I became a Freemason on the 5th November 2012, nearly 8 years in and I am still loving it. It has been a fantastic journey so far. My time working my way through the Lodge and completing the progressive offices was a great experience. I had many occasions thinking to myself “I can’t learn all of that!”, but I did! During these years I particularly enjoyed the roles of Junior and Senior Deacon. This enabled me to escort candidates around the Lodge throughout their ceremonies, a great experience for me and hopefully for the candidates. I will always remember the deacons for their part in my ceremonies. The next great moment was the year as Senior Warden. Apart from enjoying the role I had 12 months of looking at the Masters chair and counting the weeks down…. It soon came around.

The Grand finale was my installation as Worshipful Master of my Mother Lodge. I will never forget that night, a huge mix of excitement and emotion. I had many visitors and close to 100 attended. I was lucky to have my honoured guest the Provincial Grand Master attend. It was a fantastic evening, I often look at the photos and videos from the night. One vivid memory was the sudden emotion I felt when the members sang the masters song to me, that will stick with me forever.

I had a brilliant year as Master and as everyone said it flew by. I was able to initiate 2 new candidates and conducted the ceremonies of passing and raising with the very grateful help of the other members. During my year I was very lucky to be able to organise a ladies festival weekend, we had a fantastic weekend in Bournemouth with members of my lodge and many other guests attending.

My final task was to install my successor. This was another memorable moment because he was one of my candidates into Freemasonry. It was great to see him take the chair. During my year as the Immediate Past Master I can remember a friend telling me “you are not really out of the chair until you leave the chair of IPM”. By this he meant during your year as IPM you have to stand in for the master if he is unable to make a meeting. Due to work commitments of the master this happened and I had to conduct one of his ceremonies. Another great experience for me as it was for a candidate I initiated during my year.

I am just about to leave the IPM chair. The biggest surprise during my IPM year was to receive promotion in the Provincial Honours List 2020, I am delighted to be one of the six chosen to be promoted to Provincial Grand Steward. I will be wearing my new regalia (above) for the first time to my Lodges installation meeting in October. I am now an “active” Provincial Grand Officer, I’m not sure what the year will bring as due to the Covid-19 pandemic we are not visiting meetings but I will be make the most of it.

To sum up its been a brilliant 8 years so far and I have no doubt many more to come.