Another well attended Provincial AGM on Wednesday 29th November. Pleased to see several members of Lodge Temperance 2557 at the meeting. There were representatives of the six MCF nominated charities along with Sir Paul Williams who is a trustee of the MCF and Chairman of the RMBI. Other distinguished guests included VW Bro Peter Williams Deputy PGM of East Kent who is director of communications for the RMBI. It was also good to see so many Worshipful Masters parading in with The RWPGM.
Congratulations to all those brethren who received honours, including our WM Wbro Alan Bell who was reappointed as ProvDepGDC and our Tyler, Wbro Jim Irvine who was promoted to PProvJGW.
Some interesting statistics reported by the Provincial Grand Secretary were that 5 lodges had closed during the year with one more due to close in December. Membership has declined by 71 since last year to 3,789, but on the up side there were 106 new initiates. Sorry to hear he is resigning in 2018.
A cheque for £300,000 was presented to VWBro Sir Paul Williams of the RMBI towards Provincial Grand Lodge’s target for the 2020 RMBI festival.
In the RWPGM’s address he thanked our WM Wbro Alan Bell for the hard work and success of the Tercentenary Committee and commented on the accomplishments of the Northumberland Light Blues Club. The RWPGM stressed the importance of selecting the right officers citing an example where annual returns were being made for members that were no longer with a Lodge and annual dues did not cover expenditure. In 2018 Provincial Grand Lodge will be promoting membership of the Royal Arch as only 35% of the craft go on to join.
The next AGM will be held at the Gosforth race course on Thursday 29th November 2018.
Keep checking back for all the latest from Lodge Temperance 2557.
