Charities

2022 Festival

As I have said on many occasions, in the history of Masonic Festivals there has surely never been a Provincial Festival appeal so relevant to the needs of our members. The fact that the Covid19 pandemic continues to challenge us all in our everyday lives and the impact on Freemasonry in general and our Festival in particular, cannot be denied.

The past nine months of our Festival has been impacted by the unprecedented, but essential, suspension of all Masonic activities, followed by the additional lock down of our Freemasons’ Hall, Leicerster premises and the implementation of social gathering restrictions. Inspired by the knowledge that the MCF has the resources and processes necessary to maintain their support for those who desperately need help as a result of the pandemic, whilst ensuring grants to individuals and charities continue to be paid as normal, we are determined to remain positive. Your Festival Committee continues to work on your behalf to ensure we achieve our goal and meet our target of £1.8 million by June 2022. I can confirm we have already transferred £1.3 million into the MCF’s relief chest with a substantial amount of direct debit pledges still to mature. We do however, now more than ever, require your support. Every abandoned Lodge meeting is a lost fund-raising opportunity. The absence of gift aid envelopes, not to mention raffle receipts and Smartie tube collections, cannot be underestimated. It is critical to the success of our appeal that we compensate for these lost opportunities. Please, if you are able, consider donating by any of the following means: • Complete a monthly Direct Debit Form & proudly wear your festival jewel to all Craft &

Royal Arch meetings. • To make a one-off donation please visit our

Just Giving page https://fundraising.mcf.org. uk/Festival-E0154MCF or use the QR code on page 25 • Send a cheque payable to “Freemasons’

Grand Charity” E0154 to The Charity Office,

Freemasons’ Hall, 80 London Road, Leicester

LE2 0RA • TEXT donation: Text LR2022 to 70500 to donate £5, Text LR2022 to 70300 to donate

£10

May I ask all Worshipful Masters and Festival Stewards to encourage all Brethren to donate by any of the methods listed as we take part in virtual gatherings in place of our regular Lodge meetings. In addition, I suspect many Lodges have accrued donations they were, or are planning, to present at installation meetings or Provincial visits in the future. I would like to make a personal plea to all Lodges. Please forward any funds you may have kindly allocated without delay. We have Brethren who need our support now! Your invaluable donations will of course be formally acknowledged once we are able to meet in the usual manner. I mentioned remaining positive. The Festival Committee are busy organising several major fundraising events as we look to return to some sort of normality in 2021. Those who attended our Sportsman’s Dinner in 2019 will not be surprised to hear tickets for next year’s event have been selling fast! We genuinely only have a handful of tables still available. In sporting parlance our capacity attendance is 800. If you are yet to book your table, I would respectfully request you do so without delay to avoid missing out. Clearly in these uncertain times we cannot guarantee the Dinner will take place on the 18th March as planned. However, we have spoken to both Kevin & Roger who have both committed to the event. should we be unable to gather in March, the Dinner will be rescheduled with table reservations automatically transferred. For further information email dale@clementsretail.com or barnettrichard1@gmail.com Our major fundraising event of 2021 is a sponsored walk with a difference, catering for all abilities, and open to Freemasons, friends, and families. The Marching Masons will walk various distances over the Easter Bank Holiday, covering all parts of the Leicestershire Round footpaths and walkways. This is an excellent opportunity for Lodges to reach their Festival Appeal targets, as all funds raised will be registered to your Lodge. The monies raised through sponsorship will be split between our 2022 Festival Appeal, Rainbows and LOROS. How do I register? To register a walk for 1, 5, 10 or 25 miles over any or all of the four days, please visit the Marching Masons page on our Provincial website and complete the registration form. How do I support the Marching Masons? If you are unable to join us on the walk, you can still support the walkers, the 2022 Festival, and your Lodge, by sponsoring someone from your Lodge or maybe the PGM? Please visit the website. The Provincial Grand Master hopes to see every Lodge in the Province represented at what will be another fantastic event to raise monies for charities and good causes. For further information please visit the website https://www. pglleics.org.uk/marching-masons At the time of writing we intend to hold our Golf Day at Kirby Muxloe Golf Club on 21st May 2021, before rounding off the summer with our Ball at Winstanley House on Saturday 18th September 2021. The finale of our appeal will be a Gala Banquet on Sat 25th June 2022 at Leicester Tigers Rugby Football Club. Please mark the date in your diary. As we enter the final phase of our appeal, a little footnote to those Brethren currently occupying the chair of Senior Warden who, if we assume no installations this year, will with all probability be the Master of your Lodge at the culmination of the appeal. Please think how you will celebrate your time as Master and what you would like your legacy to be? May I suggest ensuring your Lodge reaches Patron Status and meets its Festival target would be a suitable and fitting achievement for you to be rightly proud of. Finally, as always, I would like to sincerely thank each and every one of you who have and continue to support our Festival in such a magnificent manner. To those yet to contribute, may I respectfully ask you to consider doing so? The rules have changed. It is clear as the World continues to battle this dreadful disease there is going to be a greater call on our charitable nature than any of us have ever witnessed. Covid19 remains a relevant danger to us all. It is however some comfort to remember Masonic Charity is available to those in need throughout and beyond this time of crisis.

