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Latest News and Blog Posts from Wayne “Pendragon” Owens.
BBW – The End of an Era
Four score and seven years ago, or at least a long time ago (I forget the exact dates, since it was so long ago but I am thinking 2018), Blood Bikes Wales (NE) moved home to the Maesgwyn Hall Masonic Hall. We had a container setup as storage for our bikes and miscellaneous items.
It has been a great home for Blood Bikes, we even held our monthly meetings there before Covid changed the world. But all good things must come to an end, and the container has gone.
We bought a bigger container for us to use, and set it up at a new location. We have moved all our stuff, and the old container has been moved and re-purposed. We have no more links with the Maesgwyn, and a new era has begun.
It looks empty now.
Blood Bikes Wales
Blood Bikes Wales is a charity that transports blood, plasma, platelets, samples, vaccines, donor breast-milk & any other urgently required medical items to hospitals at night, weekends and bank holidays. This service is provided completely free of charge, allowing the NHS to divert funds where they are needed most.
Our riders are a hardy bunch that operate in all but the very worst weather.
Starting the Weekend with FREE BEER
It is Friday afternoon, and the weekend is almost close enough to touch. If we are honest, and if we can not be honest on the Internet where can we be honest?
This weekend is turning up in style!
I just had a delivery, that I was not expecting. Upon opening the box I found 8 cans of random beer from around the world, 2 snacks, and a magazine.
I hope everyone else’s weekend is kicking off as good as mine is!
Celebrating 90 years with Male Voice Choirs and, Paper Aeroplanes
This was a first for me. This evening I attended a 90th Birthday Party for a Masonic friend. He had invited his family, Friends, and even a table of S.R.I.A. people.
It was a very enjoyable evening, that kicked off with a concert by the Chester Male Voice Choir, who sang normal choir songs, along with songs from musicals, and even the Beatles!.
Afterwards there was a great buffet, drinks, and a paper aeroplane competition, which was the best activity for a party ever! You had people drinking, which led to the air being full of all kinds of aeroplanes flying in all directions, making any movement a fun exercise.
I suggest everyone place a load of paper and pencils on every table at all future parties.
BBW – Llandyrnog Women’s Institute
This evening Hugh, Nev, Clive, and myself all popped along to Llandyrnog for the Women’s Institute meeting.
Blood Bikes Wales
Blood Bikes Wales is a charity that transports blood, plasma, platelets, samples, vaccines, donor breast-milk & any other urgently required medical items to hospitals at night, weekends and bank holidays. This service is provided completely free of charge, allowing the NHS to divert funds where they are needed most.
Our riders are a hardy bunch that operate in all but the very worst weather.
NWAMS Book Launch – The Rise of Freemasonry in North Wales
I have been a Freemason in the Province of North Wales for a couple of decades and have been a member of the North Wales Association for Masonic Study (NWAMS) for quite a while. It has taken me well over a decade to discover that the Association had previously released a few small booklets over the years. It has taken even longer to try and start to track down copies of those books, and I am not even 100% sure I have managed to track them all down.
Due to the lack of knowledge about these interesting and historical books among the Brethren of North Wales, along with the North Wales Association for Masonic Study celebrating its 60th anniversary, not to mention the Province of North Wales being just a few years away from celebrating its 300th anniversary. I decided it would be a good idea to ask for permission to update, modernise, and republish those old books to prevent them from being lost to time, and to enable them to be available for the use of future Masonic researchers.
Thankfully I was granted permission.
The first book in the series contains the booklet “The Background to the Rise of Freemasonry in North Wales in the 18th and 19th Centuries” by Harold Senogles, which was first published in 1972. This booklet itself builds off the Bicentenary Souvenir of The Province of North Wales 1727 – 1927 which was produced by R. H. Gough Smallwoood for the 200th anniversary of the Province of North Wales.
I hope this book will be a valuable resource for anyone wishing to research the Freemasonry in North Wales.
Enjoy your daily advancement in Masonic Knowledge with this look back into the history of the Province of North Wales.
BBW – Trefoil Guild Cymru AGM
This morning Hugh, Nev, myself all popped along to Connah’s Quay for the Trefoil Guild Wales’ Annual gathering.
We had been booked to be the speakers for the event, so we turned up early to make sure we were there. We dropped off our stuff then went for a walk to visit a community coffee shop that a friend does stuff with, but alas it was closed (We did talk to one of the main organisers, and may be doing something for them in the future).
So dejected and coffee less we went back to the hall, where we discovered that when you have 150+ ladies in a room, then it is not long before someone sorts you out with coffee, and sandwiches, biscuits, and CAKE!
So after the business of the afternoon was sorted, it was our tern to give a presentation on Blood Bikes Wales, to all those people, including several Mayors, Councillors, Lords, Ladies, and other dignitaries.
The Presentation went great, with the audience laughing in the right places, and asking sensible questions. They also stated that the money from the raffle, plus donations they collected on the way out would all be going to us. We will find out the total and collect it at the next meeting of the Clwyd group.
It was a good and productive day all around, and it was only right that we stopped off to audit the beer in the pub near Hugh as we dropped him off on the way back.
