Grand Master’s Commendations
Three members of the Craft Province of Oxfordshire have been honoured by the Most Worshipful The Grand Master for their outstanding volunteering during this Covid-19 pandemic. All of us in the province are united in saluting them and all the others who selflessly giveof their time to help others.
Steve Sahonta
As featured in September’s edition of The Second Rising, Steve (Cherwell Lodge No. 599) has been involved in a very wide range of volunteering activities.
You can read more about his ongoing volunteering here: http://www.porchway.uk/Oxfordshire/september-2020-edition/feature-article/
Alex Goodey
During the 1st lockdown in Spring/Summer 2020, Alex (Theodore Lodge No. 8943) volunteered for the Salute the NHS project based at Bicester Heritage. The project’s aim was to deliver 1 million meals to NHS frontline staff in 3 months.
Alex started volunteering in early April, and made the box for the 1 millionth meal on 6th July. During the project, he worked on average 4 shifts a week, and produced many badges for the volunteers to wear.
In the last week, he and his wife produced 500 commemorative badges which were available to volunteers for a small donation; we managed to raise nearly £1,500 for Oxfordshire MIND.
Mike Craft
Mike is the WM of Icknield Way Lodge No. 8292 in Oxfordshire and also the HR Director for the West London Masonic Centre (WLMC) in Ealing in West London. At the beginning of the lockdown a year ago, in March 2020, hr and the two other directors of the WLMC wanted to do something to help local people. They therefore contacted a number of local charities to see what we could do to help elderly, vulnerable and disabled people in the West London area.
They were met with a very enthusiastic response and so thye employed a new chef (who happened to be an out-of-work Fellowcraft) and began producing cooked meals for the local community, assisting the charities to deliver them to where they were needed most. To date, they have cooked and delivered over 15,000 meals, as well as nearly 400 Christmas hampers and are continuing to do so.
Mike and his team also collected thousands of toys for children which were distributed to disadvantaged families, children’s homes and hospitals. In doing all of this, Mike and the others involved have significantly raised the awareness of Freemasonry, what we stand for and what we can do to help in our local area. They also made a short YouTube video of our food production and delivery which can be seen here:
London Masons West London Masonic Centre meal delivery – YouTube
The photo shows Mike on the right with WLMC Chairman (Bob Hancock) on the left, celebrating production of our 10,000th meal back in August 2020.