Provincial Grand Lodge of East Lancashire
News from Audenshaw District

Community Fund Helps Local Carnival

An application to the Community Fund proved successful for Bill Emery of Denton Lodge and the brethren of Rose of Lancaster Lodge at Stanley House. Bill is a member of the organising committee for the  Denton and Audenshaw Carnival.

The grant awarded of £800 was for operational costs as their main fund raiser, a car boot sale, could not take place.

Derek Thornhill, the Community Fund Chairman, said that he was happy to grant the award as all the criteria had been met, especially concerning Masonic involvement.

TLC Up-Date

The ‘TLC Bear Appeal’ was adopted by Central Area No 1 in 2006 and since then has been run together with the Freemasons in the Tameside District of the Province of Cheshire. The purpose was to sell small lapel badges of Teddy Bears for £2 each. This payment allowed the District to buy two small Teddy Bears each with a small label attached reading “Donated by ‘Local Freemasons’.

These Teddies are distributed into the Accident and Emergency department of Tameside Hospital to give to distressed children allowing them some comfort during the upset they must be feeling whilst in a hospital. This scheme has proved very successful, within the District, and has since been extended to Francis House Hospice (with the permission of the Province of West Lancashire) as well as Ancoats Clinic, Manchester.

So successful has the ‘TLC’ Bear Appeal’ been that it has since been adopted by the Province for other Districts to participate in if they so wish. Since 2006 and to-date, we have distributed 18,240 lapel badges within the Province. This equates to the potential purchase of 36,480 small Teddies and 9 large bears as shown in the photo above. In theory, and assuming that each lapel badge is sold for £2 each, then this should realise a sum of £36,480 and in turn, can/could purchase 36,480 TLC Bears to distressed children.

Furthermore, the TLC Bear Appeal has now provided in excess of 500,000 TLC Bears to distressed children, throughout the United Kingdom and overseas, through Hospital Accident and Emergency Departments. You may note a small article on this subject on page 9 of the present issue of Freemasonry Today, Issue 4.

The sincere thanks of our District must go to the diligent Charity Stewards who sell the badges and especially to WBro Harry Rogers who has masterminded the administration of the Appeal.

FRANCIS HOUSE HOSPICE

As the “Giving Night” meeting was drawing to a close, Bill Waite was approached by Pam Daley who is the fund raiser for Francis House and was receiving a donation on their behalf, asking if we would consider the possibility of putting bears into the Hospice. This practise, as far as we are aware, has never been done before other than A&E in hospitals. Permission from West Lancs was approved when Bill contacted their Provincial Grand Secretary by phone.

Arrangements were made with Bill, Jean Waite, Norman Clarke and Harry Rogers visiting the hospice and being given a guided tour of the facility. They agreed that the Central Area No1 would supply them with Teddies and initially gave them a box of 78 and Harry's Contact information to help when replenishing was needed.

The arrangements are for children who are terminally ill and also, if the helpers think it's helpful, their brothers or sisters who may be with them. The total bears given out will not be the same as those in an A & E unit as they only have about 200 cases on the books and the children only change basically when places are available after someone has sadly passed on, which can be many years. Also the age they take children is approximately 16 or so who would be unlikely to appreciate a Teddy.

Cheshire masons are involved in the Hospice as they supplied computers for the children to use and also maintain them on a monthly basis and they are very grateful to Freemasonry for all their support and donations.

We are also in good company as Man Utd sponsor them by paying the wages for at least two of their carers who do home visits and also supply a car.

This is another star on the list of charities we support and, hopefully, a shot in the arm to our Charity Stewards to continue their good work collecting donations for the TLC project and selling the lapel badges.

The Lodge of Faith no. 581 now has it's own web pages. Click here to visit.

Freemasons Giving Night

They say that Charity begins at home. A perfect example of this adage was demonstrated at Albert House, Ashton under Lyne, on Friday the 14th March, in the presence of the Mayor of Tameside, Councillor Smith: the Freemasons of Audenshaw, Ashton and Mossley organised a “Giving Night” where they donated funds to more than fifty charities, the majority of them local.

This event had representatives of the charities in attendance and the appropriate Lodge and Chapter members for each recipient. The largest benefactor of the evening was the East Lancashire Masonic Charity which is an organisation dedicated to supporting non-Masonic charitable organisations throughout East Lancashire.

The audience was filled with a plethora of uniforms and club colours as each waited patiently for their turn to go to the stage for their donation. One of the oldest was a gentleman representing the British Legion. He notified all present that he had taken on the secretary’s job for the local branch at the age of 82.

The Mayor ended the evening with his speech where he commented that “it was a pleasure to be present to see so much money being donated to so many charities by local Freemasons”.

On the night, in excess of £41,000 pounds was distributed.

 

FRATERNITY LODGE No 4315

The Brethren of Fraternity Lodge, true to the ethics of Freemasonry, continue with their charitable donations to the community with a donation of £200 to the 430 (Droylsden) Squadron, Air Cadets.

The Government rebuilt their Headquarters leaving the cadets to arrange the furnishings to themselves. Other Lodges in Central Area No 1 have donated towards this cause with a further donation from the ELMC.

The Lodge Charity Steward, WBro Bob Hathaway, presented the cheque to the Commanding Officer, Flt/Lt M J Bennett, RAFVR(T), accompanied by his grandson, 15 year old Corporal Mathew Pritchard at the Squadron Headquarters where it was well received.

In the last 12 months, Fraternity have donated a total of £1050 to six different community charities: Diabetes, Asthma, British Heart Foundation, Christies, Cancer Research and now the Air Cadets.

I am sure all the Brethren at Stanley House wish the Commanding Officer of the Squadron every success in his dedicated work training the young people under his charge helping to make them the citizens of the future.

ASHTON LACROSSE CLUB

The Worshipful Master of the Lodge of Dignity No 8304, WBro. Peter Brodie, having contact with Ashton Lacrosse Club, heard through his son Alex, who is a team member, that they were trying to collect funds to buy a full kit for a young player which comprises of the stick, a helmet and body armour to prevent injuries. The kit is to be loaned to newcomers.

To assist with the purchase of the kit, the Lodge donated £225 to the club which was gratefully received by Roger Ambler, the team coach, who sent a note to the Lodge thanking them for their kindness.

Sporting readers may be interested to know that Lacrosse is played with a basket on a stick and is derived from a game played by Native American Indians. The club is always looking for new members and welcomes ANY new comers.

If any of the readers of this article are interested in joining the club or requires further information, contact the Worshipful Master on 0161 339 7355 or 07702 056556 and he and his son Alex (aged 14), will be happy to introduce them. They meet at Curzon Ashton Football Club at 6pm on a Mondays.

 

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WBro Peter Bibby,
Communications Officer,
Audenshaw District.