staffs
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Staffs
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Post by staffs on Mar 28, 2005 12:03:55 GMT
If a brother wants to visit a lodge overseas ,ie: whilst on holiday .Then what is the correct protocol to be obseved and what rule does this relate to in the UGLE book of constitutions. ?
Are you only allowed to make contact yourself when on foreign soil ??
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staffs
Administrator
Staffs
Posts: 3,295
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Post by staffs on Mar 28, 2005 12:08:53 GMT
For those visiting Spain on Holiday and wishing to visit i was emailed this contact and the following : South of Alicante, there are three Craft Lodges, all of whom meet in the Temple which is located in Ciudad Quesada, Rojales. Of the three Lodges, two operate in English, Old Tower and its daughter lodge, Caledonia and one in Spanish, Las Salinas. Each Lodge meets monthly from October to May with Old Tower meeting on the third Monday, Caledonia on the second Thursday and Las Salinas on the first Monday in the month. In addition to the Craft there is also Royal Arch Chapter, OSM, MARK, RAM, KT, Operatives and St Thomas of Acon based in the Temple. As the majority of the Brethren in Spain are retired, or at least not working, meetings generally take place during the afternoons and Ladies are invited to many of the festive boards. As well as the Masonic meetings, there are a number of luncheon clubs associated with the Lodges, each meet once a month with the exception of July and August. Each club is slightly different, some restricted to masons only and others open to anyone, but all are run for the benefit of masonry and charity. If you would like to attend any meetings or luncheon clubs please give me a call when you are in Spain or e-mail me prior to your arrival and I will be happy to put you in contact with the appropriate Secretary. In the meantime, you might be interested in looking at our new website which outlines the aims and activities of masonry within the Province of Valencia. The website can be reached on: www.provgval.org/Yours sincerely and fraternally B R Mansell Prov G Charity Steward e.mail : provincialcharitysteward@hotmail.com
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ricardo
Member
Australia
Posts: 161
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Post by ricardo on Mar 28, 2005 13:15:53 GMT
I am not a member of an UGLE Lodge, but I have been able to visit in Ireland, Italy, England, Scotland, Canada, USA, SE Asia and Hong Kong.
It is against Masonic protocol to contact a foreign Lodge whilst you are still in your home country or jurisdiction - in this case you should make contact via the Grand Secretary. This applies to email contact as well as conventional mail.
You should ascertain that the foreign jurisdiction is recognised by your home Grand Lodge. This information should be available from your Lodge secretary, or you might check the "foreign links" section of the UGLE web site (assuming it contains current information).
Provided the foreign Grand Lodge is in amity with your home GL, it is permissible to make contact once you are on the territory of that foreign GL.
You should carry your MM certificate. It is also wise to carry a recent summons of your Lodge, and a receipt for subscription to show you are financial (this is more important in the USA). It might also help to have a letter of introduction from your Lodge which can be signed by the Secretary. Some Grand Lodges provide a "Masonic passport" which contains a certificate from the Lodge secretary on one side, plus a passport photo, and a reduced photocopy of the MM certificate on t'other side.
You should be prepared to "prove" that you are a MM. In the USA as part of the process of "proving" you might be asked for the "due guard" - unknown in Emulation style Freemasonry for various reasons. So you can flummox your examiners like I always delight in doing by saying that the DG is unknown to you.
I have had great enjoyment from visiting lodges in different jurisdictions, and have been privileged to be allowed to deliver ritual on several occasions during degree workings, in Italy, Canada and USA. This can be a "hearing the pin drop" situation, due to a combination of different words, postures, accent and (sometimes) additional WTs (I carry a ch.... about with me).
In Canada I have been especially privileged on two occasions, by going through a ceremony unknown in Australia in one meeting ("passing the chair") and taking part in a First Peoples smoking ceremony on another occasion, in company with the Grand Master of that province!
I think my general suggestions above will be acceptable, but if I am mistaken I feel sure I will soon be put right on this list!
Richard N
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Post by taylorsman on Mar 28, 2005 15:34:15 GMT
I have tried to find the reference in the B of C, but the index is so badly drafted that I can't find the entry. I'm sure that Doric could oblige.
Anyway, in essence, what Richard N has posted does sum up the Rules, if you have any doubts then contact the Grand Secretary's Dept at Great Queen Street. (For UGLE Members that is, no doubt GL of S and GL of I have their own arrangements).
