How a lodge runs the festive board as a dinner, then chooses the tool

Send the summons, collect a dining answer that is separate from sitting the meeting, carry dietary notes and menu choices into a kitchen count the Steward can trust, take or record the night's money on that same evening, and leave a record a successor can open.

Software is useful only if it makes those answers cheap. A menu planner that cannot tell you who paid is still a menu planner. A payments app that cannot tell the kitchen how many fish is still a payments app. The lodge has to decide which gap is actually hurting.

Brethren can sit the meeting and not dine. Guests can dine without sitting the meeting. If your RSVP is a single yes, the Steward is guessing and the attendance roll is lying.

Capture those answers separately. Apologies are a third state, not a missing reply. Guests sit on the same meeting so the Secretary is not merging inboxes the night before.

That split is ordinary hospitality. It is not a ruling from UGLE or a Province. It is how a dinner count stays honest.

Asking again every month is how you serve the wrong plate to the same brother twice a year. Store dietary needs on the member. Carry them into each dining RSVP. Allow a one-off guest note.

A festive board with courses and choices needs more than a vegetarian tick. The Steward needs a count per dish, including children's plates and any supplement, in time to lock the order. That is a kitchen brief, not a pastoral file. Keep medical essays off a thread the whole committee can forward.

Members and visitors both eat. If only sitting members can state a preference, the kitchen count is incomplete before the first guest arrives.

The festive board fails when the dinner tool starts from a blank list. The summons already named the date, the place, and the sitting list. Replies should land on that meeting, not in a new sign-up the Secretary invented because the first notice had no dining question.

Print and send from the same record. Keep send history on that meeting. Chase non-replies before the Steward's cut-off. Lock the dining count. After the night, mark who actually ate so next year is not a guess.

How you word the inner business of the summons is lodge work. This page will not write it for you.

Dining, raffle, and alms happen in the same room. If dining sits in one product, cash in a tin, and cards in a processor the Treasurer never opens, month-end is archaeology.

A working night: diners are on the meeting, payment is recorded against that meeting, cash is counted before anyone goes home, and named charity gifts keep a name. Card status should already show that the payment succeeded. Unnamed small cash is a different reclaim job, not a reason to skip the count.

If the lodge only needs a card link on a menu, a payment gateway on the dinner tool may be enough. If the lodge also wants Gift Aid on the charitable slice of that night, the gift has to sit on a record that already knows the declaration and the meeting.

Lodge Master 5 (lodge-master.co.uk) calls itself the all-in-one platform for secretaries to manage meetings, track attendance, plan menus, and more for the lodge's festive board. We checked the public site on 26 August 2026. We will not add a feature their page does not state.

The same page lists attendance for meetings and festive boards; members and non-members filling preferences; up to five courses with multiple menu choices; children's menus; dietary requirements; menu supplements; a public sign-up link; email to attendees; hosting the summons; attendance reports for the DC, WM, Treasurer, and Secretary; export to Perfect Table Plan; and Stripe payment gateway integration.

In their own words, what it does not do yet: a +1 guest must register as a visitor. They say that will be addressed in the next major release. Contact on the page is john@lodge-master.co.uk.

The public site did not publish a price. This article will not invent one. It also did not describe Gift Aid, GASDS, dues runs, a lodge website, or Almoner cases. Do not award those jobs in committee because the product is good at menus.

Buy it if the pain is the dinner itself. The Steward cannot lock a count. The kitchen needs courses and choices, not a single vegetarian column. Visitors need a public link. The Secretary wants the summons hosted next to that sign-up. Table plans matter enough to export into Perfect Table Plan. Cards through Stripe on that dinner are enough for now.

That is a serious secretary dinner desk. It is not faint praise. A lodge that only needed a better festive board and was drowning in paper menus is allowed to buy the tool that publishes those jobs.

Stay honest about the edge they already name. If +1 guests are common, they must register as visitors until the next major release. If the Treasurer's pain is Gift Aid on alms and the charitable portion of dues, Lodge Master 5's public page is not claiming that work.

The other buying question is not 'which product has more buttons'. It is whether the night's money and the reclaim have to live on the same meeting as the summons.

Gift Aid on a named festive-board gift needs a valid declaration and a name. GASDS on small unnamed cash needs a cash line for that night. LodgePay already publishes the illustration: a typical 30-member lodge reclaims £1,125 a year (£225 from dues, £900 from eight festive boards) plus GASDS on cash up to £8,000. Those figures assume the nights were recorded. A tin that never became a line cannot be reclaimed.

If the lodge is happy to keep reclaim in a year-end folder and only wants a better menu count, Lodge Master 5 can be the correct dinner tool. If unpaid dining, a bank that does not match, and unclaimed Gift Aid are the actual committee complaints, you are buying a different job. Paying for menus and hoping the HMRC pack appears is how lodges stay on the typical unclaimed figure already on the LodgePay site.

The Working Tools is a secretary operating system. On 25 August 2026 its pricing page listed £5 a month per lodge, £3 a month for each extra lodge, and a 30-day trial. It publishes summons, attendances, and table plans. That is enough if the lodge only needed a cheap digital secretary desk. It is not, on the pages we checked, a festive-board menu engine or a Gift Aid reclaim system. This article will not turn into a second Working Tools compare.

Once the lodge owns the four questions, software is a way to stop them living in one brother's phone. LodgePay treats the meeting as the spine: date, location, meeting type, agenda, attendance. From that record the Secretary can view, edit, print, and send the summons. Members open a secure link or the member portal. RSVPs split ceremony and dining. Dietary preferences stored on the member carry forward. The Steward sees confirmed counts with cut-off dates. Attendance writes back to the member.

Festive-board collections sit on the same meeting: dining, raffle, named gifts, and cash for GASDS. Card payments go through Mooov. Standard processing fees pass through at cost. Gift Aid uses the declaration already on the member and the charitable split the lodge decided on dues. The lodge files the HMRC pack. LodgePay does not take the reclaim.

Published LodgePay prices, as on the pricing page: Essentials from £149 a month billed annually (or £169 monthly), Complete £229, Group £349, Province from £2k a month plus £35 per lodge (typically £4,500 a month). Those figures do not cook the dinner. They are not a reason to skip the process above.

If you only need courses, children's menus, and a Perfect Table Plan export, read Lodge Master 5 and ask John for a price. We will not invent one. If you need the night's money and Gift Aid on the same record as the summons, book a LodgePay walkthrough and ask the questions at the end of this page.