News

The Province of Hampshire & Isle of Wight supports a strong community of around 8,000 Freemasons meeting in 250 Lodges. It is also home to one of the largest and internationally famous boating communities. 

The Solent – a narrow strait between the Isle of Wight and mainland England – boasts stunning natural scenery, safe anchorages and ideal sailing conditions. It’s estimated that more than 20,000 yachts and motorboats regularly use the area for recreation. 

In 2016, a group of local Freemasons decided to combine their love of sailing and boats with their interest in Freemasonry to form the specialist Spinnaker Lodge No. 9932. The aim was to take Freemasonry out to the sailing community by holding three summer meetings in Masonic centres close to the marinas. Friends and partners of Lodge members were invited along for a post-meeting dinner at one of the local yacht clubs. 

The Brothers in Alms exhibition has taken up residence at Freemasons' Hall. It's an immersive journey that unveils a remarkable assortment of rarely witnessed wartime photographs. In order to delve deeper into the captivating narrative of this exhibition, Craftcast: the Freemasons Podcast extended a warm welcome to exhibition curator Brian Deutsch as a special guest in the studio.

During his appearance on Craftcast, Deutsch shared the fascinating story of how he came to possess this extraordinary collection of images. In the late 1980s, during his tenure in the cable television industry, Deutsch obtained the collection that ultimately gave rise to the exhibition.

He told Craftcast, 

Adrian was confirmed as Grand Secretary in September 2022, replacing the outgoing Chief Executive and Grand Secretary David Staples. He will take the traditional Grand Secretary role, while still performing many of the functions of a Chief Executive within UGLE’s organisational structure.

The offer to be Grand Secretary came from Pro Grand Master Jonathan Spence in 2022. Adrian was already part of the wider UGLE team, using his skills as finance director of a FTSE 100 company to help the Board of General Purposes. Jonathan had discovered that Adrian was thinking of retiring from his professional role – which he announced in September 2022 – and invited him to lunch, having spotted an opportunity to add another name to the first-rate executive team he has built to execute UGLE’s seven-year Strategy.

‘Having heard Jonathan’s vision, I found myself nodding very enthusiastically and saying I wanted to support Jonathan with his ambition. He asked me candidly if I thought we could get things working, was the Strategy doable and did I want to be part of it. While I wanted to retire from executive life, I didn’t plan on doing nothing. It was very exciting, and I definitely wanted to get involved.’

Adrian originally became a Freemason, he confesses, partly to impress his future father-in-law– a member and long-term Secretary of Strong Man Lodge No. 45. Adrian loved the experience and soon became an active Freemason. After stepping away from Freemasonry to focus on his career and family, Adrian has engaged with the Craft with renewed enthusiasm in recent years, having found that some of the themes and principles have taken greater resonance over time. It has helped that he can share his Freemasonry with his family – he presided over his son’s third degree in June and recently attended his son-in-law’s Initiation at Watford Lodge No. 404.

Freemasons from each of Lincolnshire’s 75 Lodges gathered to witness the Consecration of its 76th – the Armed Forces Lodge of Lincolnshire.
Its first ruler, Bob Chalklin, a former RAF Regiment member, has promised it’ll be a place of friendship and welcome – but with a sprinkling of good-natured banter as befits a Lodge which will draw its membership primarily from serving and former Armed Forces members.

After the Consecration at Grimsby’s Masonic Centre, led by Provincial Ruler Dave Wheeler, Bob said he felt relieved it had gone well. The run-up to the creation of this Lodge had been just the same as the day of the Consecration itself, succeeding through the combined efforts of many people, to whom he was effusive in his thanks. Those thanks included a special mention for Peter Hegarty, APGM for the Province of East Lancashire, who had assisted by providing equipment worth about £3,500 – all of which will retain references to the Lodges it came from.

The new Lodge will be peripatetic, meeting around the Province of Lincolnshire, though its nominal base will be Sleaford, home of Daedelus, its Mother Lodge. 

At the festive board, the Provincial ruler Dave Wheeler presented the Lodge with a framed reminder of the basis for its existence, with crests from the Navy, Army, and Air Force – though he pointed out that the framer had put them in the wrong order, and had to rearrange them before the presentation could be made. He said he thought it was important that the Lodge had something to display at its meetings.

Dave Wheeler said: