Liberty Lodge No. 5573

The new APGM WBro. M. Gibbons presents the Certificate of Excellence to the Master of Liberty Lodge 5573

Left to right. WBro. P Rhodes, WM. WBr. G Pilch, APGM. WBro M. Gibbons

WM and the Lodge Festival Rep proudly display the new certificate.

New festival report

The tour of the province, the sponsored relay bike challenge, starts at Rochdale Masonic all Saturday, June 13 at 8 AM and is calling every Masonic Hall in the province.

Details from WBro Peter Rhodes.

The big-band concert, is given by  Smithills School Senior big-band at Radcliffe Civic Suite, and is on Saturday, June 27. 7 for 7:30. Tickets are £15

Amateur this event again takes place at the Radcliffe Civic Suite, Saturday, October 3 .All are welcome, tickets are £25 including hot supper.

Julie Scott completed her zip wire challenge on May the 1st. raising in excess of £3000 for the festival. You can still donate to Julie's appeal on just giving.

Festival banquet The festival draws to a conclusion with the festival banquet which will be held at the Macrom Stadium Bolton on Thursday, October 29

tickets for the banquet are priced at £60. Tickets are on a first come first serve basis and application forms can be downloaded from the provincial website or give me a ring and I'll help you do it.

Festival draw. All of my allocation of tickets has now been sold to members of the lodge. I am still waiting for some to come back in. Just as importantly is members returning the tear off stubs ,without them they will not go in the draw.

Donations for the festival are as follows, this is the total donated by both members and the lodge it stands out £6097.84 p. We have 31 members in fact not strictly true we have just gained a joining member and will be seeing him in September this year. Out of the 31 members only 20 are active and have supported the lodge on the monthly basis so this figure is really a reflection on those people who attend the lodge and have placed this amount of money into the festival not only for themselves but for the other 10 members.  I would like to record my thanks to the Festival manager WBro Chris Wildman who has been a super help and has always been willing to advise and guide me on matters relating to the festival. To our district festival reps firstly to Reg and now to Peter for their constant help and support and not forgetting our chairman of the district WBro Peter Hewitt who helped me organise this evening. Recently I attended a district meeting of festival reps charity Stewards and almoners from Craft lodges and chapters. This was a well attended evening and much information was given to the brethren in attendance. Part of the evening was given over to Bro Joe Trocken, the charity Steward of Samaritan Lodge number 286 ( Bacup), based on his experience of dealing with the Masonic charities. This was a very inspirational talk given by the brother.

As the festival draws to a close we now, need to look at what we can do to enable the ELMC to carry on with its good works. Let me just finished  by thanking all those brethren of Liberty Lodge for their sterling efforts, their generosity and good humour in allowing me to relieve them of their much loved and hard earned cash. I also wish to thank our APGM and members of the district team for supporting us this evening, together with our visiting brethren who came and gave us such an interesting talk on Ecclesholme. It is important to remind ourselves why we raise money for good causes and I thank you brethren or enabling us to do that this evening. Even though as we close for the summer recess the festival carries on and will not close until October . I will be available to take your donations up until it officially closes. This evening you are excused from buying Kevin a pint instead I would wish you to make the charity donations to the to the Tour de Province bike ride.

regards Kevin