By Jed Lanyon
The Healesville Freemasons Lodge is set to celebrate their 100 year anniversary on 12 April.
The lodge formed in 1919 and was based in Healesville until 2003, when they moved their meetings to the Lilydale Masonic Lodge on Anderson Street.
One member, Kade Smith said that they are in the midst of planning social events with members from other regional lodges to celebrate the occasion.
Mr Smith said that the Healesville lodge is one of the oldest in the region.
“The oldest would be in Lilydale. Lilydale was what they would call the mother lodge of Yarra Glen and Healesville,” he said.
“So the Healesville lodge was the breakaway lodge from Lilydale and then the Yarra Glen lodge was the breakaway from Healesville… It’s absolutely one of the oldest in the region.
“We’re a community of men and we foster an environment where men can improve themselves,” Mr Smith said.
“Freemasonry really teaches you, almost like a moral compass for people to conduct themselves within the world as being compassionate tolerant and benevolent men.”
Mr Smith said that the Freemasons contributions to the community range from an individual level of helping elderly people by mowing their lawns to charitable donations, one of which is awarding annual scholarships of $200 to students of Healesville High School.
“We’re looking at supporting the community in any way we can,” he said.
The lodge recently received a $5000 grant from Freemasons Victoria and they are looking for a worthy charity to put it towards in their year of celebrations.
Mr Smith detailed some of the challenges the Healesville Freemasons Lodge has experienced over the years.
“As with everything these days and especially clubs in general, our membership is aging dramatically,” he said.
“So membership is probably our biggest challenge at the moment. Finding people and encouraging them to reach out.
“We’re doing a lot of things in the community to try and raise our profile. We haven’t been great at doing that in the past.”
Mr Smith explained that one of the common misconceptions about Freemasonry is that it is invitation only.
“There’s a bit of misinformation about Freemasonry, which doesn’t help. And I think that’s purely because we’ve been seen as a closed door society in the past.
“It’s not really a secret society; I consider it to be a private environment,” Mr Smith said.
“Mainly because what we do in here is solemn, it’s an environment of support. So we really hold that sacred.”
Mr Smith explained how Freemasonry had changed over the years. In the past, the meeting room of a lodge was strictly a place for initiated Freemasons.
“These days we’re much more relaxed and willing to open the doors to anybody.
“Freemasons Victoria really has an open opinion of welcoming people in and showing them what we’re doing and explaining what we do,” Mr Smith said.
The Healesville Freemason Lodge is always looking for new members, and invites those who are interested in joining to visit: www.healesvillelodge.com or contact: healesville247@outlook.com