Now that is fine if you are planning a holiday, you have the time to do this as well as have your vaccinations, cancel the papers, put the cat in the cattery etc. But what if you work in a job where you might be sent to a European or US branch of your employers? With modern work practices a man could go into to work tomorrow to be told that the following day he was booked on a flight to the USA or France. Now while he is there a co-worker who is also "On the Square" finds that he is a Brother Freemason and invites him to his Lodge telling him that he can borrow Regalia. Now what does he do, refuse and cause offense or attend and possibly break a Rule? In think I can guess what many Brethren would do , turn a "Nelson Eye" and attend in "blissful ignorance" as they would not wish to offend a Brother and scorn his hospitality. I chose the examples of France with 3 GLs of which only one is recognised by UGLE and USA where some Prince Hall Lodges are recognised, some are not, but the picture is constantly changing, but I understand that the situation in India and Greece are also complicated.
I don't want to be seen to be doing a "Steward Edwards" here but I feel that these abstruse and often pedantic recognition issues go against the SPIRIT of "Freemasonry Universal" even if they are in accordance with the Letter of the Laws.
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Post by a on Mar 28, 2005 15:44:52 GMT
I don't want to be seen to be doing a "Steward Edwards" here Ah well at least I will go down in history as a man to have something named after him ;D
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Post by whistler on Mar 28, 2005 19:11:01 GMT
Hi Staffs, If you visit Down Under - Just bring proof you are a current paid up Freemason, and be able to prove your self to our JW, and we will welcome you warmly - and we promise not to tell the UGLE ;D
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ricardo
Member
Australia
Posts: 161
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Post by ricardo on Mar 28, 2005 21:07:43 GMT
.... I feel that these abstruse and often pedantic recognition issues go against the SPIRIT of "Freemasonry Universal" even if they are in accordance with the Letter of the Laws. It is for that sort of reason that the following motion was passed at the 2001 annual conference of my Grand Lodge: " Discretion when visiting lodges of other jurisdictions. [/u] "This Conference recommends that if a member of the Association visits a Lodge of a jurisdiction which is recognized by the Association, and there encounters a visitor (lawfully present in the Lodge) who belongs to a jurisdiction not recognized by the Association, the said member should be permitted, at his discretion, to remain in the Lodge he is visiting and fraternally associate with that visitor from an unrecognized jurisdiction on the occasion of that visit to the Lodge. "
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Post by taylorsman on Mar 28, 2005 23:09:25 GMT
Very sensible indeed! I commend your Grand Master and his cohorts.
Now you have actually touched on a point I had forgotten, possibly because it is just too ridiculous and impossible to police. Believe it or not, and sticking to my two examples, I were to attend a Lodge in a Jurisdiction fully recognised by UGLE, perhaps in the USA or again in France-GLNF. Now unbeknown to me at the self same Meeting is a Brother of Lodge which is NOT so recognised by the mighty powers of Gt Queen Street. Now how I am to know? I would NOT have the brass bound insolence to inspect the Signing Book/ Register, assuming such is used in that Constitution, as I would consider that equivalent nosiness to looking at my hosts Bank Statements if a house guest! Would I know anyway, assuming I did make such an inspection, I doubt it! Indeed, assume I was to be invited to one of your Lodges here in good old UGLEland. I attend as your guest, sign the book as one does and take my place. Now unbeknown to me and indeed to you is a man who is a Co-Mason, or who may have been expelled from the Craft. I do not know him anyway and there are 50 people present, let's say it is an Installation. He is wearing the correct regalia, he gives the correct signs etc . Most of the Brethren there, myself included would not know he was a phoney. Even if we did look in the Book, and let's face it, apart from a cursory glance by the Secretary, usually to check the number dining at the Festive Board and possibly by the Tyler, who does this anyway, who would know that the Lodge Name and Number given was genuine if it was from a distant Province?
So if Bro Pierre is a member of GODF or Bro Hank of some Prince Hall Lodge not recognised by UGLE I would not know this, nor seek to know. To ask a guest to thus interogate a fellow guest he does not know from Adam would be the height of bad manners in my book, akin to someone at a dinner party asking the religion of the others there and walking out if the host had invited a non Christian. I feel this is an unjust burden to put on an ordinary Brother and I'm sure it is simply ignored in Real Life.
My points were about somone visiting a country where there may be some Recognition dispute between UGLE and the GL of the Lodge he is invited to attend by his host, say myself visiting Toulouse or Iowa as part of my work and being given such an invite by a co-worker who knows I am a Freemason and is one himself. One has to take certain matters on Trust. I do not check the validity of an aquaintance's driving licence if he offers me a lift.
