The Freemasons' Grand Charity

Provincial Grand Lodge of East Lancashire><br /></span>
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In 2008:
February - Kenya Aid
March - Grants £1.5m
April - £34,000 given

In 2007:
November - Bangladesh
October -National charities
October - New Ambulance
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August - Asian Flood
July - UK flood relief
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June - Grants
April - Grants
March - Grants

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The Grand Charity – March 2007

Freemasons’ Approve £1.3 Million For Charities

Charities large and small are set to benefit after a meeting of The Freemasons' Grand Charity approved the distribution of charitable funding totalling a stunning £1.3 million. The money will benefit non-Masonic charities throughout England and Wales working in the areas of medical research, vulnerable people, religious buildings and hospice services.

Following approval to support thirteen projects including an information and advice service for people affected by multiple sclerosis and research into type 1 diabetes, the meeting set aside £750,000 to be distributed during 2007. This includes £600,000 for children's and adult hospice services via the long-running Hospice Grants Scheme and £150,000 for support for at least 30 other charities.

After the meeting, The Freemasons' Grand Charity announced the first thirteen charities to benefit from the earmarked funding, with grants of up to £5,000 each towards their general activities. Further charities will benefit throughout 2007.

For a complete listing of the grants approved, please read the following reports.

Major Grants Approved By The General Meeting
Of The Freemasons' Grand Charity In March 2007

Grants to thirteen non-Masonic charities, totalling £540,000, were approved at the Annual General Meeting of The Freemasons' Grand Charity in March 2007. The grants will help charities working in the areas of vulnerable people, medical research and religious buildings. An additional £750,000 was placed at the disposal of the Council to fund the Hospice Grants Scheme, minor non-Masonic grants and the matched funding programme.

CHARITY	AMOUNT and PURPOSE
Vulnerable People
British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF)	£25,000 to fund the medical advice programme raising health standards for children in care
Elderly Accommodation Counsel	£50,000 to fund an advisor on housing options for older people with dementia (2 instalments)
Leonard Cheshire	£100,000 to fund the respite care unit at a new home near Banbury
Multiple Sclerosis Trust	£60,000 to fund the information and advice service ( 2 instalments)
Muscular Dystrophy Campaign	£30,000 to fund the Together We're Stronger partnership with eight smaller muscle disease charities
Music in Hospitals	£30,000 to provide Musical Reminiscence concerts for older people in healthcare settings such as hospitals and residential homes
Princess Royal Trust for Carers	£60,000 to fund a service for carers of people with mental health problems (2 instalments)
Teenage Cancer Trust	£50,000 to contribute towards the cost of a new specialist 10-bed teenage cancer unit at Cardiff University Hospital
TreeHouse Trust	£25,000 to fund the dissemination of best practice in education for severely autistic children
Volunteer Reading Help	£25,000 to fund a training programme for staff who train and support volunteers helping disadvantaged children learn to read
Medical Research
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation	£50,000 to fund a medical research project into type 1 diabetes at Cambridge University
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy Association (PSP)	£30,000 to fund a medical research project into PSP at Cardiff University
Religious Buildings
Ely Cathedral	£5,000 via the Provincial Grand Lodge of Cambridgeshire

SUMMARY OF GRANTS

VULNERABLE PEOPLE

British Association For Adoption And Fostering (BAAF) - £25,000

A grant of £25,000 to BAAF to support the BAAF health programme in raising standards in health care for looked-after children and ensuring that children entering care have their health needs accurately assessed and appropriate treatment administered. There are currently 79,000 looked-after children in the UK and 68% of them go into care as a result of abuse or neglect or disability. A child's health will frequently have been adversely affected by poverty, neglect, poor diet, physical abuse or inadequate housing.

Elderly Accommodation Counsel - £50,000 over two years

A grant of £50,000 payable in equal instalments over two years to fund a new advice service on housing options for older people with dementia. Elderly Accommodation Counsel provides free, independent information and advice on local housing for older people. There are now many more options such as ‘extra care' housing and assistive technology that are available to older people with relatively mild dementia. Through a lack of understanding of all the options, older people may be moved into accommodation which cannot provide the extra care needed, and moving home can often exacerbate confusion.

Leonard Cheshire - £100,000

A grant of £100,000 to pay for a respite care unit at a newly built Leonard Cheshire Home near Banbury. Leonard Cheshire supports 20,000 disabled people across the country including about 2,000 people in residential homes. The new home will replace an old house, which was not purpose-built and does not have the facilities or space that are now required, and will provide a modern home for 20 highly dependent disabled adults together with a respite care unit.

Multiple Sclerosis Trust - £60,000 over two years

A grant of £60,000 payable in equal instalments over two years to the Multiple Sclerosis Trust to fund the information service. The MS Trust supplies evidence-based information to many of the 85,000 people in the UK who have multiple sclerosis as well as providing education for nurses and other health and social care workers. The charity encourages people with multiple sclerosis to play an active part in the management of the disease through having access to the most up-to-date accurate information available.

