'A force for good,' was how Dame Janet Trotter, Lord Lieutenant for Gloucestershire, described Freemasons in the county and the wider area

Dame Janet was responding to the announcement at a celebratory gala at the DeVere Cotswolds Water Park Hotel that both national and local charities would be benefitting to the tune of £1.75 million, following a five year fund-raising drive by Gloucestershire Freemasons.

‘This money goes beyond masonic charities,’ said the Provincial Grand Master for Gloucestershire, Tim Henderson-Ross. ‘It will benefit the wider Gloucestershire community, hopefully helping to dispel the myth that Freemasons only look after themselves.

‘Gloucestershire masons have risen to the challenge, delivering a tremendous result. In so doing, you will help those less fortunate than ourselves; spreading a little happiness and, all being well, leaving the world better than we found it.’

To mark her retirement from office, the Provincial Grand Master presented the Lord Lieutenant with a cheque for £5,000, destined for a charity of her choice. Dame Janet disclosed she was currently championing a new charity – the Cyber Trust – which seeks to protect those most at risk in the area of personal cyber and online security. 

Holding the cheque aloft, she said: ‘I promise this will be positively used, particularly in the county’s schools.’

Quarterly Communication

13 September 2017
A presentation by RW Bro Bro Sir David Wootton, Assistant Grand Master

Pro Grand Master and brethren, we all have our own view of what we see in masonry. For me, it’s five things:

1. We’re all volunteers: none of us have to be masons or do what we do. The magnificent total of £3,100,000 announced at the North Wales Festival on Saturday was all the result of volunteering: voluntary time, voluntary effort, voluntary money;
2. What we now call “social inclusion”: bringing together people of different origins, backgrounds, occupations, interests, locations, opinions, faiths; people who would not otherwise meet; in a common activity in which all are fundamentally equal;
3. Our purposefulness: when we meet, there’s a purpose, whether it’s a masonic meeting, ritual; or charity or a community project; the best recent example I saw, the Jurassic Coast Youth Adventure organised by Dorset, 200plus children in need from all over the country taken on a week’s healthy activities by the sea. Whatever it is, we want to do it well, and we do;
4. The practice of every moral and social virtue: words cited by the Bishop of Worcester, not a mason, at the Provincial Tercentenary Service on Sunday in a sermon that would inspire every mason. Our, if you like, moral code, best illustrated in the Charge to the Initiate, is a huge asset which will play increasingly well with younger generations for whom such things are in short supply;
5. The social side: we do do the best parties, don’t we, getting to know each other informally, in friendship, and it works because of the other factors I’ve mentioned.

We all sense a steady move to greater openness: the Sky TV programmes; publicity in the right way for our charity and community activities: the word Freemasons on the London's Air Ambulance; wearing regalia in public: all in the right direction.

Recognising masonry’s good things but sensing that the make-up and profile of our membership – age, number – were going in the wrong direction, the Board of General Purposes – BGP – set up the Membership Focus Group – MFG – under the inspired leadership of Ray Reed to find out what was happening to today’s membership, to assess the likely affect on tomorrow’s and, if we didn’t like that – which we didn’t – to decide what to do.

Deciding what to do is called STRATEGY – YES! The MFG produced, and everyone adopted, Strategy: The Future of Freemasonry 2015-2020, which I know we’ve all read and like.

Thoughts then turned to implementing the Strategy. Ooh, the MFG said, could be difficult – better get someone else to do it, and so was born the Improvement Delivery Group – IDG (I hope you’re keeping up with the jargon, brethren) to Deliver the Improvements which should flow from the work of the MFG.   

I was out of the room at the time, so they made me Chairman. Also out of the room was Provincial Grand Master for South Wales and Third Grand Principal Gareth Jones, so we made him Deputy Chairman.

