It’s hard to believe that another year has passed, and we are still in the grips of this pandemic. This time last year we were pinning our hopes on the vaccine and once again we are willing the booster to save the day!
Many of us have struggled and many of us have lost loved ones in the last year, on behalf of myself and the rest of the officers at Provincial Grand Lodge, I’d like to offer you all our support in your time of need.
I’m proud of my fellow freemasons and the love and support which you have all given to your neighbours and while our meetings are slowly starting to return, I look forward once again to sharing time together and enjoying the company of you all once again.
In 2021, the Freemasons of Antrim have not been still. We have been as active and engaged as ever in our local communities and I’d like to mention just some of things we’ve been up to.
Many of you have been carrying on with wonderful charitable projects, too many to mention them all by name, but projects such as the PJ’s for patients, created by Andrew Brownlee was an amazing initiative which was set up to make sure that patients in hospital, with no relatives, didn’t go without the daily essentials such as pj’s and toiletries.
The Freemasons of Redhall Masonic Lodge No.260 pulled out all the stops and managed to have a record-breaking fundraising year raising a staggering £3,400 for both masonic and non-masonic charities.
The Grand Masters Festival, Vision 2020, as you know has been extended now until June 2022 which will give us more opportunity to raise funds for the three nominated charities, Medicine Sans Frontiers, Simon Community, and the RNLI.
We are delighted as we really don’t want these charities to miss out through no fault of their own, I would urge you all to consider contributing to this fund through your own charitable actions. The Grand prize Draw took place with the Northern Provinces in October, and consisted of one first prize of £5,000, a second prize of £2,000, a third prize of £1,000
We are also delighted to be in the process of awarding several of our
brethren with their 50 and 60 year jewels – what a wonderful commitment from each of them over the years!
Finally, we’ve been working on creating a new modern, bright and
welcoming website which we are very much looking forward to unveiling in the new year. We hope that this will provide us with a more inviting platform upon which to share the magic of freemasonry and encourage support and interest from others.
I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas