AROUND THE PROVINCE
Royal Navy 429 Host Margate Round Table
It’s 3:00pm – Wednesday 4th September and the Ramsgate Masonic Centre is being carefully prepared to welcome some special guests. Banners are being strategically placed, those with talking parts are rehearsing their lines and Just-Ask-One cards are being cunningly added to the place settings at the dining table.
Royal Navy Lodge 429 have had a long affiliation with the Round Table organisation and we reached out to the Margate branch to invite them to our centre for a chance to learn a little bit about Freemasonry and to take a tour of our wonderful Lodge Room.
The Lodge Membership Team at Royal Navy are always looking for new ways to drive social engagement and to widen our reach across our local community. Inviting Margate Round Table to our centre is something that had been in the planning stage for some time and September 4th was the date that finally suited both diaries.
For those who are unfamiliar with Round Table, it is a service organisation with many ideals that run parallel to our own – camaraderie, charity and the desire to socialise with like-minded people are very much the backbone of Round Table. It is a “young man’s” club: Men between the ages of 18 – 44 years are welcome to join, but you must leave Round Table when you reach 45 years of age.
Three of of Royal Navy Lodge’s members are also past members of Round Table (difficult to believe given the youthful looks) and still maintain contact with the current members of Margate Round Table. We have supported them at some of their social functions and likewise in their charitable aims.
The visit to Royal Navy 429 has now cemented the bond between our respective units and we are committed to writing mutual events into our calendars. I’m not sure that we can muster a beach volleyball team, but we’re reasonably certain that we can hold our own if ever challenged to bowling, or golf?
Whilst we have zero intention – or desire – to “pickpocket” their members, it remains that at 45 years of age the current members of Round Table need to make a choice. There is (within the Round Table family) an after-club that newly exited Round Tablers are invited to join, however they might look to try something new? We hope that by offering them a glimpse of what Freemasonry has to offer, we may be able to welcome one or two into our ancient and honourable institution?
I know that I can speak for us all when I say that we thoroughly enjoyed hosting Margate Round Table, and reciprocally, the overwhelming appreciation from our guests for the efforts made by the Brethren of Royal Navy were warmly received. This was unarguably a great and memorable night filled with warmth, fun and harmony. If I had to offer one takeaway from our event, it would be that we needn’t necessarily be members of the same club, in order to be brothers.
Camino De France
On October 1st my wife and I will be hiking the 500 mile Camino De France which runs through the Pyrenees into Galicia starting at St Jean Pied De Port in France and finishing at Santiago de Compostela in Spain. We aim to finish in Mid-November. Over 250,000 Pilgrims walk this route every year and the route has been established since Medieval times.
My wife a lady mason in the Order of Women Freemasons in Kent and will be raising money for Imago a charity she works for as a Community Care Navigator. My aim is to raise money for Walking with the Wounded a military based charity and the 2025 East Kent Festival via masonic and non-masonic friends and colleagues respectively. I am an active Provincial Senior Grang Deacon and member of Chillington Manor 4649 at Tovil, Maidstone and Montreal Chapter 2046
We are both very excited and nervous about this huge challenge. We are both qualified Geologists and used to a lot of fieldwork, but this walk will be an entirely different type of challenge, and one I hope we can both rise to.
Annual Fishing Match
The annual charity fishing match held on Sunday 8th September at Stones fishery in Sheerness.
We had 13 Anglers and the winning team was the Per Mare Per Terram Lodge with a total weight of 93Lb 8 oz.
2nd place was the Wellington Lodge with 89Lb.
3rd place was The Balmoral Lodge with 50Lb.
4th Place was The Bredenstone Lodge with 15Lb 10Oz.
The winner of the Individual was Dave Morris with 76Lb 8 oz.
2nd place Carl Guiver with 37Lb.
The weather was fairly kind and we all had a good day and raised some money for charity.
Steve Allen 
Demelza House
Members of Chiilington Manor Lodge No 4649 are to be congratulated for their generous donation of £750 in support of the vital work carried out by the Demelza Children’s Hospice. An application for match funding was submitted to the Trustees of the Cornwallis East Kent Freemasons Charity by the Lodge Charity Steward WBro Reinhard Stille. The Trustees were keen to support the Lodge initiative by providing an additional £500 in match funding.
A cheque for £1250 was presented to the Hospice by representatives of the Lodge during the summer period. Unfortunately, the Worshipful Master, WBro Oliver Henderson was unable to be present, however, his father WBro Paul Henderson a Past Master of the Lodge stepped in to represent the Lodge.
WBro Paul is pictured on the left, supported by WBro Reinhard Stille the Lodge Charity Steward who is pictured to the right of the picture. The two ladies in the centre are members of the Demelza Children’s Hospice fundraising team.