Strategy is no good unless it is accepted, understood and embraced by the membership – remember we’re all volunteers. The IDG had to show it was including Craft and Royal Arch, and all areas of the country, and Head Office. So, in addition to Gareth and me:

• Michael Ward, London
• Jeff Gillyon, Yorkshire North and East Ridings
• Stephen Blank, Cheshire
• Peter Taylor, Shropshire
• Tim Henderson-Ross, Gloucestershire
• Charles Cunnington, Derbyshire
• Ian Yeldham, Suffolk
• Mark Estaugh, West Kent
• Stuart Hadler, Somerset
• Gordon Robertson, Buckinghamshire, who leaves us on retiring as PGM and is replaced by James Hilditch, Oxfordshire
• Ray Reed

 ...and from Head Office:

• Grand Secretary Willie
• Assistant Grand Secretary Shawn
• ..and now Chief Executive David

Brethren, in light of all they do, I would like all those I’ve named to stand and be recognised. Thank you.

To pick up the work of the MFG we formed Working Groups matching the elements of the Strategy. The Strategy talks about effective governance at all levels; a leadership development programme; the attraction and retention of members; and the sustainability of masonic halls. Thus…

Gareth Jones is leading our Governance Group looking at who and what does what, the roles and responsibilities of each office and body, what they and what they’re not, and how we ensure that people understand what their roles and responsibilities are and aren’t, and what is expected of them. From the esteemed Adelphi2 we have lots of lovely statistics which will help show how Provinces and Districts are doing in terms of membership and help them to direct their efforts where they are needed.

Leadership – Michael Ward – aims to equip office-holders for their roles. Workshop sessions for PGMs and Grand Superintendents; workshops for Deputy PGMs and Grand Superintendents; next week the first training session for secretaries. We now have a UGLE training officer, Andrew Kincaid, to devise and roll-out training roles for all different roles. This not about imposing uniformity – you will do it this way – but helping people to see what’s involved and how to do the job well.

Jeff Gillyon’s Masonic Halls Group have published the Masonic Halls Centres of Excellence Guide, now available, best electronically, and those responsible for the management of masonic halls are strongly encouraged to use it: you will find it very useful. It is now in the charge of John Pagella, Grand Superintendent of Works, who has formed a Steering Group to manage the Guidance Manual and keep it up to date. There will be an annual meeting for all Provincial Grand Superintendents of Works.

The five Provinces in Regional Communications Group 1 – North of England – on the initiative of Gordon Brewis, Provincial Grand Superintendent of Works for Durham, have recognised the need for professionally qualified Provincial Grand Superintendents of Works and arranged for them to meet so that the adoption of best practice can be recommended uniformly across them all.

The Guidance Manual is not a book to be read from cover to cover: it is a reference tool, to be consulted as circumstances lead. It is guidance, support and advice: a guide to best practice. It can’t give definitive advice on, for example, legal issues, because so much depends on individual circumstances.

We want our halls and centres to be at the centre of the local community. Maybe we should refer to them as Masonic Community Centres.

Our Membership Group, headed by Peter Taylor, has circulated for comment the Membership Pathway, the product of several years of devoted effort, and parts well piloted in ten Provinces and 110 lodges Its purpose is to help lodges attract and retain the right members in the right place: to show what we need to do to attract the members we want to join us, stay and enjoy the full masonic journey.

Again, it is not a book, you do not read it cover to cover, you look at the parts you want as and when you need to.

The Pathway will be launched at the Provincial and District Rulers’ Forum – PDRF – on 18 October and then rolled out. So no-one should worry that they will be presented with it and then left on their own. Roll-out will be organised for you: to Regions and Provinces from January to March next year, and then to lodges….and there will be a folding leaflet on the front of Freemasonry Today in December.

There is much demand from masons to know more about masonry, its origin, history and meaning. Stuart Hadler’s Education Group is creating an online store of masonic learning materials, readily accessible in a Virtual Learning Environment. It will be tested later this year, introduced to a number of pilot Provinces in the new year, and full roll-out will be in later in 2018. What the group want is more materials to include, so contributions welcome, please.

In parallel to all this continues the excellent progress of the Universities Scheme, of which I am honoured to be the President. Existing and new lodges, and chapters, here and in Districts, recruit among students at universities and equivalent across the country and outside the UK, and do so very successfully. There are still a number of universities in this country not represented in the scheme, and we are addressing that.

I would like to thank all who are involved in the scheme, all volunteers, for all they do, and in particular the Chairmen: the founding Chairman, Oliver Lodge, now moonlighting as the Grand Director of Ceremonies; Edward Lord, current Chairman who retires after eight distinguished years at the Scheme conference in this building on 4^th November; and Chairman-Designate Mark Greenburgh, who takes over on that date, and I would ask them to stand and be recognised too.

