Having a Lodge number of 27 immediately denotes that the Porchester Lodge of Mark Master Masons has been around for a very long time. You would therefore think, that over those many years, the Lodge membership would have experienced most of the hurdles that life likes to present to us but that is not the case. We can confirm, due to the Covid-19 virus, that on Wednesday 21st of October 2020 Porchester added another major achievement to it’s history, the very first Virtual Business Meeting.
This was quite an achievement when you consider the general techno inexperience of the Lodge and indeed there were several Virtual Virgins present!
As with every Masonic meeting, there were those who confirmed they would definitely be there, who of course were not, there were some a little late, and one very late. But that one individual should not feel so bad as we have one member (Past Master no less) who actually tried to sign in 24hrs late.
There were a total of 20 present at the meeting including our PGM and four other Provincial Grand Officers who took time to join us, and the Lodge would very much like to express sincere thanks to them for attending and supporting us on this occasion.
The principle reason for calling this VBM, in place of our regular October meeting, was because of the sudden and very sad loss of our long serving Secretary W. Bro. Roger McGuire. Like many Lodges, Roger as Secretary, was the main link in the whole functionality of the Lodge we were caught completely unprepared for such an instance. It is pleasing to report though, that members of the Lodge have proved very positive and we move forward to next year with, to quote our PGM, ‘our ducks in a row’ and we know that is exactly as Roger would have expected.
The whole meeting was a success, and it was good see the members of the Lodge some of whom would not have seen each other since our Installation meeting in March, just over a week before lockdown. It was so well received that we propose our November meeting to be virtual as well.
The setting up of your first Virtual Business Meeting takes some planning, and at this point our thanks to the Prov. Grand Secretary for all his help, but we would say to any Lodge who might be a little hesitant on going ‘virtual’, don’t be. Do it.
