Shortly after our next meeting two of our members will receive honours at the annual meeting of Provincial Grand Lodge. W Bro D. C.  Allen will receive an active first appointment of Provincial Grand Pursuivant, and W Bro D. A. Burden a promotion to Past Provincial Senior Grand Deacon. Congratulations to them both.

We hope you all have an enjoyable year ahead.

However the sheer number and quality of the prizes we had to offer, together with our persuasive skills, meant that we were able tempt the customers to buy our tickets to such good effect! We would not have been able to do this without the donations of bottles from lodge members.

Tuesday 8th June saw our Installation. It is the second time Bro W. C. Hurley PPAGSuptWks (Middlesex) has been in the Chair of Ashley Hill Lodge No. 7861.

The evening was well attended, including the Assistant Provincial Grand Master of Berkshire, W Bro John W Nixon, PSGD.

A first for Ashley Hill, a photograph was taken after the Installation of our new WM, and lodge members. Our new WM, W Bro Hurley, is pictured on the right and we all wish W Bro Hurley a great year ahead. You can see a larger picture by clicking the image.

Our list of Officers has been updated, which can be accessed through the menu above.

Ashley Hill meets again in September, the start of our new Masonic year, where we will be Initiating a new member.

The meeting will take place at the Berkshire Masonic Centre, Sindlesham, at 5pm on Tuesday 8th June. Masons wishing to attend should get in touch with our Secretary.

Wednesday 16th December saw our last Class of Instruction before Christmas, where we did a First Degree.

The next Class of Instruction is Wednesday 6th Janauary 2010, with the next full meeting being Tuesday 2nd February for a Second Degree.

Until then, from the brethren of Ashley Hill, we wish you a warm and merry Christmas.

As in previous years, this evening is open to family and friends of members, both Masonic and non-Masonic. An email containing full details have been sent to members. Those wishing to attend should contact the COI Secretary, W Bro Lashmar.

Freemasonry inevitably appears rather complicated and esoteric to the new mason and he is immersed, from his first experiences, in unfamiliar terms and actions which mean very little without explanation.

To remedy this deficiency – not on the part of the innocent Initiate, but in the organisation he has joined – a movement started in the earlier part of this decade which is termed Mentoring. The concept, simply put, is to ‘inform’, by an orderly progression, aspects of Freemasonry which might defeat the most intellectual or enquiring of minds – unless guided. Too many masons were feeling isolated or neglected by this exclusion, but were given little advice for enlightenment.

Berkshire Province, under the leadership of our present Deputy Provincial Grand Master, VW Bro Martin Peters, was an earlier player in the field, and held instructional classes for every lodge’s newly- appointed Mentor, under whose guidance programmes have been developed in each Lodge.

In Ashley Hill, the undertaking of this task was put in the hands of W Bro John Harper, who had long held the view that more had to be done to assist the new mason in his baptism of fire, which included much which was incomprehensible not only to Initiates but, indeed, Fellowcrafts and Master Masons. Personal Mentors were appointed for each new mason, to put sense into the masonic ‘fog’.
Supplementary lodge booklets have been developed and it is believed that, in partnership with each Initiate’s proposer, real progress has been made in making the principles and practices of Freemasonry more immediately clear.

The feedback clearly indicates that the policies have been successful.

W Bro John Harper