Dale Page 2022 Festival Chairman

Christmas Collection

Each year we call upon Lodges to hold a collection at their Christmas meeting on behalf of two local charities. Last year we raised over £15,000 which was split between Rainbows and Prostaid.

This year’s nominated charities are LOROS and Leicestershire and Rutland Blood Bikes. There will not be few brethren whose lives have not been touched in some way by LOROS and the fantastic work they do. Leicestershire and Rutland Blood Bikes operate during the night and at weekends, transporting blood and medical samples, not only throughout counties but also across the country. They have also been providing first class support to the NHS in the face of the Covid19 pandemic. We are sure you will agree both charities are worthy of our support. As it is unlikely that Lodges will be able to have significant meetings in December and hold the usual gift aid envelope collections, we have been forced to change how we conduct the Charity Association will match your

Christmas collection. We are therefore asking that you donate directly using this link: www. justgiving.com/campaign/Relief-ChestScheme-E2047 It only takes a few minutes to complete and will ensure both you and your Lodge will be credited with the donation. If your circumstances allow, please tick the gift aid box, it allows us every £1 you donate. If you would prefer to make a donation by cheque, you can do so by completing the form overleaf and sending it along with your cheque to the listed address.

The Leicestershire and Rutland Masonic to increase your donation by 25p for

donation in the same way as we did last year and will make an equivalent donation to the 2022 Festival on behalf of you and your Lodge.

For every £1 you donate, 25p will go to each charity and 50p to the Festival.

If you need any further information or advice, do not hesitate to contact me,

Yours sincerely and fraternally,

Ian Nesbitt Provincial Grand Charity Steward

Long Service Awards LONG SERVICE The following Brethren have received continuous long service awards since our last edition.

W.Bro. Brian Stringer St John’s Lodge No.270 6th May 1970 50 Years W.Bro. Roderick Jeffery St Denys Lodge No.8276 24th September 1970 50 Years W.Bro. John Wright Beacon Lodge No.5208 13th October 1970 50 Years W.Bro. Anthony Shore Lodge of the Holy Well No.7827 25th October 1960 60 Years W.Bro. Chris Hirst The Holmes Lodge No.4656 1st November 1960 60 Years W.Bro. Ian Burton The Holmes Lodge No.4656 3rd November 1970 50 Years W.Bro. Donald Mowbray East Goscote Lodge No.2865 5th November 1970 50 Years Bro. David Facer Wyvern Lodge No.6167 7th December 1970 50 Years W.Bro. Michael Langley Humber Stone Lodge No.7744 8th December 1970 50 Years W.Bro. Graham Wright Granstone Lodge No.6406 15th December 1970 60 Years

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Please notify us if you want to cancel this declaration, change your name or home address or no longer pay sufficient tax on your income and/or capital gains.

Send this completed form to: Relief Chest Scheme, Masonic Charitable Foundation, 60 Great Queen Street, London WC2B 5AZ Tel: 020 3146 3352 Email: reliefchest@mcf.org.uk

Data Protection Act 2018 - Privacy Notice

The Freemasons’ Hall 200 club was launched some time ago in support of our operations at Freemasons’ Hall, Leicester. Many will have heard the results being read out in Lodge meetings and wondering when they will be one of the lucky winners. As the saying goes, ‘You have got to be in it to win it.’