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ricardo
Member
Australia
Posts: 161
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Post by ricardo on Mar 29, 2005 0:01:04 GMT
Very sensible indeed! I commend your Grand Master and his cohorts. Our Grand Lodge is rather more democratic than that! The motion was submitted for consideration along with others. Some were lost, some passed. The Board of Management of Grand Lodge then considers the Conference results and is tasked to bring resolutions into effect. The Annual Conference is thus rather like a meeting of shareholders. In my jurisdiction all MMs and above are members of the Association commonly known as "Grand Lodge" The above is getting off topic but is posted for information. Richard N
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Post by taylorsman on Mar 29, 2005 8:24:15 GMT
Richard, this has been covered exhaustively on "another Forum" and if someone wants to hive it off to a separate thread here fair enough but UGLE and Democracy are mutually exclusive.
The Scots GL is fair enough as I understand it from Mr Mason and other Scottish posters as both their Grand Master Mason and their Provincial GMs are elected by the Ordinary Brethren (Master Masons) and they have a Fixed term of Office but under UGLE the Ordinary Member has in effect no say on anything of significance or regarding policy.
I have no idea how a PGM is appointed by UGLE- it isn't always the current Deputy PGM of that Province- and the Grand Master has Life Tenure (or at least until he wishes to resign or is unable to continue owing to physical or mental incapacity), but neighter are subject to "popular franchise". The GM faces an annual "token" election at Grand Lodge by the Grand Officers present but is not opposed and is simply returned each year. I have nothing against Lord Northampton, the current Pro Grand Master, but if he wants the top job he will get it simply for the asking when the Duke of Kent eventually hangs up his apron, unless of course a Royal Freemason emerges, but apart from Prince Michael of Kent, the brother of the present GM, I can't think of one.
The position is no different at Provincial level. There are in reality few opportunities to vote on anything of consequence or for propositions to be put from the bottom upwards rather than from the top down.
Typically in a Lodge once a year the positions of Master Elect, Treasurer and Tyler will be put for election by the Ordinary Members. The first of these is usually by "Buggins Turn" , that year's SW becomes the Master Elect then is Installed as WM and this is very seldom contested although any PM (or Brother who has served as a Warden for a year), who is a member of that Lodge can put his name forward but I have not seen this done in over 16 years of membership, although occasionally the SW can't or doesn't wish to be WM and the JW or a PM does it. The other two "Elective" Offices of Treasurer and Tyler are so difficult to fill in many Lodges that nobody else wishes to do those jobs and the incumbents continue for many years unchallenged.
In essence the idea of "votes" and "elections" in the true sense of those words is alien to UGLE Lodges and most Notices of Motion are formalities with little if any debate or discussion, then passed by show of hands.
So if the likes of myself wanted to change for example the Rules regarding Overseas Visiting,- Forget it! I suppose I could lobby some Grand Officers or even write to the Grand Secretary but I doubt that this would achieve any more than a polite refusal to take the matter further.
If any UGLE Brother knows of how an Ordinary Member can, "prefer his suit" to Grand Lodge or Province on some matter of importance regarding policy or practice I'd like to know.
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Post by a on Mar 29, 2005 9:45:01 GMT
If any UGLE Brother knows of how an Ordinary Member can, "prefer his suit" to Grand Lodge or Province on some matter of importance regarding policy or practice I'd like to know. Well from a non UGLE member, why not just write to the Grand Secretary and get everyone who shares you view to do also. If the Grand Secretary only gets the "party line" passed back upwards how is he to know what the typical Mason thinks and wants. And in these times of RGLE, increasing interest in comasonry, more French lodges in England, York right etc etc, perhaps the Grand Secretary is genuinely interested in what can be done to make things better for members? I mean Taylorsman you have said yourself that typically when the GS/GM gets PGMs to ask for views opinions and suggestions, people pass the peas not wanting to stand out and say what they feel, so nothing is achieved. Now think about the recent document that was discussed elsewhere about how to turn a Lodge around in London. Forward thinking, radical, and sensible, all from the top.
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Post by taylorsman on Mar 29, 2005 10:15:25 GMT
Two cheers for the Province of Surrey! They sent out a questionaire to Members last year and good number were filled out and returned. However, will anything be done to address the issues raised or will it be like many of these "Consultation Exercises" for example by Local Councils, Employers, etc, no more than asking and being seen to ask, but with the results filed in a drawer somewhere and marked "NFA". I await with interest.
