A Welcome From The Festival President

Welcome to the website for "Derbyshire Festival 2014", Derbyshire Freemasons' six year Charity Festival in aid of the Masonic Samaritan Fund (MSF). As Festival President, I was delighted to launch the Festival at the Annual Meeting of Provincial Grand Lodge on 12^th April 2008.

If this is your first Masonic charity Festival, let me explain that the Festival system involves Provinces raising funds for one of the big four Masonic Charities over a six year period.  I am so pleased that our Festival is in aid of the Masonic Samaritan Fund. This is a charity set up to ensure that Freemasons, and their dependants, who are in need of medical care and support can have private treatment paid for, in full or in part, by the Masonic Samaritan Fund if they face a long wait on the NHS.  So on this occasion, we will be raising funds to look after ourselves and our dependants.

I have set two objectives for our Festival. 

1. First, to raise at least £2,000,000 for the Masonic Samaritan Fund between now and 2014.  A stretching target but one that I am sure we can achieve if we work together.

2. To raise the profile of the Masonic Samaritan Fund in Derbyshire so that Freemasons, their widows and dependants know that they can apply to the Fund for a grant to assist them when needed.

If we succeed in achieving these objectives, then together, we will have done something worthwhile of which we can all be proud.

 The Festival will be run quite separately from our own Provincial Charity, which will continue to raise funds for local projects.  I have asked W.Bro. Martin Bates, PProvSGW, and W.Bro. Richard McDonald, PProvSGW, to organise and run the Festival and they have set up an Executive to help them.  You will find out more about the Executive and its members in this newsletter.

Please participate fully in the Festival, its fund raising and various events. Working together with one aim in mind I am sure we will achieve the objectives I have set out above.  I thank you now for what you will do over the next few years.

R.W.Bro. J.G.R. Rudd, DL

Provincial Grand Master

Provincial Grand Master's speech - Annual Meeting 2009

Brethren, a year ago I launched the Derbyshire Festival 2014. In the twelve months since we have all become familiar with the twin goals of raising awareness of the Masonic Samaritan Fund in Derbyshire and raising at least two million pounds for the Fund. I am so pleased to see so many of us today showing visible support for the Festival, wearing both the provincial tie and the Festival jewel. So, how are we doing?

Certainly Derbyshire Freemasons are much more aware of the Masonic Samaritan Fund now. In 2007 the Fund received two applications from Derbyshire and gave grants to the value of just over £10,000. In 2008 it received eight applications and funded treatment to the value of over £125,000. And in the last year we have increased the total sums received by Derbyshire since the Masonic Samaritan Fund started nineteen years ago by over twenty-five percent. With their kind permission, some of the stories of those who received grants have now become quite familiar to us and I wish all recipients well with their continued treatment and care.

As for fund raising, Derbyshire Freemasonry has exceeded all that I could reasonably expect a year ago. In the first twelve months since launch we have gone from zero to a total of £507,986. This is made up of £313,685 actually donated and £194,301 pledged under a gift aid declaration. This is a magnificent achievement and I wish to put on record my personal thanks to all those who have contributed to the Festival, all those who have encouraged others and all those who have organised and managed the Festival itself. Some Lodges have already achieved over half of their Festival target. Here I wish to congratulate in particular Flyfishers’ Lodge No. 9347, Buxton Lodge No. 1688, Pioneer Lodge No. 9065, Tutbury Priory Lodge No. 4873, Carnarvon Lodge No. 1739, Amadeus Lodge No. 9539 and Bradelei Lodge No. 9205.

We have got to know well the team of relatively young Freemasons who, as members of the Festival Executive, have managed the Festival with such energy, skill and commitment. Today I also want to recognise those beyond the Executive. I include here the Area Directors who have visited Lodges, built relationships, delivered presentations, organised events and generally promoted the Festival throughout the Province. Then we have the Festival Stewards. Of the seventy-nine Lodges in the Province, all but one has answered my call and appointed a member to promote the Festival and act as a Lodge liaison. They have had the most difficult of tasks; speaking personally with each of their members to encourage them to give regular donations. To date 312 members have taken out banker’s orders to make such donations, most under a gift-aid pledge. I also wish to pay tribute to the Almoners in our Lodges. Their task is a challenging one, requiring discretion and sensitivity. Year in and year out they go about it calmly, without fanfare. Today I wish to sing their praises and to thank them for their important contribution to the health and wellbeing of our members, as well as for their support for the Festival itself. They are supported by the Provincial Grand Almoner, W.Bro. Brian Jones, who in the short time he has held this Office has mastered the role. And of course we have those members of the Province who have kept us informed about the Festival; Bro. Trevor Brearley, the webmaster, W.Bro. John White, the newsletter editor, and W.Bro. Brian Quartermain, the editor of Derbyshire Circle and his team. To all these hard working and dedicated Brethren, I thank you wholeheartedly.

