Quarterly Communcations - September 2019

-
Russell Square from our Hotel Room
It is a great privilege to be the Provincial Grand Master and Grand Superintendent for the Province of West Wales. The job comes with a lot of responsibilities, most of them extremely enjoyable.

One of the regular features during the year is representing the Province at various events in London. Freemasons Hall in Great Queen Street, which joins Holborn to Covent Garden, is a spectacular venue and I have tried to give a flavour of the building in previous blog posts.




I was incredibly lucky to be appointed as Assistant Grand Pursuivant at the UGLE Annual Investiture Meeting in April 2016. I have already written about some of my memories of my year in office as Assistant Grand Pursuivant, which finished at the Annual Investiture Meeting in April 2017.

I thought that was the end of my time as an Acting Grand Officer, so when I was appointed as Provincial Grand Master Designate in early 2019, nobody was more surprised than me. 
My Installation by the Pro Grand Master in July 2019 has been well documented, so I thought I would tell you a little about my first visit to London as Provincial Grand Master in September 2019, for the Quarterly Communication of Grand Lodge.

Invitation from the Pro Grand Master
I was looking forward to receiving my invitation to the meeting which always comes by email. I had been to all the Quarterly Communication Meetings during my time as Assistant Grand Pursuivant. I had taken part in the procession several times before and knew my way to the Grand Officer’s Robing Room. A head start for which I was most grateful!

I duly received my invitation by email along with the menu for the QC Banquet as normal, but in the post I was most surprised to receive an invitation for my wife and I to attend the Pro Grand Master’s Reception on the Wednesday evening after the meeting. I didn’t even know there was a reception, much less that Helen and I were going to receive an invitation!

If you receive an invitation from the Pro Grand Master, it would be a little churlish to refuse it and Helen and I set off for London on Tuesday lunchtime for a very pleasant couple of days in the smoke. On Tuesday evening, we had dinner with our son who is doing a work placement from Surrey University in Slough. We took him to a Carvery, as all you can eat places appeal to hungry students!

A building within a building
On Wednesday morning I made my way to Freemasons Hall, whilst Helen met up with an old work colleague for a leisurely lunch. I normally take a few snaps when I’m at the meeting and I took a picture of the view from the fire escape outside the Grand Officer’s Robing Room. You may, or may not know, that the Grand Temple is in a standalone building inside the outer casing of the main building. It’s like a building castle surrounded by a building moat. In the photo, the Temple is the right-hand building and the part you can see joining the left-hand side to the Temple is where the big brass doors are.

Smoked Mackerel Pate



The meeting is always followed by a drink’s reception and lunch. I don’t want to say too much about those two events, what goes on tour stays on tour after all. It’s always genuinely nice to meet up with freemasons from around the country and unusually in September I was sitting by people I hadn’t met before. As we always say in freemasonry, there’s no such thing as strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet! That was true on this occasion.



The Grand Temple

After returning to the hotel, a quick shower, and a change from my stripes to a lounge suit, Helen and I returned to Great Queen Street. Helen had been in the gift shop in the past, but never into the main part of the building. It was a great pleasure to show her the Grand Temple and the spectacular Vestibules where the reception was held.



The Third Vestibule
For those of you who have been to Grand Lodge, the Vestibules is the area which you pass through to prove you’re entitled to attend the meeting. The reception itself was a very relaxed affair. My new buddy from lunch was there with his wife, as were many of the Provincial Grand Master’s from our immediate area accompanied by their wives. There were no speeches or toasts, just a few glasses of what you fancy, some convivial conversation, and a few delightful canapés.

Now you can understand why I said at the beginning: “the job comes with a lot of responsibilities, most of them extremely enjoyable.”

The Vestibules from Above








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 2

-
Image
Well what funny times we find ourselves in. I've gone from being really busy, travelling here, there and everywhere, to having a clear diary. The only things left to do are from my wife's "wish list" and I'm running out of excuses fast! With Freemasonry suspended, my inbox is pretty empty, well when I say pretty empty, I mean completely empty. We've done our best to keep the West Wales website up to date with the latest Government Guidance, but I am sure that we're all sitting at home watching the television, so no one is short of guidance, quite the reverse. All we have to do is make sure we follow it and keep our fingers crossed that the situation improves. We haven't made any firm decisions about when and where to reschedule the events which we have had to postpone. I think the time for that will be when the situation is a bit clearer. If you're one of the lucky ones who has received an appointment or promotion in Provincial Grand Lodge...
Read more

Vincent

-
Image
Vincent van Gogh For the purposes of this set of family members you need to pronounce Gogh like the Americans do "Go" to rhyme with snow. To keep the peace with our Provincial Grand Charity Steward and proud Dutchman, Dirk den-Hartog, I have included a tutorial on how it should actually be pronounced at the end. Have You Met the Van Gogh Family? Did you know the painter Vincent van Gogh had a very large family? There's his dizzy aunt, Verti Gogh The brother who ate prunes, Gotta Gogh The brother who worked at a convenience store, Stop N Gogh His magician uncle, Wherediddy Gogh His Mexican cousin, A Mee Gogh The Mexican cousin's American half brother, Gring Gogh The nephew who drove a stage coach, Wellsfar Gogh The constipated uncle, Can't Gogh The bird lover uncle, Flamin Gogh The fruit loving cousin, Man Gogh An aunt who taught positive thinking, WaytoGogh The little bouncy nephew, Poe Gogh A sister who loved disco, Go Gogh And his niec...
Read more

Charge During Coronavirus

-
Image
Freemasons Hall December 2019 Brethren, as you have passed through the month of your lockin, let me congratulate you on being a sensible member of our ancient and honourable institution. Ancient no doubt it is, as having subsisted from time when we used to meet, and honourable it must be acknowledged to be, as by a natural tendency it con­duces to make safe those who are obedient to its guideline. Indeed, no institution can boast a more solid foundation than that on which Freemasonry rests - the practice of every safe and social distancing. And to so high an eminence has its credit been ad­vanced that every day Grand Officers them­selves, have not thought it derogatory to their dignity to exchange the black shoe for the carpet slipper, have supported our situation and not joined in our assemblies. As a Freemason, let me recommend to your most serious contemplation the Volume of Government Guidance, charging you to consider it as the unerring standard of truth and safety, to...
Read more