Rochdale Freemasons give over £80,000 to local charities

Presentation to Hospice

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Charities to have benefitted from the fundraising efforts of Rochdale Freemasons gave presentations of their work at the Masonic Hall last week.

The Freemasons of the Rochdale District has raised over £80,000 for various charities over the last three years and their Charity Giving Evening - which was also attended by the Mayor and Mayoress - allowed members to meet some of the recipients.

Collections are made at the monthly meetings of the 19 Masonic Lodges in the district, and fundraising events are organised throughout the year.

A total of 48 different charities have benefitted from these donations, and ten of these gave individual presentations on how the money has helped them.

District Charity Steward Ken Davies MBE also attended the night with his wife Joan and said he was pleased with how the evening had gone.

“It went really well indeed,” he said.

“All ten charities gave excellent presentations, talking about the money and a full update on how they are getting on, which was much appreciated.

“It was an excellent night, and I have received some lovely feedback.

Over 100 people attended the event and among the charities represented were Springhill Hospice, Help for Heroes, Skylight Circus Arts, St Aidan’s Church, Rochdale Children's Moorland Home, Breast Cancer Campaign, NSPCC and the North West Air Ambulance.

Musical entertainment was provided by That’s all Folks, led by Cliff Woodworth of the Rochdale Music Service, and commemorative certificates were presented to all the charity representatives by the various Lodges.

Another £500 was raised on the evening for the Mayor’s Charity Appeal.

Membership of the Masonic Lodges in the Rochdale District totals more than 600, and as well as charity collections, social events such as charity concerts and coffee mornings are arranged to aid with fundraising.

Mr Davies said that while there is no set target for money raised, he believes that continuing to raise similar amounts of money is possible.

“It currently works out at around £25k per year and we can certainly match that,” he said.

“There is no target but it would be nice to achieve that for the charities.”