Yorkshire Freemasons Tackling Floods

West and South Yorkshire Freemasons have recently made their first donation of £20,000 towards the relief of suffering caused by recent flooding in the region. It has been estimated that the recent floods have wreaked more havoc in the region, involving damage, loss of property, loss of livestock and plant, than any other natural disaster in the region in living memory. The donation is to be quickly followed by a further £30,000 pledged for when the flood waters finally subside and a more accurate assessment of the community’s needs can be made. A further £100,000 has been pledged by the Grand Charity.
    This will make a total of £150,000 to be presented to the Red Cross who are on the front line in helping to alleviate the devastating consequences of the flood that so quickly destroyed many homes and communities throughout the Yorkshire regions and beyond.
    This is just another instance of the masonic Grand Charity, as well as Provincial Grand Lodges, working closely together with the Red Cross, in the same way that was done in the tsunami tragedy in 2003, and highlights the way in which English Freemasons respond with offers of help following natural disasters throughout the world.

Freemasons Catching a Smile

Bucks Freemasons organised a day’s fly fishing at Church End Fishery near Aylesbury, for more than 60 youngsters from six special schools. The Masonic Trout and Salmon Fishing Club is a national organisation which runs similar events throughout the country, and organised this day through its Buckinghamshire branch. Each angler had their own ‘caster’ to show them the ropes and a number of fish were caught during the day.
    Lunch was provided in the food marquees where the young fishers found the Buckinghamshire Fire Service had arrived with the ‘Big Red Machine’ and a crew of firemen who let them use the hoses and climb aboard the fire engine. The barbecue was great, but the fire engine proved to be a greater attraction.
    The Patron of the MTSFC, The Marquess of Northampton, Pro Grand Master, had joined the party with Lady Northampton, and they assisted when the time came for a little more fishing.
    At the presentation ceremony each youngster gained a certificate of achievement, a medal and a commemorative mug, all presented by Lord and Lady Northampton and Ray Reed, Provincial Grand Master for Buckinghamshire, and his wife Doreen and the President of the MTSFC, Gordon Bourne.
    The next event will be on 10 October, a fly fishing event for Oxfordshire at Bushyleaze Fishery. Contact John Jenkins on 01869 252935 or e-mail jejenkinse9@aol.com www.mtsfc.co.uk

Charity Boxing Event

The Metropolitan Grand Lodge of London Events Committee have organised a charity boxing tournament at the New Connaught Rooms, Great Queen Street, London on Thursday 22 November. This black tie dinner event will present ‘London’s Rising Stars’ versus ‘A British Army Team’. Tickets are available at £100 each, which includes a three course dinner with wine and coffee. Proceeds from the evening will be donated to the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution and Army charities. A booking form is available on the Metropolitan Grand Lodge website www.porchway.org or write to Gary Beckwith, MetGL, PO Box 29055, Great Queen Street, London WC2B 5AA.

Celebration of Unusual Chapter Centenary

The Chapter Fortitude, No. 229 celebrated a very unusual centenary this year. Founded originally in 1907 out of the Lodge of Humility with Fortitude, No. 229 in Kolkota (then Calcutta) in India, the Chapter moved to London in 1965.
    February 1907 was an auspicious month in Calcutta as eleven days before the Consecration, on 2 February 1907, the Emir of Afghanistan, Habibullah Khan, was initiated, passed and raised at a meeting of Lodge Concordia. All three degrees were simultaneously translated into Persian, and participating in the ceremony was Lord Kitchener, then District Grand Master of the Punjab.
    In the museum at Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen Street, London, are three Indian silver elephants presented to the Lodge by a Maharajah. In addition to the howdah there is also a small brazier for burning cow or camel dung. The elephants, known as hog-darns, are mounted on wheels and are passed up and down the tables at a festive board to light the trichies (cheroots or cigars). Kipling refers in his poem ‘The Mother Lodge’ to this procedure: ‘I wish that I might see them/My brethren black an’ Brown/With the trichies smellin’ pleasant/An’ the hog darn passin down.’

