Installation meetings are always a calendar highlight in every lodge – never more so than when the Master Elect is undertaking the role for the first time – and so it was this Tuesday night as Elizabethan Lodge placed Worshipful Brother Mick Fitch into the Chair of King Solomon.
Bro. Fitch was initiated into Freemasonry, and Elizabethan Lodge, in April 2011, and has since passed through the various lodge offices with distinction to arrive, in 2019, at his first tenure as our Worshipful Master, in which capacity he will be ably supported by an extremely distinguished and experienced Past Master in the form of W. Bro Blanchard, as well as the rest of the Brethren of Elizabethan Lodge. As well as his lodge, Mick also served our country for 24 years as a Grenadier Guard – one of the oldest and most iconic regiments in the British Army – serving all over the world both in peacetime and operational deployments. We are naturally proud to have him among our number.
As always, the Installation of a new Master also heralded a wider changing of the guard, with many existing lodge officers continuing their progressive journey through to the chair while others took their first steps on the ladder. The ability and dedication of those invested promises a high standard of working throughout the coming Masonic year.
At the festive board, W. Bro. Fitch led and received toasts from the assembled Brethren, chief among whom the visiting W. Bro Barry McCormack, APGM, who congratulated Mick and his officers on a fine ceremony, while noting that Elizabethan’s future looks very bright, with plenty of ‘light blue’ coming through the ranks. Perhaps the highlight of the Board for many was an emotional and flawless rendition of ‘The Master’s Song’, delivered inimitably by our own W.Bro Ian Cox, to the newly-installed Master, putting a fine cap on an evening he and the rest of us will surely never forget.
All in all, the coming year looks set to be a fruitful and fun-filled one for our lodge, with ceremonies and candidates across the Craft degrees lined up between now and March. We hope to welcome many visiting Brethren to our meetings, and would be delighted to hear from anyone interested in joining us and experiencing for themselves what Elizabethan is all about!
