The first Friday in December is the last Regular Meeting of St Mary’s Lodge in their Masonic year. They always invite an individual to present their Annual Lecture/Talk and this year were delighted to have Adam Lamb, the Provincial Archivist, accompanied by Tom Coulson. Adam presented a Talk on the Provincial Grand Masters of Durham.

The Talk was superbly delivered by Adam; it had wonderful content and was received very well by the 45+ brethren in attendance. All retired in plenty of time to enjoy the Christmas festive board with 45 dining, where a wonderful Christmas meal was provided by the caterer and served by the waitresses in attendance.

The night also included the Annual fraternal visit from the Lodge of Industry, their Mother Lodge, where nine of their brethren supported Dr. Tony Richardson, the Master. Tony replied to the visiting brethren’s toast later in the evening.

Joseph Kendall was elected as Master for the ensuing year with his Installation to take place on Friday the 3rd of February 2023 at 5.30pm. The next two months will see Joseph making his preparations for that special evening when he will also appoint his son, Michael Kendall, as Senior Warden and his good friend, Steven Connor, as Junior Warden. Anyone wishing to attend the Installation is most welcome and should contact the Lodge Secretary for more details about reserving a dining place; all are welcome.

Wonderful harmony was also enjoyed, performed by Richard Straughan. In his own very individual style Richard gave some reflections on life with reminiscences of times past and with memories of his father, the late Dick Straughan, a member of Ravensworth Lodge and a Music Hall Legend who provided many hours of harmony for Lodges in the 1980-90s. All agreed it was wonderful to have such good harmony once again.

The Annual Christmas Raffle where all the ‘bottles’ were donated by Lodge Members, raised £400 profit and this will be donated to Charity and presented to the Provincial Representative in February.

So a good night was had by all . . . but that was not the end of it.

Towards the end of the evening, Stephen Willis, accompanied by Alan Jenkins, who are members of the organising committee, presented the Lord Ravensworth Golf Trophy to the Winners of the 2022 event held at Chester-Le-Street Golf Club in July. Bill Baty, a Past Master, and Bryan Scott the visiting support Officer were successful in this and came in with an extremely high score of 49 Stableford points. Stephen relayed the events of the day to the brethren and asked Adam Lamb to make the presentation. As the Provincial Archivist and lead in the Provincial Museum at Provincial Grand Lodge in Sunderland, Adam Lamb had brought the original Ravensworth Trophy (a very valuable item) along and duly presented it to Bill and Bryan. It turned out to be a good day in July with St Mary’s Lodge winning the trophy and £1,000 raised from the event presented to the Masonic Fishing Charity.

St Mary’s Lodge in Gateshead have worked hard in recent years to maintain their membership and have introduced many new members over the past few years, and with membership around the 50 mark they are able to move forward positively using the guidance of the Members’ Pathway for their future development.

The photos show Bill Baty, Bryan Scott and Adam Lamb with the original Ravensworth Trophy and the more recent crystal bowl kept by the Lodge for a year.