With what would have been the new Masonic season approaching, we recognised that a new process was needed if we were to make the 200 club a success. Applications for tickets were made online or via a printed form and payment made by BACS or cheque. We are delighted to report that we have sold a record 237 tickets as compared to just 153 tickets last year. This has delivered a profit of over £5,000 to support the Province and enabled us to increase the number of prizes on offer for the regular monthly draws from three to five. 1st Prize - £250 2nd and 3rd Prize - £150 4th and 5th Prize - £100 For the December draw there were eight prizes. 1st Prize - £750 2nd Prize - £450 3rd Prize - £300 4th Prize - £200 5th - 8th Prizes - £100 On Thursday 22nd October we held the first draw live on zoom, to which all ticket holders were invited. Tony Sibson from Newarke Lodge No.6794 acted as scrutineer. The lucky winners were: 1st prize - £250 Rupert Clarke, Gartree Lodge No.7778 2nd prize - £150 Adrian No.4656 3rd prize - £150 John Pinkstone, Burbach Lodge No.8699 4th prize - £100 David ParkesBowen, Albert Edward Lodge No.1560 5th prize - £100 Russell ScottWorthington, Ferrers and Ivanhoe Lodge No.779

Congratulations to all the lucky winners! If it was not you in October, perhaps it will be your turn in the coming months.

We would like to thank all brethren who purchased tickets and the Provincial Grand Master for his continued support.

Business as Normal in Abnormal Times

The last eight months have proved to be a challenging time for the Leicestershire and Rutland Masonic Charity Association.

As many of you may be aware our long-standing Financial Officer, Maureen Walsh left at the end of 2019. This was to take up a full-time job closer to her home in Market Harborough. Suffice to say Maureen was an undoubted asset to both the LRMCA and the Province and made my work as Chair of the LRMCA so much easier. She left with our best wishes and heartfelt thanks for many years of service as the face of the LRMCA. We were lucky enough to find a replacement in Kate Ralston, who started with us in February having previously worked with Leicester Riders. Unfortunately, not long after Kate arrived, so did lockdown and due to her joint employee status with Devonshire Place, Kate had to be furloughed. That of course did not mean the work of the LRMCA stopped, far from it. We continue to receive requests from local charities which are processed and supported where we can. Additional support for our local charities has come from the Masonic Charitable Foundation (MCF), who made available additional funds to for Covid19 and non Covid19 related work. We are part of Regional Group 6, along with Northants & Hunts, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Bedfordshire. Through this group the MCF made available £16,000 to the Province, which has been used to support foodbanks, PPE production, and the local community. From June through to October, the trustees of the LRMCA approved grants to 15 charities totalling £15,000. Five of these grants have been supplemented by a further £3,500 in matched grants from the MCF. The MCF has made available to each Province £10,000; to date, charities and projects in Leicester and Leicestershire and Rutland have received £9,500 of that money to support PPE production, provision of food parcels to NHS and key workers, and community projects to help relieve the impact of Covid19. The LRMCA has set aside funding to support brethren and their families and streamlined the mechanism to access it. We have seen an exponential growth in applications for support from the MCF, with nearly £140,000 de Pearse, Holmes Lodge coming to brethren and their families in this Province since April 2020. If you know of a brother in need of assistance contact your Lodge Almoner. In an earlier Leicester Square issue, I referenced personally having symptoms of Covid19 in March. I am pleased to report that both my wife and I have made a full recovery, although for myself that is tempered by a continued loss of taste and smell. This morning as I was eating yet another tasteless breakfast, I reflected on how Covid19 has affected us all to varying degrees. From a financial perspective this means that those of us who can continue to give, should do so. I do not apologise for asking. For those who find their circumstances somewhat different, do not hesitate to seek support. We will do all we can for you. The LRMCA is your charity, with your help we can make a difference in Leicestershire and Rutland. We will come through this, and I look forward to when we can meet in person, greet each other with a hearty handshake, and raise a glass to the future.

Phil Caswell LRMCA Chairman