Grand Lodge Surfs

Grand Lodge has finally launched its internet home page after a few minor teething troubles.
    John Hamill, Librarian and Curator at Freemasons’ Hall in London and one of the key players behind getting the site going, says, “We felt that our main surfers would be people in their homes who generally have less powerful computers than in business. This meant we had to make sure the pages downloaded quickly, yet looked as good as possible. There’s nothing worse than a really boring website that takes ages to download.”
    He says the site contains plenty of information which will interest everyone, ranging from what Freemasonry is to recent attacks on the Craft.
    Seven Provinces and Districts have also set up websites and more are set to follow.
    The District of Newfoundland was the first, followed by the Provinces of Jersey, Somerset, Dorset, Berkshire and East Lancashire. All sites are linked to Grand Lodge’s home page. Websites for the Province of Oxfordshire and the District of Hong Kong are nearly ready and others are being prepared.
    Grand Lodge’s website can be found at http://www.grandlodge.org.

Masonry Grows in Eastern Europe

Freemasonry is continuing to grow in countries formerly behind the iron curtain.
    The Symbolic Grand Lodge of Hungary, which was formed in 1989 and recognised in 1990, now has five lodges with around 150 members.
    The Grand Lodge of Czechoslovakia was originally recognised in 1930 but was forced to close in 1939 when the Nazis invaded. It resumed work in 1947 but was again forced by circumstances to close in 1951. In 1990 it was revived by former members and recognised by the united Grand Lodge of England in 1991. It currently has four lodges and some 140 members.
    The Grand Lodge of Austria has formed three lodges in Croatia and it is also believed that the United Grand Lodges of Germany have formed a lodge in Lithuania. The Grand Lodge of Finland has formed a lodge in Estonia, although the details are not clear. Brethren interested in visiting should write to the Grand Secretary for more details.
    Russia, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania have recently applied for recognition, but members of the United Grand Lodge of England should be aware that they are not currently recognised. Masonic contact with them (ie visiting their lodges or allowing them to visit ours) is therefore strictly forbidden.

Hearing Aids for Indian School

Arthur Gilbert, District Grand Master for Bombay and Northern India with one of the pupils at the Indian Red Cross Society’s School for the Deaf. Bro Gilbert gave 16 hearing aids to the school on behalf of Lodge Leslie Wilson No 4580. Bro Gilbert has also arranged to give the school a new group hearing aid to replace the current one which no longer works.
    Bro Gilbert said, “We as brothers to all mankind consider it our bonded duty and our privilege to give whatever assistance we can to those who are less fortunate.” All of the children come from very poor families and are given free education, clothing and mid-day meals.

Initiation Filmed by Welsh TV

The Province of South Wales, Eastern Division, has once again helped recreate masonic scenes for a television drama series.
    Y Palmant Aur, (The Streets of Gold), is set in the 1930’s and is the second of a series about a fictional farming family from Cardiganshire, some of whom become Freemasons in London.
    The province helped to reconstruct an initiation scene at the Masonic Hall in Penarth which also included 15 Welsh-speaking extras provided by the Dewi Sant Lodge No 9067.
    This is the third Welsh drama series in which the province has been involved. James Bevan, Provincial Grand Secretary, says, “Once again we are pleased that we have been able to help get an accurate picture of Freemasonry across to the public.”
    The series is scheduled to be broadcast on S4C, the Welsh Channel 4, in the autumn.

Sussex Fosters Understanding

About 100 local business leaders, local authority councillors, and other community representatives recently attended a very lively invitation day at the Sussex Masonic centre in Brighton.
    At a question and answer forum, the Provincial Grand Master, David Llewellyn, disproved claims that neither gays or people from ethnic minorities could be Freemasons. He also dispelled the idea that criminals who imply that they are Freemasons are treated leniently by the police or have sentences reduced by judges. Bro Llewellyn also talked about the several masonic organisations which are just for women.
    When asked why members of the public could not visit masonic centres, Bro Llewellyn said that almost 500 recently came to a widely advertised open weekend at Eastbourne and that there will be another open day in 1998 at another masonic centre in the province. “I am very pleased and surprised at the success of the invitation day at Brighton. We will continue to have more events like it,” he said. “However, contact with the media shows that while they are willing to cover our events, attitudes are still only slowly changing and there is much more work to be done.”
    The event was extensively reported by BBC Television South, Meridian TV and BBC Southern Counties Radio.
    Sussex is also the latest province to appoint an information and education officer, Jonathan Mead, who is well known for his lectures and masonic research, particularly on mathematics and Freemasonry and the festive board.
    Bro Mead has already co-ordinated two very successful open weekends in Eastbourne and has made a travelling exhibition on the history of Freemasonry which is now used at other events around the province.

Wells Cathedral Welcomes Masons

Benevolent Lodge No 446 has now settled into its unique home - a permanent lodge room above the cloisters at Wells Cathedral in Somerset. “It’s probably the only lodge room within the precincts of a cathedral,” says Provincial Grand Master for Somerset, Stanley Hopkins, “and a good sign that relations with the Dean and Chapter are improving all the time.”

All Time High for Charities

The Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys’ festival in West Lancashire has raised an all time record sum of more than £7.5m - only narrowly beating the staggering £7.4m-plus raised by Surrey for the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution in April, making 1997 an outstanding year for masonic fundraising
    Both provinces are among the largest, with West Lancashire having 533 lodges and Surrey 349.
    The MTGB festival was held at Blackpool on 8 May under the presidency of Kenneth Moxley, Provincial Grand Master for West Lancashire, and was started in 1987 by his predecessor, Alan Ferris, who died in 1990. Bro Moxley says, “The festival team has worked tirelessly for this marvellous result. I would also like to thank my wife, without whom the job would have been a lot harder.”
    The RMBI’s Surrey festival was held under the chairmanship of the Provincial Grand Master, Lord Shannon on 16 April. Norman Jacobs, President of the RMBI, says, “This is a staggering achievement and an all time record. We are very grateful and heartily congratulate the province.”
    Grand Charity’s 1997 festival, held by Cumberland and Westmorland - a much smaller province with only 72 lodges - has raised £1m over a six-year period. It was held at Greystoke Castle near Penrith on 4 June, presided over by John Hale, the Provincial Grand Master for Cumberland and Westmorland.

Mark Masons' Hall gets New Chief

Tim Lewis has been officially appointed the Grand Secretary of the Mark Master Masons.
    On 10 June he replaced Peter Glyn Williams who had held the post for 11 years. Bro Lewis also holds the equivalent office in the other six orders beyond Craft Freemasonry which are run from Mark Masons’ Hall. In addition, he is in overall charge of the running of Mark Masons’ Hall itself.
    “In this increasingly changing world, institutions which are not willing or able to adapt to it will not survive,” he says. “Freemasonry in its various forms needs to change and I am confident that it has a sound future ahead in the new millennium. I am therefore really looking forward to the future and serving the orders for which I am responsible.”
    Bro Lewis has been working at Mark Masons’ Hall since October 1996. Before then he was Assistant Company Secretary at bankers Coutts and Co.

London Lodges to get Better Service

The London Visiting Grand Officers Scheme is to be reorganised in the autumn in order to provide a more effective service.
    The 1,600-plus London craft lodges and 600-plus royal arch chapters will be arranged into groups of about 80 lodges and 30 chapters. Each of the groups will have a co-ordinating chairman.
    As a result, all London lodges will now have a visiting grand officer who will liaise with his group chairman. Under the old scheme, lodges only had a visiting grand officer if they did not already have a member who was one.
    The Assistant Grand Master, the Marquess of Northampton, who is the driving force behind the move, says, “One of the reasons behind the new scheme is that in some lodges the member who was a grand officer no longer attended meetings or was out of touch with progress at Freemasons’ Hall. Problems which developed did not get solved because the lodge did not know what to do or who to turn to.” He adds that because the new scheme means that staff at Freemasons’ Hall will now be able to get much better feedback from London lodges, they will therefore be able to respond to their different needs more effectively and quickly. “I want to make it quite clear, however, that the new move does not mean that London is somehow being turned into a province, as some brethren have suggested,” he says.

From Rome to Grand Lodge

Paola Fardella from the University of Rome is the latest student to benefit from Grand Lodge’s library.
    Paola is researching John Marrant, an early African-American author, Methodist preacher, Freemason and close friend of Prince Hall.
    The number of non-masonic researchers using the library at Freemasons’ Hall is increasing each year.

Success for Ireland Leaflet

The Grand Lodge of Ireland’s leaflet Freemasonry Vindicated, which came out as a reaction to many calls last year for a new social morality and moral re-birth, has turned out to be a surprise success.
    As well as being widely distributed to all Irish Freemasons, the Grand Lodges of Canada (Ontario) and Pennsylvania asked for supplies.
    Michael Walker, the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, says, “The idea arose during the two weeks in October last year when Tony Blair called for a new social morality and King Albert of the Belgians called for a moral rebirth following appalling revelations of child abuse.”
    Bro Walker says the idea was reinforced when a week or so later the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales talked about a widespread abandonment of fundamental moral principles and the Archbishop of Canterbury said that moral values should be enforced in children.
    “All these calls for morality amounted to no less than a charter for Freemasonry,” says Bro Walker, “and Freemasonry has been preaching and practising morality for nearly 300 years.”
    Anyone wanting copies should write directly to the Grand Secretary, Freemasons’ Hall, 17 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2.