Meetings
As you can imagine it gets very hot down here. "Assist me to open the Lodge", is something you might expect to hear from the WM, particularly as we all sit here in Dinner Suits and Gloves, regardless of the temperature, but not once has the Master ever said we might remove our gloves despite it being over 40 degrees all day and the old Air Con struggles to work its magic. On the flip side the gloves come in very handy, when during the winter months we can hit 3 degrees!
We have 12 meetings every year, and Freemasonry does not reflect the laid back attitude we normally associate with Australians. The meetings are carried out with a lot of solemnity, and few laughs, even at Lodge of Instruction, takes me back to the old days at Woodgrange Drive. All Degrees are carried out with the same ritual, with no room for deviation allowed.
One other difference is that Lodges here do not carry out their own Installations. A team from Grand Lodge will visit each Lodge, doing it for them. Now, considering that Victoria is around 88, 000 Sq miles, and the UK is around 93,600 Sq miles, that's no mean feat. The teams perform near perfect ceremonies, as it is possible to get, however, seeing it performed the same each year without the usual deviations from the book (St Philip Ritual), can be a bit tiresome.
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