July 2008

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RW DGM' s MESSAGE FOR JULY 2008

HERITAGE BUILDINGS

There has been a lot of comment in our press about the lack of a considered approach to the maintenance and renovation of Heritage Buildings. Some are brought down to be replaced by supposedly more functional edifices, which does not really pardon the erasure of one or more of our priceless inheritances.

Generally speaking, we are very energetic and enthusiastic builders, but very very low on the totem pole in regard to our attitude to maintenance of buildings of whatever kind or construction. Maintenance is mostly done on a ‘Crisis’ basis when there’s no other go than to do something, anything, to avoid the collapse of an edifice. Preventive or planned maintenance is never attempted with the obvious consequence of crises being unavoidable.

In our own parish, as it were, we have more than 10 buildings to maintain, almost all of them, more than 50 years old, some even more than a hundred. All of them call for repairs, and funds need to be found which are not always readily available to the individual Lodges that own them.

It was with the intention of finding funds for maintenance of such Temples that some years ago, we set up a Masonic Heritage Buildings Fund Trust at the District Headquarters but until now we have not been able really to build up its treasury. We are now beginning to address this problem by first suggesting that all fresh donations to the Masonic Charities be now, until further notice, drawn in favour of our Heritage Buildings fund. The fund will then provide matching grants to sums raised by individual Lodges for the required maintenance of their Temples / Buildings.

Likewise, over the next few years, the Freemasons’ Hall also needs a lot of attention, repairs and renovation, besides normal maintenance routines – all of which will need funds. Therefore, we shall concentrate our revenues in this area, to the benefit of all our buildings while using already accrued funds in our other Charities for the traditional distribution of aid to the indigent mason and public needs. Thereby, none of our overall charity goals need suffer by this re-orientation of our collections, to ensure that our valuable heritage properties, which we inherited through the generosity of our predecessors, are all well protected.