Brethren, the festival is a six year project and we must maintain and refresh our efforts. While we have been so very successful in our first year, we can not afford to be complacent. Much of the monies donated to date have come from funds accumulated in charity accounts over the last five years. We now expect fewer large donations to come from such sources. Therefore, the Festival will be maintained and refreshed by two key means. The first will be regular donations. I urge all members of the Province who have not yet done so to complete a banker’s order and gift aid pledge, to give whatever you can each month or year. If every Freemason in the Province used this method and donated the cost of two pints of beer a month, or just 20p per day, we would achieve our financial target. And the earlier such donations are started, the more the Chancellor of the Exchequer will aid us in our endeavours! Forms are available from your Lodge Festival Steward and from the Festival website. The second source is likely to be events. I want this Festival to bring the Freemasons of Derbyshire together, to enjoy ourselves and to achieve something of which we can all be proud. Now, a year in, the planning of regular events is well under way. We have a golf day this month, a dinner for the Masters of the Lodges in June and other varied and geographically spread events and activities already being planned. Indeed, a committee has already started work planning the climax of our six years of effort, the Festival Finale, scheduled for September 2014.

Brethren, in concluding I want to thank you all for what you have done and thank you each for what you will do. You make me very proud to serve as your Provincial Grand Master. 

Provincial Grand Master's Speech - Annual Meeting 2101

Brethren, it is now exactly two years since I launched the Derbyshire Festival 2014. Little could I have known then how much we would have achieved in what is, in Masonic terms at least, such a short space of time.

The Festival Executive spent a great deal of time debating what stretching but realistic target we should aim for over the course of the six year Festival. They looked at our own history in Derbyshire as well as the results in other provinces. They then cautiously set a goal of £2,000,000, a figure I happily endorsed. Based on what they had seen elsewhere, they fully expected that it would take us well into the second half of the Festival before we had built up a sizable donation towards our goal and certainly before any Lodge achieved its own target.

But I am so pleased to say that they were wrong. Not wrong to be cautious but wrong to anticipate a low early response. Brethren, to date six Lodges have already met their target, namely:

Flyfishers’ Lodge No. 9347, Tyrian Lodge No. 253, Fairfield Lodge No. 2224, Arboretum Lodge No. 731, Derbyshire Dales Lodge No. 9436 and Chantrey Lodge No. 2355.

So pleased am I with this result that I have awarded each of the above my specially commissioned Festival Maul, and will award each Lodge that achieves its target before the Festival Finale the same, making the presentation myself where I am able to do so. Indeed, I am minded to introduce other means of recognising Lodges that far exceed their original target.

But these are not the only Lodges to have responded to my call. So far, just one third of the time into our Festival, over fifty Lodges have already donated over one third of their target, demonstrating how generous and caring we are in Derbyshire.

And financial support is not the only measure of our progress towards success. We have seen an increase in enquiries and applications to the Masonic Samaritan Fund since the start of the Festival, as well as considerably more Derbyshire Masons and their dependants benefiting from grants. Brethren, these grants make a significant difference to the health and quality of life of those who receive them. They would want me to take this opportunity to thank all those who have helped to raise awareness of the Masonic Samaritan Fund and make their treatment and care possible.

On previous occasions I have drawn your attention to the work of the Festival Executive, and their teams, in planning and managing this Festival. I repeat my wholehearted thanks to them now. But today I wish to highlight the work of others who have had such a significant impact on the Festival. In particular I would mention W.Bro. Peter Whysall and his team of Area Directors, currently W.Bros. Roger Till, Steve Jones, Peter Massey, Charles Cunnington, Mick Hitchcock, Graham Hitchcock, Rob Atkin and Ian Copestake. They have worked tirelessly to visit Lodges, explain the work of the Festival, give talks and generally encourage us to play our part.

In addition there have been others who have played a significant role to date. Who has not bought a raffle ticket in the hope of winning one of W.Bro. Brian Terry’s Thornton’s Chocolate hampers, or attended one of his fundraising lunches? Perhaps you have experienced the thrill of W.Bro. Chris Sellars’ Ladies Night auction, which raised £3,000 alone. As I speak a new initiative is being set up by Bro. Matt Hewitson of Lutudarum Lodge in which money will be raised from donated used mobile phones, and W.Bro. Graham Hitchcock is asking us all to participate in the Summer Solstice Walk. And then there are the many organisers of various events that have raised money, such as the piano recital organised by W.Bros. Andrew Mann and Neil Bowman.  To all of you who have helped in these and other ways, I give you my heartfelt thanks.

And so now brethren I am delighted to tell you that as of today, the Festival Total stands at £1,003,691. Of this, £748,882 is money actually received and £254,809 is pledged under one of the 510 gift-aid payment promises taken out by over one in every six of our members.

Brethren, I am so tremendously proud to stand here as your Provincial Grand Master, to be leading a province that has risen to the challenge and given so much. But I do ask you to do two things. First, that you continue to pay into those payment promises. These are difficult times and money is tight but if you can make the donations pledged until the end of the Festival, then the figure I have announced will grow further towards our overall goal. Secondly, to ask you all not to be complacent. Many of the donations received to date have been accumulating in Lodge accounts for the last seven years. We now expect it to be more difficult to raise the remainder of our target. So please, encourage others to do what they can; to take out pledges, to organise events and to support your Lodge’s Festival Steward in his work.

Brethren, to conclude I wish once again to thank you all for your support for this Festival, for what you have done so far and for what you are going to do. As a province we have shown that we can excel. Now let us show that we can do more than what is asked of us - and do our very best indeed.