Posted by Jack Abell on Aug 31, 10 10:18 AM in Good Causes
BEACONSFIELD Freemasons have won the royal seal of approval for encouraging youngsters to do community work in the area.
The Duke of Kent paid tribute to 28 groups at the Masonic Centre in Windsor End, Beaconsfield, who had encouraged teenagers to care for others in the ihelp project.
The scheme provides around £14,000 in prize money for youths who give up their time to help others.
The Duke, who is the head of Freemasonry in England Wales, met Buckinghamshire Freemasons during a private visit to Stoke Place, Stoke Poges, where he was briefed on how initiatives are giving the order a higher profile in the community.
He said: "I have been very impressed by all that you do. It is important to channel the energies of young people into helping others.
"And it is vital to explain freemasonry's ideals of friendship, decency and charity to a wider community.
"The ihelp project is clearly achieving all those objectives. I congratulate you all."
He also praised a group of Masonic cyclists who raise more than £50,000 for good causes in a marathon trek from Gibraltar to Bucks.

CORKONIANS WILL get a chance to step back in time next weekend when some of the city’s most historic buildings are opened to the public in a series of guided tours and talks as part of Cork Heritage Open Day on Saturday August 28th.

Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Michael O’Connell said the Heritage Open Day provided a unique opportunity for Corkonians to visit some of the city’s most noted buildings, buildings which are rarely open to the public, as well as exploring other fascinating aspects of the city’s past.

“For the first time ever, we’re opening up the Lord Mayor’s office here in City Hall and I will be telling the story of Tomás MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney and the fact that the portraits we have of both men were donated by another former lord mayor, Gerald Goldberg.

“We have many of the oldest buildings in the city being opened to the public, but we also have some of the newest like the extension here to City Hall, the Elysian Tower and the penthouse suite on the Clarion Hotel so there’s a great mix of old and new.”

Among the historic buildings open to the public on Saturday next are the Masonic Hall on Tuckey Street, which has been the home of Freemasonry in Cork since 1844 and the Unitarian Church on Princes Street, the oldest documented surviving building in the city.

Local historian Liam Ó hUigín will give a guided tour of the old walls of the city, while there will also be tours of Cork City Hall and the Washington Street courthouse. Another local historian Ronnie Herlihy will give a guided tour of St Joseph’s Cemetery in Ballyphehane where temperance campaigner Fr Matthew is buried.

Among the other events planned is a screening of a film by pioneering British filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon, who visited Cork in the early 1900s, which is being shown in the Civic Trust House on Pope’s Quay.

Larissa Theodore Beaver County Times
Sunday August 22, 2010 11:45 PM

BRIDGEWATER — When it comes to Freemasonry, Bill Alberts has heard it all before. Tales of baby or farm animal sacrifices. Of being an ancient cult or a top-secret organization on a mission to control people’s lives. A secret society trying to establish a new world order.

“Basically anything you can think of,” said Alberts, the worshipful master of the St. James Lodge in Bridgewater.

“Some of the myth is not harmful, but it is just not right,” said Richard Muth, master of Parian Lodge in Beaver Falls.

One of the nastiest that Alberts and Muth have heard is that Jack the Ripper was a Freemason because of the ritualistic way he killed some of his victims.

But Alberts, Muth and Matt Smith of the Rochester Lodge, are working to dispel some of those myths.

“We’re not a secret society,” Alberts said. “We’re a society with secrets.”

With the release of Dan Brown’s latest book “The Lost Symbol,” Muth said a spotlight of mystique is shining on the Freemasons the same way as Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” placed new fame on the Catholic Church’s Opus Dei. In “The Lost Symbol,” Brown’s main protagonist, Harvard professor Robert Langdon, explores the U.S. capital in a plot that book reviewers say is reminiscent of “The Da Vinci Code” and Nicholas Cage’s “National Treasure” movies.

Langdon has to solve cryptic puzzles connected to a Masonic Pyramid and other ancient mysteries to help his mentor and save the day. Throw in the Freemasons, and book reviewers say “The Lost Symbol” isn’t likely to squelch any rumors or deter conspiracy theorists. With Washington, D.C., as the backdrop, the book, in fact, begins with a wine-filled skull, bejeweled power brokers and a dark Masonic temple, only steps away from the White House.

Dispelling myths

Mount Zion Lodge No. 266, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Kansas, operating in Topeka, Kansas, announces a call for papers and presentations for its first Modern Masonic Practices Symposium entitledThe Gentleman, the Scholar, and the Mystic: Exploring Modern Masonic Practices in North America to be held from Friday, April 16 - Sunday, April 18, 2010.

First local master was Abel Dowswell

Celebrating 150 years. Ontario Masons District Chaplain Gordon Roberts provides an inspiring address during the September 2001 dedication of the Renfrew lodge’s new mosaic pavement. Renfrew Weekender

Freemasonry is one of the oldest and largest fraternities in the world, but members of the Renfrew Lodge 122 get to enjoy their own distinctly historical landmark this weekend.

Many of the 64 members, plus visitors and guests, will celebrate their 150th anniversary and such guiding activities as the spirit of helpfulness, brotherly love and strict moral principles that encourage goodwill toward all mankind.

WINCHESTER, MA - Kamel Oussayef, a Winchester Resident was recently awarded the prestigious 33rd Degree of Freemasonry and was presented the medal of his attained rank. The brief ceremony took place last Saturday at the Masonic Grand Lodge in Boston.

In August 2009, more than 2,000 33rd Degree Freemasons and their Ladies gathered in Boston at the Sheraton hotel Hynes Convention Center for the annual meeting of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite for the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. The Supreme Council is the governing entity for more than 210,000 Freemasons in the 15 northeast and Midwest states of the Unites States of America.

Among those in attendance were Grand Masters from American Grand Lodges and Representatives of 29 Masonic Jurisdictions around the World.

The highlight of the meeting was the conferring of the prestigious 33rd Degree upon 110 members who were selected for outstanding service to Scottish Rite freemasonry and for significant contributions to their respective communities that reflects credit upon the Masonic fraternity.