My Year In The Grand West

Receiving an invite from RWBro Maher Eid, I attended a Past Master's night at Scarboro Lodge on Monday - the first I had ever attended - which was held at Chisholm Temple, aka the East Toronto Masonic Temple, sadly now sold and many lodges have found new accommodations. It was a meeting very well attended, in addition to our DDGM, RWBro Gil Carreiro, with many Board members present, as well as quite a few Past Grand Senior Wardens, including RWBro Andrew McLelland, RWBro Terry Van Horne, RWBro Dale Graham, MWBro Ron Groshaw and RWBro Maher Eid, who sat in the East as the WM for the 2nd degree team. MWBro. Donald A. Campbell was Master of Scarboro Lodge in 1987, prior to being elected and installed and invested as the Grand Master in 2013. Currently WBro David McDonnell is the Master of the Lodge.

Birch Cliff Lodge and The Beaches Lodge (my Mother Lodge) have enjoyed a long history together - from the early days of "East Toronto" - having once shared the same temple on Balsam at Queen in which they met for over five decades, before each moved to the new temple in Scarborough in the early 1960s. On Friday evening, Birch Cliff No 612 members proudly held a reception for RWBro Peter Sialtsis, who since the forming of their lodge is their first from among them to be elected to the Board of General Purposes at Grand Lodge. Peter is a truly wonderful Mason - and sets a great example for our young Masons - and who sits on Grand Lodge committees providing his expertise in the realm of law, and is also a very active and knowledgeable member of many concordant bodies, and known throughout our Jurisdiction for his superlative ritual work. His parents attended the reception, as did many other friends and family members, not to mention Masons who have known Peter and his contri...

On October 22, I sat in the West and helped the Senior Wardens of Ontario District pass a candidate to the second degree - a first for me as Grand Senior Warden. It was a truly wonderful evening to sit in the Oshawa Temple, amidst so much history, given the building's association and origins with VWBro Colonel Sam McLaughlin. I also had the pleasure of meeting two brothers - RWBro Grant Parnell (the DDGM) and Bro Beau Reine - who each worked with and know my brother while at OPG nearby... see the Picture. McLaughlin, fyi, was born on September 8th, 1871 in the hamlet of Enniskillen, Ontario. At the age of 16 he began working for his father's company, the McLaughlin Carriage Works, which his father started in 1867. At one point in time, the McLaughlin Carriage Works was the largest manufacturer of horse drawn carriages in the British Empire, according to MasonryToday.com; McLaughlin was a member of Cedar Lodge No. 270. In 1907, McLaughlin, with the help of William Durant o...

Last Saturday, after first meeting WBro Frank Grant in the morning at his residence - a member of the Craft who is 102 years old, and who served in the Merchant Marines in WW2, and who received his 60 Year Service Pin - we travelled into the Ottawa Valley to visit Renfrew Lodge No 122. On this occasion the lodge was honouring three of its members with their Long Service Awards and 50 Year pins: RWBro Jack Ledger, WBro Donald Brydges and Bro Harold Daber were each properly presented and congratulated by the lodge and then greeted personally by the Grand Master, as well as the Grand Junior Warden, Grand Registrar and me. The lodge opened and then closed upon greeting their visitors, and then admitted guests, including many family members and friends, who were not only quite happy to sit inside a lodge room, but also to offer such very appropriate and generous remarks. At the Festive Board, afterwards, I was able to provide the response to the traditional Toast to The Visitors. It wa...

After a lovely drive across highways through sunny weather, my wife and I arrived at the Holiday Inn in Kanata in the late afternoon, and soon thereafter departed along with the GJW and his wife to Bytown Lodge No 721 in Westboro. Along with the Grand Master, we were to participate, sitting in our respective chairs, in a Rededication and Recommitment ceremony, as the lodge was celebrating its 50th anniversary. Bytown Lodge, a proud Cornerstone lodge, is very active in Ottawa District 2, and after the ceremony they'd also planned a very special 6-course dinner. It was sold out. Bytown Lodge was formed in the late 60s primarily by former servicemen retiring from the Armed Forces, led by WBro Joe Johnston and RWBro Jim Heffel, with the help of Acacia Lodge who sponsored their application at Grand Lodge, and was constituted in October 11, 1969. A year later, in 1970, the Ottawa District, having grown to 30 lodges, soon was split into two: Ottawa 1 and Ottawa 2, as it remains today.

After a rather hectic day, filled with surprises, I ended up in the East - coming in before the DDGM, per protocol at an Official Visit, for the first time - at Doric Lodge on Thursday. The Beaches Lodge won the Travelling Gavel, and that was a long time coming. The day had started with a meeting in the morning downtown with a group of researchers who require a business plan for their AI app in the Healthcare industry, and leaving there, 90 minutes later, I went to visit an old colleague to discuss some of his opportunities peeping up over the horizon, and from there I walked up the road on a now-blustery fall day to see my doctor. A few days prior, during Thanksgiving, I was felled by a great pain, an abdominal cramping in the stomach, which rotated to a pain in my lower back, and returning to my front - for several days - and on Holiday Monday, I told family members I would see a doctor to ascertain the cause. So, on Tuesday I duly called the doctor's office only to find out h...

Last night I visited my illustrious brethren of the Toronto Valley in order to relax and watch the 4th Degree - the Secret Master - and to say hello to friends from other districts as well. At the conclusion is a reading from Albert Pike, who wrote: "Of the Freemasonry of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the true definition is this: 'An advance toward the Light; a constant endeavour, in all its degrees, to exalt the Divine that is in man, in his reason and moral sense, and to make it dominant over the human, earthly and material in his nature, his passions and his sensual appetites.' " The 4th is the first of the degrees in the Lodge of Perfection and, according to their website, these degrees, the 4th through 14th, are called Ineffable Degrees because their principal purpose is the investigation and contemplation of the ineffable name of Deity.