Warmest congratulations to Kirkleatham Lodge No 6363 on reaching the magnificent milestone of PATRON status, the first Lodge in the Province to do so.
A certificate of recognition of Patron status was presented at a recent meeting of the Lodge.
Mark Tann, Kirkleatham Lodge Director of Cermonies, writes:
"The Kirkleatham lodge has been working hard to support Festival 2029 and all of the members are really pleased that we have managed to achieve Vice Patron and now more recently Patron status.
As a Festival Ambassador I introduced the members of the lodge to Festival 2029 at an early stage and gave a presentation to the lodge explaining what the Festival was about and how individual members can support it. I was pleased at the initial response, as within a few months, we had 5 members sign up for the Jewel and I proposed that the lodge donate the sum of £2,000 from our Charity Relief Chest in London, which was supported unanimously. This donation pushed our fundraising to Vice Patron status ( a year since the Festival was launched) back in May of this year.
A few of the members have been involved with the Masonic Walking group, donating £5 each on each walk, we have also donated the proceeds of raffles from our meetings and other giving at Provincial functions has all helped us to increase our giving for Festival 2029. After attaining Vice Patron status we had another push to encourage more members to sign up for the jewel leading into the summer recess and so help us get to Patron status, which I am pleased to say we achieved in September this year, having a further 4 members signing up. We now have 9 members, (half of the membership) who have signed up for the Jewel, which accounts for almost all of the active officers in the lodge. As we still have three and a half years to go, Kirkleatham Lodge is now looking at how we can get further member support for the Festival and hopefully get to Grand Patron status by the end of the five year Festival period. The Kirkleatham lodge is one of the smaller lodges in the Province, having only 18 members at present, but I am pleased to say that they have seriously got behind Festival 2029 and it is the newer younger members who have been driving this forward, which is great to see. If this level of commitment continues I am pleased to say that it bodes well for the future of not only Festival 2029, but our lodge as well."