Why the flow through?  Retention problems are noticable from both ends and when I went to the Constitution and history for solutions, found they are not proscriptive but very much leaving the way we address to that wonderful mixture of knowledge and imagination that is our ethos. When we connect with an applicant, the setting matters.  What if we tried to unpack some of the confusion that happens to the perimeters of Ancient and Accepted Freemasonry?  Our rhetoric implies we initiate a man providing him an opportunity for character development. It is not uncommon to hear discussions that commodify membership.  Business models happen when we try to redefine the Craft as business.  In practice, I wonder that we have unintentionally commodified initiants.  Freemasonry offers so much that unless a lodge would be thoughtful about the environment it is introduction to a man, it could be blind to the sense it is failing to meet expectations.  Wouldn't it be ever so easy to simply focus on what was wrong?  And we tend to much more of that without considering the issue might well be disappointment.  I wonder if you agree, that talking to the man about time would be a good place to start.  Freemasonry also requires the time to balance responsibilities. No one intends you to feel an all consuming masonic schedule will supercede life. If we are completely honest with him, we would tell him how important it is that he first respect his own time. Entering the Craft might be suitable today or tomorrow or at a time when you will not feel overloaded. This is how we encourage mature, reflection.  Is Freemasonry a behaviour or an intellectual pursuit or elements of both?  How does compliance enter into the process?