The questionaire at least has the shield of anonimity. The seminar I attended was the exact opposite with the then PGM and Chain Gang at the end of the room and the participants who had been required to attend seated like schoolboys before the Headmaster and other Teachers. The majority of the responses were deferential to say the least, rather like when an Officer asks the Other Ranks if the food is satisfactory as a No answer is likely to go badly for the soldier who gives it. If there was a proper mechanism for the man in the Pale Blue Apron to give his views then such seminars would not be necessary and all could make their opinions known or vote when this was required without fear or favour.
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Post by a on Mar 29, 2005 10:24:34 GMT
Taylorsman
It may not be a proper mechanism, but get all of your brothers to write to me with their woes and I will collate it and send it, no I will hand deliver it, to GQS.
Sometimes they do actually respond to me, not as often as I would like, but sometimes is better than never.
Mind you I do feel a little sorry for the UGLE powers that be for there is me, been writing to them for years, sometimes asking for help, sometimes almost begging them to make changes for the better, and sometimes opening my heart to them.
Clearly though for the powers that be to go to the trouble of surveys and meetings, they must want to at least get a snapshot of opinion.
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Post by taylorsman on Mar 29, 2005 10:51:48 GMT
Good Luck Stewart! Now did I see a windmill in GQS for you to tilt at?
Seriously, I often feel that UGLE is a bit like the Vatican or perhaps an Absolute Monarchy. If there is no formal way for the ordinary member to initiate discussion, change etc, then he is impotent and things will go on as they always have. The working class in Britain were unable to make themselves felt in the corridors of power until they were given the vote and had at least for 100 years the Labour Party starting with Keir Hardie and ending wth the tragic death of John Smith.
You could well write to the Grand Secretary either on your own behalf which I am sure you do already, or on behalf of others, but that may only acheive you a polite and courteous reply. I have met the Grand Secretary, a very charming and decent man, but he too is bound by the protocols of UGLE etc.
Let me refer to the recent changes in London with the set-up of The Metropolitan Grand Lodge and Chapter. There was a consultation process but many ordinary London Brethern were very cynical about it, considering the matter to be "a done deal" and that it really didn't matter what they said, it was bound to happen.
I found this a few years ago where I worked. Management wanted to make changes to the conditions and embarked on a Consultation Process. I was speaking to the then HR Manager and said, "Oh I suppose we will eventually come up with an acceptable compromise formula?" Quick as a flash he retorted "It's NOT a Negotiation Process, it's a Consultation!" In other words they wanted to hear what we felt but had already made their minds up.
The Scots seem to have a good system, perhaps Mr Mason or Ruff could give us a quick thumbnail as to how it works North of the Border.
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Post by a on Mar 29, 2005 11:27:13 GMT
Perhaps this would be better on its own thread?
I know that my perspective is different to yours, but I would be amazed if the powers that be were not at least interested in what the members think. Perhaps the UGLE approach is necessary given the nature of some of the people in their Craft lodges? Stewart ducks!
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Post by a on Mar 29, 2005 11:31:00 GMT
You could well write to the Grand Secretary either on your own behalf which I am sure you do already, or on behalf of others, but that may only acheive you a polite and courteous reply. I write to various people in UGLE, including the Grand Secretary. I either get no response at all, or a very helpful response.
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bod
Member
UGLE - MM (London), MMM RAM(Middx), OSM (London)
Posts: 1,296
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Post by bod on Apr 4, 2005 11:01:09 GMT
The 'official' way has been spelled out ad nauseum.
What worked for me was making contact via e-mail with a brother in Chicago, a contact kindly provided by bro joe from elsewhere. The chap in the US said he was happy for me to be his guest, I then spoke to my lodge sec, who spoke to the G Sec's dept to make sure it was all 'cool' in terms of amity, etc. I then attended their meeting when I was in the US - bizarrely enough it turned out that the brother who was my host worked for a division of the same comapny I do - small world, eh?
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Post by mrmason on Apr 4, 2005 16:29:39 GMT
Steve, As I have not looked at a lot of posts recently what would you wish me to clarify regarding our system.
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Post by taylorsman on Apr 4, 2005 17:33:24 GMT
Primarily I meant the Democratic nature of Craft Freemasonry in Scotland. Would you confirm and expand upon the Grand Master Mason and the PGMs being ELECTED by Ordinary Master Masons and not appointed from on high as here under UGLE, that they have a fixed term of office and that if one is a Provincial Officer it is a WORKING Office and not an Honorific. Also that Scots lodges are left to their own devices as regards what Ritual or adaptation of Ritual they use, what Charities they contribute to and that PGMs when they visit a Scots Lodge DEMAND nothing but request entry like anyone else as the RWM is in Charge of His Lodge.
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