Masonic Ironman

For those who thought that marathon was the ultimate test of athletic endurance, Ashwin Sethi has raised the stakes. Ashwin, of the Lodge of the East and West, No. 9785 in Warwickshire, started off with a 2.4-mile swim in a lake, followed by a 112-mile bike ride and then finished by running a 26.2-mile marathon, one after the other, non-stop, and only 17 hours to finish the race. Ashwin undertook this in order successfully to complete the Ironman Triathlon in Klagenfurt, Austria in 15 hours 15 minutes.
    He started the swim with 2,400 other competitors at dawn, cycling hills in the afternoon sun and running the marathon in the dark with candles lighting the route. It is only two years since he took up triathlons, which he did in order to get fit.
    A full Ironman is the ultimate of a triathlete’s journey. Brother Sethi completed this feat together with other members of the BT Nortel team, raising £37,211 for the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and Unicef Children’s Fund.
    Balancing work and social commitments, the 20 training weeks before the event were crucial to build endurance. Brother Ashwin says: ‘It was an awesome experience, and it’s amazing what you can achieve with self-belief, the right support and motivation. A once-in-a-lifetime achievement which I’ll always remember.’

Lifetime Achievement Award

Michael Banfield, one of the Metropolitan Grand Lodge of London Grand Inspectors, was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by HRH Prince Michael of Kent, Provincial Grand Master for Middlesex, at the Transport Trust Awards Ceremony, of which he is Patron, which was held at the Brooklands Museum recently. This is an annual award.
    Part of the citation read prior to the presentation said: ‘Michael has had a lifelong interest in historic commercial vehicles, veteran, vintage and classic cars, and was a founding member of the Historic Commercial Vehicle Club in 1957.’
    Michael Banfield has a large collection of historic vehicles and, in the early days, it was his vehicles that set the standard for the quality of restoration, particularly in the late 1960s and 1970s, when his buses, lorries and fire engines made impressive appearances at the HCVS London to Brighton Run each year. This event, held on the first Sunday in May each year, is now in its 46th year, attracting an entry of some 200 vehicles, and has been organised by Michael and his wife Susan for the past 18 years.
    He has served on the General Committee of the Federation Internationale Vehicules Anciens (FIVA) for 21 years, looking after the interests of historic vehicle owners and protecting them from potentially unsympathetic legislation from Brussels.

Durham Masons Make Music

Durham Sinfonia was formed 40 years ago to play with and alongside the University Choral Society. It subsequently became independent and self governing. Its members, who are unpaid, are drawn from across the North East of England and they comprise both amateur and professional musicians who come together for at least three major concerts a year. Durham Sinfonia is a Registered Charity and is, in fact, the only full-sized symphony orchestra in the Province of Durham. The orchestra acknowledges the generous sponsorship of Northern Rock PLC and Fentimans Ltd.
    The Freemasons of Durham are keen to help Durham Sinfonia in their efforts to sustain a high standard of performance, a standard which is acknowledged by the many professional conductors and soloists with whom the orchestra has worked, and in this regard recently presented a cheque to them to further their work.
    The Sinfonia is hired by choral societies, especially the Newcastle Choral Society whose next concert takes place in the Sage, Gateshead, when they will perform Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius. A fortnight later Durham Sinfonia will be back in the Sage with the Hertfordshire Chorus in a performance of Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony and Will Todd’s Burning Road, a work which was inspired by the Jarrow March in the 1930s.

Freemasons Supporting Sri Lanka Orphans

The Brethren of Ceylon Lodge, No. 6436 in London responded quickly to an urgent appeal for funds from Sister Anastasia of the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary, to construct an orphanage school in Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka. The Lodge, with some help from its friends, financed approximately 70 % of the costs of the project with the balance being raised locally by the Bishop of Jaffna’s Appeals Committee. The professional services associated with the project were given free of charge. The construction of the buildings was carried out under severe and dangerous conditions in a civil war zone area which is constantly under seige from enemy forces. In spite of all the constraints the project is completed, the school is fully staffed and the orphans are in residence. Both the teaching staff and the pupils have to be constantly vigilant to avoid kidnapping by the terrorists as recruits to their camps. Lodge support for the Daya Mina Handicapped Children School in Sri Lanka goes back 15 years and they have now been requested to support a proposed boarding school for handicapped children on the outskirts of Colombo. It is designed to provide training for students to become self-catering and selfcaring, especially for those children who are orphans and are devoid of any local support.