This evening was my last Masonic Meeting of 2024!

Tonight was the turn of Wrexhamian Lodge’s December meeting, which is usually more of a social gathering than a meeting, and a chance for us all to escape families between Christmas and New Year. Depending on how many excited kids you had to deal with over the Christmas week, this escape is necessary.

Originally the Secretary of the Lodge had asked me to arrange someone to come give a talk, but I had to cancel that when I found out the DC was planning on just doing a Walking Charge in the 3rd Degree because he wanted to.

Due to this, we did not have enough people turn up on the night to be able to have a festive board after the meeting, and we had to have several guests come to fill in for officers so we could open. And most people were doing multiple jobs. Only the DC, ADC, WM, JW, and SD were the actual officers.

So we opened and closed in the 3 degrees, did the 3 tools, and the walking charge. And it was the first time some had done the opening and closings, some visitors had to step in, so with no rehearsals it was a bit of a mess. Which was made worse by the DC team just sitting there and not prompting, or knowing what was going on. On the positive side, several of us were sat drinking in the pub less than an hour after the opening.

All in all it was a very poor way to end the year. Lets hope 2025 will be better.

And this year I managed to just have TWO Christmas dinners, one masonic and one family. I think it is the lowest number I have had in many years.