For anyone who has not been to a meeting of the Operative Masons Lodge No 9044 (meeting in Tewkesbury) they are a little different. This is a Craft lodge within the Province of Gloucestershire, not to be confused with the ‘Operative Masons’, one of the appended orders within Freemasonry. Many members of the lodge are indeed operative masons (working stonemasons) and such is the draw of this lodge they come from far and wide. Their recent meeting drew some extremely favourable feedback of which one example reads:
‘Thank you for the opportunity to celebrate the installation on Saturday, it was a brilliant night. As David (JW) said, “it always works in the end” regardless of formalities, all laugh, joke and move on in a light hearted way; all what Masonry stands for. There are a number of Lodges who could learn a lot from your example at Operative Masons. It is such a friendly Lodge with passion and support for all, no matter the circumstances.
Thank you for your generous hospitality, the company, Lodge ceremony and festive board were excellent.’
If you are wondering about the photograph and the story behind it the PGM was not asked to peel some spuds for the Festive Board. One of their members from Cornwall (we did say they came from far and wide) donated a sack of best Cornish spuds for the raffle and who should win it but Tim Henderson-Ross, head of Gloucestershire Freemasonry. It gave us probably the best photograph so far on the new Provincial website!
Our thanks to Steve Joyce for sharing that great photograph.
