies are all around the world, and they’re likely active in your area. A Masonic Youth event is the perfect environment to meet and talk to girls your age with similar interests, so be sure to ask your advisors and Chapter friends about your immediate Masonic Youth community.
Brotherhood and Beyond
As a member of DeMolay, you will start to form bonds of friendship and brotherhood with the other young men of your Chapter. Something else will happen, too: as you accompany your Chapter to more DeMolay events, whether they’re another Chapter’s meetings or state-wide gatherings, you will start to form the very same friendships with DeMolays all across your state! Most Jurisdictions host several events, conventions, and tournaments throughout the year for all of the Chapters within.
There are DeMolay Chapters all around the world. Twenty-six countries are home to DeMolay. Any time you’re traveling, the DeMolay members who are active wherever you go will welcome you as one of their own. You will become a part of an international brotherhood. There are thousands of stories of people who’ve found and made friends with other DeMolays by chance, or used DeMolay as a global support network.
A great way to make friends with DeMolay brothers from around the world is to attend the yearly International Congress Session.
These are friendships that last a lifetime!
Leadership Skills Developing
DeMolay provides the vital tools to all young men to take on the challenge of developing into the leaders of the future! Everyone has the ability to be an effective leader. DeMolay is the jumping-off point for young men to learn, enact, and control their leadership opportunities and skills. Having the drive to be “a leader” and working up for increased responsibilities is the first step that DeMolay provides a young man, and the lessons they learn through involvement and hard work is what sets them up on the path to self-developed leadership.
Leadership is influencing people by providing purpose, motivation, and direction while operating to accomplish a goal, mission or task, and improve the organization.
DeMolay builds:
CONFIDENCE. Confidence is the faith that leaders place in their abilities to act properly in any situation, even under stress and with little information. Leaders who know their own capabilities and believe in themselves are confident. Self-confidence grows from experience. Too much confidence can be as detrimental as too little confidence. Both extremes impede learning and adaptability. Loud-mouthed bragging or self-promotion—is not confidence. Truly confident leaders do not need to advertise because their actions prove their abilities.
CHARACTER. A person’s ethical qualities, helps determine what is right and gives a leader motivation to do what is appropriate, regardless of the circumstances or the consequences.
RESPECT. Treating people as they should be treated. The leader demonstrates the value of dignity and human worth, creating a positive environment and projecting cultural tolerance.
SOUND JUDGMENT. Judgment requires having a capacity to assess situations or circumstances shrewdly and to draw feasible conclusions. Good judgment enables the leader to form sound opinions and to make sensible decisions and reliable guesses. Good judgment on a consistent basis is important for success and much of it comes from experience.
INTERPERSONAL TACT. Effectively interacting with others depends on knowing what others perceive. It also relies on accepting the character, reactions, and motives of oneself and others. Interpersonal tact combines these skills, along with recognizing diversity and displaying self-control, balance, and stability in all situations. Good leaders control their emotions.
LEADING BY EXAMPLE. Leaders constantly serve as role models for others. Leaders will always be viewed as the example, so they must maintain standards and provide examples of effectiveness through all their actions. Proper role modeling provides tangible evidence of desired behaviors and reinforces verbal guidance through demonstration of commitment and action.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS. Leaders communicate effectively by clearly expressing ideas and actively listening to others. By understanding the nature and importance of communication and practicing effective communication techniques, leaders will relate better to others and translate goals into actions.
ORGANIZATION SKILLS. Leaders ensure they are prepared to execute their leadership responsibilities fully. They are aware of their limitations and strengths and seek to develop themselves. Only through continuous preparation and practicing lifelong learning and development can an individual fulfill the responsibilities of leadership.
DEVELOPS OTHERS. Leaders encourage and support others to grow as individuals and teams. They facilitate the achievement of organizational goals through assisting others to develop. They prepare others to assume new positions elsewhere in the organization, making the organization more versatile and productive.
INTERPERSONAL TACT. Effectively interacting with others depends on knowing what others perceive. It also relies on accepting the character, reactions, and motives of oneself and others. Interpersonal tact combines these skills, along with recognizing diversity and displaying self-control, balance, and stability in all situations. Good leaders control their emotions.
DECISIVENESS. Effectively leading requires having the ability to analyze, process, and problem solve situations to reach a decision. Making the “right” decision will not always be the outcome. Not having the ability to make decisions is far worse than making wrong decisions. We all learn from wrong decisions.
Many DeMolay Jurisdictions hold annual Leadership Training Conferences to help you succeed in becoming an effective leader for the future.
Would you like to be a leader?