Current Worshipful Master Richard Roberts went along to the Aylesbury Masonic Centre yesterday afternoon as Cestreham was made a Grand Patron of the 2021 Festival, here’s his report.

just a short update from an afternoon in Aylesbury where I collected a Grand Patron certificate for funds raised by the lodge in the 2021 Festival from Buckinghamshire Province, on behalf of Cestreham.

The event was attended by the mayor of Aylesbury and Slough, along with the Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire Lady Howe. We heard from a range of charities who had received help from Buckinghamshire masons in the form of charitable grants, from mental health charities, to blood bikes, to homeless shelters. Those ten who spoke had received £350k alone, and there were many others who had not made the day. What some people do on small scale charitable help is amazing.

Some other stats – The Masonic Charitable Foundation raised over £51m in 2020, and has supported 58 charities across the country with 3,800 grants totalling over £30m in donations in 2021, and recently raised £560k in two weeks for the start of a Ukraine appeal.

This is seriously impressive stuff and we should be pleased to have been involved in some small way.

From my understanding, it seems that Grand Lodge is going to make people more publicly aware of this type of activity as a way to continue to drive recruitment, so please share some of this information.

I am grateful to Andrew for suggesting I attend this event. It was a real eye opener.

Please feel free to share this on your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages to highlight the fantastic charitable work we do.

Just a reminder, every penny donated comes directly from our members, charity truly is the distinguishing characteristic of a Freemason’s heart.