WASHINGTON DC -- Faced with dwindling membership numbers, and little opportunity with which to draw more in, the Grand Encampment of the Knights Templar is contemplating a bold move in a bid for publicity.
"I hate to admit, but it's true. The Knights, and by extension, the entire York Rite just doesn't get the same kind of name brand recognition that the Scottish Rite gets," said Sir Knight Bill Reingold, committee chair on membership development. "And because we don't get the name recognition, we simply don't get the kind of membership numbers that the Scottish Rite gets. It's a vicious circle; we don't get the members because we don't have the name recognition, and we can't get the name recognition until we have more members."
Picture of a group of Knights Templar in full dress uniform. |
SK Reingold explained to The Past Bastard that another issue was that the York Rite is somewhat fractured. "We have the chapters, we have the councils, and we have a few of those side degree things, but nobody wants to recognize that the Knights Templar should be the head of all of them, and so we can never get anything accomplished the way that the Scottish Rite does. I mean, they get their logo on a race car. Imagine what we could do with that kind of publicity."
To that end, SK Reingold told The Past Bastard that the Knights have come up with a major publicity initiative to gain name recognition, and hopefully the membership to go with it.
"We noticed that some domestic terrorists have been pulling statues down. I mean, like every day, Fox had some news item about this or that guy's statue being pulled over. But the kicker was that the Scottish Rite idol Albert Pike had his statue pulled down, and now it's all everybody seems to be talking about. So, our plan is to find a well known Knight, and make a big deal about how his statue shouldn't come down, and let reverse psychology do the rest."
Unfortunately, the plan has hit a roadblock because the Knights simply can't find anyone famous from within their past ranks.
"Look, it's a good plan, nevertheless," SK Reingold told us. "If it comes down to it, DC is full of damn statues. We can just pick one, and nobody else would even know."