The Traveling Ashlar Weekly Trestleboard | Edition 0003 | Week of September 7, 2026 · A.L. 6026

Some Masonic meetings happen every month. This one happens every three years.

Royal Arch and Cryptic Masons from the United States and abroad gathered in Washington for the 73rd Triennial Convocation of the General Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons International and the 49th Triennial Assembly of the General Grand Council of Cryptic Masons International. The Capital Hilton served as headquarters for meetings, education, elections and several days of fellowship from Aug. 29 through Sept. 2.

The General Grand Chapter formally convened Aug. 31, followed by the General Grand Council on Sept. 1. Organizers deliberately placed the gathering within the larger setting of America's 250th anniversary year, encouraging visiting Companions to spend time at the National Mall, Smithsonian museums, Mount Vernon and other historic sites around Washington.

The scale can be easy to miss if Masonry is normally experienced through one local Lodge. The General Grand bodies bring together representatives of Capitular and Cryptic Masonry from jurisdictions spread across the country and around the world. Every few years, men accustomed to doing the work locally find themselves sitting in the same room deciding how that larger structure moves forward.

Washington was a fitting place for it. The city is already full of monuments, memorials, cornerstone stories and enough George Washington material to occupy a Masonic historian for a week.

Then several hundred Royal Arch and Cryptic Masons checked into the hotel.

The tourists probably never noticed.

Twenty-six years ago, an overgrown allotment in Southend was turned into a place where gardening could help people dealing with loneliness, isolation and mental-health difficulties.

This week, Freemasons put £60,000 behind what grew from it.

The Freemasons' Charity and Essex Freemasons have awarded the money to Trust Links, an organization that began around the former allotment in Westcliff and has since expanded to eight locations across Essex. Trust Links says it now works with more than 7,000 people, including approximately 1,500 children.

The new funding will expand Forest School programs for younger children at centers in Westcliff, Shoeburyness and Canvey Island. Staff have completed specialist training to use gardens, woodland and outdoor activity to build confidence, communication, physical ability and understanding of the natural environment. The organization also hopes to expand its work with young adults between 17 and 25.

The history of the project makes the donation particularly satisfying. A neglected allotment became a garden. The garden became a mental-health program. The program became a network of community spaces.

Now Masonic charity is helping another generation get its hands dirty there.

For a fraternity fond of agricultural metaphors, someone was eventually going to take cultivation literally.

Masonic buildings usually attract attention when they are very old, very ornate or in serious trouble.

The Masonic Centre in St. Martin's is doing something less dramatic.

It is being looked after.

Guernsey and Alderney Freemasons reported this week that Brothers from across the Province spent much of the summer improving the purpose-built Centre during its 30th year. Local businesses also contributed to work on the interior, grounds and facilities, while a new group representing Guernsey Lodges has been established to coordinate future maintenance.

Among the most visible additions is the Len Tostevin Memorial Garden, named for a member of Loyalty Lodge. Members of the Light Blues Club and Installed Masters helped landscape the area, which incorporates the Square and Compasses among roses and other planting. The building also received improvements to its kitchen and bar, new tables and secure bicycle storage.

The work was finished in time for the return of the Masonic season. Mariners Lodge No. 168, the oldest Lodge in the Province, brought more than 40 Brethren into the Centre for a Second Degree meeting this week.

Thirty years is young by the standards of some Masonic halls.

That is precisely why the story matters.

The buildings that eventually become historic usually spend several decades being maintained by people who never get their names on the cornerstone.

Henley-on-Thames has been associated with rowing for generations. Getting into a boat, however, is not equally simple for everyone.

Freemasons of Regattas Lodge have contributed £1,000 toward this year's Regatta for the Disabled through Love Rowing, part of a broader fundraising effort that has generated more than £12,000 through a dinner at Leander Club, other fundraising and matching support from Oxfordshire Freemasons.

The money will help support the Sept. 12 event, which brings adaptive rowing crews and other accessible boating activities to Henley. Organizers said support became especially important after an earlier deficit in grant funding. Love Rowing works more broadly to create rowing opportunities for disabled and disadvantaged participants.

There is an efficient division of labor in a project like this. The Lodge raises money. Love Rowing knows how to direct it. Coaches and organizers know how to put people safely onto the water.

Masonic charity does not always require inventing a new program.

Sometimes it requires helping the right one keep moving.

A recent car show organized by Collins-Spring Valley Lodge No. 192 raised $1,500.

Wisconsin Masonry turned it into twice that.

The Lodge presented $3,000 to United Fire & Rescue of Baldwin during its St. Johns Past Masters' and Awards Night. Half of the contribution came from proceeds of the Lodge's car show, while the other $1,500 came through the Wisconsin Masonic Foundation's Matching Funds Acts of Kindness program.

The matching system is one of the simpler ways a statewide Masonic organization can make a local Lodge more effective. Brothers raise money where they live, identify a need they already understand and then use foundation money to increase what they can put back into the same community.

No national campaign was required. No complicated charitable infrastructure had to be invented by the Lodge.

They held a car show.

The fire department got $3,000.

Sometimes the arithmetic is the story.

For members of Ancient Landmark Lodge No. 5 in Minnesota, visiting another Lodge this Labor Day weekend required something not usually found in a coat pocket beside a dues card.

A passport.

Members traveled north to Winnipeg to visit Ancient Landmark Lodge No. 3, continuing what the Minnesota Lodge describes as a longstanding visitation tradition between the two bodies. The trip runs from Friday through Monday, with spouses encouraged to attend and Ancient Landmark No. 5 providing each participating Brother a $300 stipend to offset travel costs.

The weekend is structured as much around fellowship as Lodge activity. Canadian hosts opened a hospitality room Friday, followed Saturday by breakfast at Winnipeg's Masonic Memorial Centre, an optional visit to the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada and an evening dinner that included a Table Lodge and Masonic Lantern Lecture. A Sunday barbecue was also planned at the home of a Winnipeg Mason.

There is something appealingly old-fashioned about the arrangement. The two Lodges do not merely follow one another online or exchange an occasional anniversary greeting. Brothers get into cars, cross an international border, eat together, bring their wives and spend a weekend learning how another Lodge does things.

Freemasonry talks a great deal about universality.

Every so often somebody has to drive north and prove it.