Muscular Dystrophy Campaign - £30,000

A grant of £30,000 to the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign to fund the salary of the information and support manager in running a new partnership project, Together We're Stronger. The partnership will help eight smaller specific-condition support groups to produce information packs and promote the availability of self-management information to a wider audience. Muscular dystrophy is an umbrella term for 60 relatively rare conditions which affect about 25,000 people in England. The conditions tend to be long-term and progressive, with no cure or effective treatment.

Music in Hospitals - £30,000

A grant of £30,000 to Music in Hospitals to fund free Musical Reminiscence concerts for older people. The concerts are delivered in day care centres, hospitals, nursing and residential homes and, particularly for those with dementia, make a visible difference to the well being of those attending. Healthcare services have less money to spend on ‘extras' such as these concerts and Music in Hospitals is committed to providing free concerts to organisations that are unable to raise the money themselves.

Princess Royal Trust For Carers - £60,000 over two years

The Council recommends a grant of £60,000 payable in equal instalments over two years to the Princess Royal Trust for Carers to fund specific services for carers of people with mental health problems. Through a network of 129 independent carers' centres, the Princess Royal Trust for Carers provides information, advice and support to 290,000 carers. The 1.5 million people caring for someone with either a mental illness or some form of dementia have a particularly difficult time given the unpredictable behaviour and personality changes of those they are caring for, as well as the stigma attached to mental illness in society.

Teenage Cancer Trust - £50,000

A grant of £50,000 to the Teenage Cancer Trust to contribute towards the cost of a new 10-bed cancer unit at Cardiff University Hospital. The new unit is for cancer patients aged between 14 and 23 and will be located in a specially designed part of the building.

Treehouse Trust - £25,000

A grant of £25,000 to The TreeHouse Trust to part-fund the salary of the development and information manager in order to disseminate best practice in autism education. The TreeHouse Trust was established to run a school for severely autistic children in north London and to campaign for better education for autistic children nationally. There are only about 7,500 specialist school places for up to 100,000 children with severe autism. Education is recognised as a key intervention to improve outcomes for autistic children but most families face a long and protracted battle to find and access the services that their children need.

Volunteer Reading Help - £25,000

A grant of £25,000 to Volunteer Reading Help to part-fund a training programme for staff. Volunteer Reading Help works through 22 branches in England using volunteers to work with children in the most deprived areas of the UK through one-to-one reading support sessions outside the classroom. The volunteers need to be recruited, trained, motivated and retained. The 22 branches are locally staffed and the new comprehensive training programme will ensure that the 130 staff all have the necessary skills, ranging from general management and fundraising to IT and child protection, to ensure the efficient operation of the service.

MEDICAL RESEARCH

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation - £50,000

A grant of £50,000 towards a medical research project at Cambridge University to test the effectiveness of the ‘closed loop artificial pancreas' in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes. About 20,000 children have type 1 diabetes in the UK. This will be a clinical trial to enable children to control their blood glucose levels better.

Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) Association - £30,000 over two years

A grant of £30,000 payable in equal instalments over two years to the PSP Association to fund a medical research project at Cardiff University investigating the role of tau gene expression in PSP. PSP is a progressive brain disease with no known cause, cure or treatment affecting about 3,800 people in the UK.

RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS

Ely Cathedral - £5,000

A grant of £5,000 to be made to Ely Cathedral via the Provincial Grand Lodge of Cambridgeshire.

£34,000 TO HELP SMALLER CHARITIES

Following the Annual General Meeting of The Freemasons' Grand Charity
in March 2007 it was announced that 13 non-Masonic charities will benefit
from grants of £5,000 or less towards their general purposes.

Charity	Grant	Charity Purpose	Location of HQ
Auditory Verbal	£2,000	Providing specialist auditory verbal therapy to deaf children	Oxfordshire
Conwy District Scout Council	£2,000	Upgrading of premises for use by a number of national voluntary organisations	North Wales
Disability Law Service	£3,000	Providing legal advice to disabled people	London
HemiHelp	£2,000	Funding activity days for children with hemiplegia (partial paralysis)	London
Primary Immunodeficiency (PiD) Association	£3,000	Support for people with chronic illness caused by a genetic impaired immune system	London
Pulmonary Hypertension Association UK	£2,000	Supporting people with PHA	No HQ
REACT	£2,000	Funding emergency items for families with terminally ill children	Surrey
Sand Rose Project	£2,000	Respite house for bereaved families	Cornwall
Shelter Cymru	£3,000	Tackling issues related to homelessness in Wales	South Wales, Eastern Division
Society for Mucopolysaccharide Diseases	£3,000	Supporting families with rare genetic and progressive disability disorders	Buckinghamshire
The Country Trust	£5,000	Funding country days for inner-city children	Suffolk
The Queen's Nursing Institute	£3,000	Project in Shropshire for younger women with dementia	Shropshire
The Respite Association	£2,000	Funding respite breaks for carers	Lincolnshire

Major Grants Approved By The General Meeting Of The Freemasons' Grand Charity In March 2007

CHARITY