Many Provinces and Districts have New and Young Masons’ Clubs, with a wide variety of imaginative names, and those that don’t will. These clubs are an excellent way of those newer to masonry getting to know more other newbies, and building essential camaraderie. The clubs are holding their conference on 14 October in Birmingham under Gareth Jones’ leadership.

All this, IDG and others, is about creating our future, which is in our hands and which we are doing. The figures already show that it is working: in many areas there is a discernible shift in the trend of the numbers, and there will be more.

I have illustrated this talk with scenes from the everyday life of an Assistant Grand Master. Here’s the last one. In his sermon at the Durham Tercentenary Service last Thursday – I’m into clergy this morning, brethren – the Dean of Durham, also not a mason, said he saw masonry as a confident, open and engaged fraternity with strong foundational values.

We can do this, brethren, we can do this.  

Thank you. 

Triple backing for Midlands Air Ambulance rescue services

Three Provincial Grand Masters, Robert Vaughan (Worcestershire), Tim Henderson-Ross (Gloucestershire) and the Reverend David Bowen (Herefordshire) with his deputy Michael Roff, presented cheques totalling £12,000 to Midlands Air Ambulance.

Receiving the cheques was Michelle McCracken, fundraising manager at Strensham air ambulance base. The donations form part of the Masonic Charitable Foundation’s support for all of the 22 air rescue services in England and Wales, which since 2007 has totalled more than £2 million. An additional £6,000 was presented by the Reverend David Bowen from the Herefordshire Masonic Charity Association.

Tim Henderson-Ross, Provincial Grand Master for Gloucestershire, welcomes the BBC's Michael Portillo to Cheltenham Masonic Hall

Last night's episode of Great British Railway Journeys featured a brief masonic cameo in the form of Tim Henderson-Ross, who discussed Freemasonry in Cheltenham with the presenter Michael Portillo.

The episode can be watched on iPlayer for the next 29 days here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06yjxkh/great-british-railway-journeys-series-7-12-redditch-to-gloucester 

Portillo arrives at Cheltenham Masonic Hall at around the 9min 30sec mark.

The full episode summary is as follows:

Michael Portillo heads for the sharp end of the Victorian industrial revolution at a needle manufactory in Redditch.

The Freemasons of Cheltenham invite Michael into their lodge to share the secrets of their society. In Gloucester, he learns how to make Gloucester cheese.

Continuing on to Highnam, Michael is glad to discover the beautiful Victorian Gothic church of Thomas Parry and to join the Gloucester Choral Society in a rendition of Jerusalem composed by Thomas's son Hubert.

You can read more about Freemasonry's historic links with our railways in this article by John Hamill from 2013: http://www.freemasonrytoday.com/features/parallel-lines-john-hamill-public-transport-railways-freemasonry 

A welcome annual award to Midlands Air Ambulance from The Freemasons’ Grand Charity, was jointly presented by the Provincial Grand Masters for Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire

RW Bros Tim Henderson-Ross, the Rev David Bowen and Robert Vaughan presented Annie Newell, Fundraising Manager at Strensham air ambulance base, with a combined donation of £12,000 as part of Grand Charity's support to all 22 rescue services in England and Wales – financial support which since 2007 has totalled nearly £2m.

The country’s air ambulance service, without either government or National Lottery funding, relies on such voluntary donations to operate its critical role. Annie Newell, in her final year as Fundraising Manager, expressed her sincere gratitude for the continued commitment and generous support given to the charity by Freemasons over many years. Michelle McCracken will be taking over Annie’s responsibilities in September.

Gloucestershire garden party marks foundation milestone

Dame Janet Trotter, the Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire and president of the Gloucestershire Community Foundation (GCF), held a garden party to celebrate the GCF’s 25th anniversary, together with the foundation’s chairman, Dr Roger Head, and trustees. 

The event was held at the house and gardens of Highnam Court. There were many Gloucestershire Freemasons among the guests, including PGM Tim Henderson Ross and his wife. They enjoyed afternoon tea and heard from some of the inspiring groups who have received funding from the GCF. Dame Janet explained how the GCF is strategic in directing its funding, working with the donating bodies to ensure funds get to the right people.