Following on from the summer break, Elizabethan Lodge returned to Masonic business last night with our annual October Installation meeting.⁣
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Always a big occasion as someone new takes over the position of Worshipful Master for a year, this meeting was also our first since the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, after whom we are named – the Lodge’s Consecration, and the Queen’s Coronation, having both taken place in 1953. A minutes silence was held in acknowledgment of this.⁣
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The motto embroidered on our Lodge banner (‘Epocarus Doratum’ – roughly translating as ‘Golden Age’), is both an allusion to the prevailing spirit of optimism felt in 1953 as the new, young, Queen took the throne, as well as a reference to the similarly-vaunted tenure of her namesake and predecessor, Queen Elizabeth I. With five prospective joining members and two new initiates already lined up for the coming year, this sense of optimism for the future continues to pervade our Lodge, much as it did at our very first meetings almost 70 years ago.⁣
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Pictured here is a letter the Lodge received from Buckingham Palace around the time of the Diamond Jubilee a decade ago, conveying Her Majesty’s best wishes on our mutual anniversary. Coincidentally, the then-presiding Worshipful Master, W.Bro Paul Mallon, was himself once more installed into the Chair of King Solomon at last nights meeting.