Blood Bikes Wales
Blood Bikes Wales is a charity that transports blood, plasma, platelets, samples, vaccines, donor breast-milk & any other urgently required medical items to hospitals at night, weekends and bank holidays. This service is provided completely free of charge, allowing the NHS to divert funds where they are needed most.
Our riders are a hardy bunch that operate in all but the very worst weather.
Customers get Stupider
Every so often I like to dip my toe into the world of IT Support, to remind myself how glad I am that I do not work in that field.
I recently checked the support departments ticketing system and spotted someone with email issues. I checked into the issue and found the following.
Company has two domains, one with us and one with someone else. Now one person at that company is trying to send emails from Domain 1 (Not with us) using Domain 2 (with us) domain servers. I let them know, and sat back happy to have done my good dead for the year.
Only the Company did not understand, so emailed back asking for more information, I explained again using smaller words. They still did not understand, so they got their IT company to contact us. (I get to play now). Now their IT person simply demanded that we reset everything how it used to be when it just worked.
I explained that nothing had changed our end, we do not support their email client setup, and again stated what the error was. This confused their IT person who then over 12 emails kept stating he understood but there was an email issue now that did not used to exist, so I needed to reset it back to how it used to be.
I looked up the IT guy, and he worked for an actual IT Company that advertises that they are experts in all fields of IT, and especially in cyber attacks, fighting off hackers, recovery from hacks, everything. So I tried again and used really small words. that the customer was sending emails from a domain we have nothing to do with through our servers which does not work. They need to send emails from the server associated with their domain. I then spent the next half hour laughing loudly when this super qualified IT expert responded.
“To clarify my customer does not have to use an email server as they using 365”
I had to explain to an IT expert that 365 setup on outlook still uses servers, Microsoft email servers. And if they send the emails with the Microsoft 365 servers, and not ours then the emails will work.
Do modern day IT experts get their knowledge and qualifications in the bottom of a cereal box, like we older ones got our Cap’n Crunch whistles?
Visiting the Ghost of Mold Lodge
Sometimes fate has a weird fit with the people under her influence. It is like she gets bored, and decided to roll the dice foe who she will play with to entertain herself.
Let my try and explain the strange set of circumstances that led me to take someone to visit to a Ghost.
Wrexhamian Lodge’s newest Master Mason has recently read the interesting book “Masonic Halls of North Wales” by Reverend Cryer, and has a list of Masonic Hall’s that he would love to visit. He happened to mention that Mold Hall was one of the ones he really wanted to see, so I promised to take him one day.
After reading that book, he had started working through the works of Robert Lomas, who according to the said Master Mason was sadly no longer with us, due to his untimely death. This came as a great shock to both me, and Robert when I commiserated with him over his death. Robert did wonder if that meant he no longer had to pay taxes, but we do not think the government would accept that as an excuse.
Now last week, Robert had invited me to visit Mold Lodge to see the third degree ceremony, of a candidate that I was there for his first. I of course agreed to attend, and then suggested that I bring Wrexhamian’s latest Master Mason along with me for 3 reasons.
- He can see a third.
- He can visit Mold hall and take it off his bucket list.
- He could meet the ghost of Robert Lomas.
I do sometimes wonder if I should consider therapy. Anyway it was a great evening all around, and a fitting way to celebrate the death of Dr Lomas, who is still complaining like GlaDOS that he is “Still alive”
BBW – Llandyrnog Village Coffee Morning
This morning Hugh, Nev, Clive and myself all popped along to the Llandyrnog Village Coffee Morning.
While there we drank coffee (Well it was in the name of the event), ate biscuits, and gave a presentation on Blood Bikes Wales to the people in attendance. We also answered loads of questions, and let people take photographs with the Blood Bikes.
I also won a cake in the raffle, which is the first time I have won any raffle in a very long time.
After dropping off the Bikes and equipment on the way home, we decided to stop off an have a pint, and chat about the event.
While there we decided to go visit a Rose Croix meeting, that we had never visited since a call for support came out via email while we were in the pub. So a good aday all around.
Blood Bikes Wales
Blood Bikes Wales is a charity that transports blood, plasma, platelets, samples, vaccines, donor breast-milk & any other urgently required medical items to hospitals at night, weekends and bank holidays. This service is provided completely free of charge, allowing the NHS to divert funds where they are needed most.
Our riders are a hardy bunch that operate in all but the very worst weather.
A Talk at Wrexhamian Chapter – The Missing Word on the Plate of Gold
This evening I attended Wrexhamian Royal Arch Chapter at the Maesgwyn Hall, to give a talk.
The Chapter had nothing planned for the evening, so Scribe Ezra contacted me a couple of weeks ago to ask if I could arrange something for the evening. I of course said yes, since we should all be getting a daily advancement in Masonic Knowledge. I asked if they had anything in particular that they would like a talk on, and I was informed it was my choice.
I considered multiple options for a topic, before discussing it with the Sunday Evening Beer club, and finally settling for “The Missing Word on the Plate of Gold”.
The talk was about what used to be on the plate of gold, and the meaning and symbolism behind it all, and when it changed to what we have today, and more importantly, why it had to change.
