Today our CEO, ML MacDonald had the pleasure of presenting Citiplace Community Centre volunteer Maria with a Gopher.

Freemasons WA were alerted to the fantastic volunteer work Maria undertakes every week at the Citiplace Community Centre. Maria volunteers in both the reception and the podiatrist clinic, giving freely of her time to ensure that others can continue to benefit from the centres services. When Freemasons WA became aware of Maria’s need through M W Bro Frank Hayes, they were pleased to be able to donate to such a worthy member of the community. A gopher was purchased and presented on behalf of Freemasons WA so that she can continue her fantastic volunteer work.

Citiplace Community Centre provides subsidised services to seniors and people with disabilities in Perth as well as providing a meeting place and excellent meals for a modest fee. It is a wonderful hub of activity designed to support seniors nestled above the Perth train station. Freemasons WA is proud to support Maria and the great work that she does for the West Australian Seniors community.

On the 14th of April the Great Southern Weekender published an excellent article about the Albany Masonic Centre receiving a defibrillator from Grand Lodge and discussed the roll out of defibrillators for lodges throughout Western Australia.

Last month our Grand Master, Dr William Babe presented Dr Dale Edgar a representative for the Fiona Wood Foundation with a cheque for $20,000 from Freemasons WA. The monies form part of a continuing contribution to assisting with a pilot program for the new outpatient Burns Injury management System.

Featured in the Autumn Fiona Wood Foundations Impact Newsletter, the Fiona Wood Foundation expands on what this program aims to achieve.

On Thursday the 11th of February Grand Master Dr William Babe met with The Western Australian Farmers Federation (WAFarmers) President Dale Park to present him with a cheque for $20, 000 which would be distributed between farmers in the fire affected zones. These funds were raised by West Australian Freemasons in support of those affected by the Esperance Fires late last year and this year’s Waroona-Harvey fires.

Freemasons have a strong presence in the wheat belt and country Western Australia with many of the Bushfire affected communities being home to Lodge Buildings and active groups of Freemasons. During the unfortunate devastation of the town of Yarloop, the Freemasons Lodge building in the main street somehow managed to escape the fires intact. The homes and businesses of the community at large including at least one Freemason member were not so fortunate and as such Freemasons WA have rallied together to support all those affected by these tragic fires as well as the devastating fires that ravaged the Esperance Community.

WAFarmers have coordinated two very successful relief appeals to assist the farmers affected by the Esperance and Waroona-Harvey fires. The appeals called for donations of feed, hay and seed millet to assist farmers with the recovery effort, and recorded donations from agricultural businesses across the state as well as public donations and support from those closer to the fire zones.

In addition, WAFarmers urged the public to donate much-needed cash towards both appeals through direct deposit, cheque and through dedicated GoFundMe pages.
In light of the great work WAFarmers have done to support all those affected by the fires Freemasons WA felt it was appropriate to donate the $20, 000 we raised directly to WA Farmers who are best placed to allocate these funds to where they are most needed, with each appeal to receive $10,000.

WAFarmers President Dale Park stated that cash was the most important donation that people could receive immediately following the fires, as the funds would go towards the purchase of critical farming equipment such as fencing, feed and polypipe. He added that as the full extent of the damage continued to be assessed, the distribution of funds from the WAFarmers Fire Appeals would ensure farmers in the affected areas would receive swift assistance.

Those wishing to donate can find the GoFundMe page for the most recent fires in Waroona-Harvey online at https://www.gofundme.com/8gx38ezg

During the presentation the Grand Master Dr William Babe spoke to Mr Park about Freemasons WA plans to establish a free emergency contact line that Freemasons can use in times of crisis to contact Grand Lodge for immediate support for themselves and their community.
Freemasons WA thanks the WAFarmers Federation for all of their excellent work and is proud to work alongside them in supporting those affected by these tragic fires.

The photos from the 2015 Freemasons Children’s Christmas party are in! By all accounts the Christmas party held last month was as big a success as any before, even despite the unseasonable weather which meant that sunscreen was replaced with umbrellas. The weather didn’t stop the children from having a great time with games, a fantastic puppet show and even a visit from the head of the North Pole himself!

The Summer 2015 Fiona Wood Foundation Newsletter contained nothing but praise for the Freemasons WA Ladies Group. The group started by Beth Jancec, wife of the former Grand Master Steven Jancec took up the worthy cause of raising funds to support the Fiona Wood Research Foundation. The sum of the ladies most worthwhile efforts was presented to Fiona Wood in the form of a cheque for $52,500. This is an excellent result, well done to Beth and all of the ladies in the Freemasons WA Ladies Group!

The results are in for the combined Freemasons WA and MCWA total charitable contribution for the 2014-2015 financial year. We are very proud to say that we contributed over $1.4 million dollars in charitable activity to the West Australian community. The majority of this contribution was made through low cost social housing for seniors with additional support going to Individuals, community groups, student education grants as well as other charitable organisations. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their generous contributions and support without which these kind of results would not be possible!

Freemasons WA and Masonic Care WA proudly sponsored car no 30 in this year’s Variety WA Bush Bash for the kids. On the 8th of August, 25 cars set out from Port Denison to cover 2300kms to Dampier. The event spanned seven breathtaking days through outback Western Australia with all of the cars arriving safely in Dampier on August 15th. The variety bash itself was started by Dick Smith in 1985 when he arranged to travel through the NSW outback with some mates in old cars whilst also raising money for charity. The event has become an iconic fundraiser throughout Australia with all of the funds raised going to Australian children through Variety’s three programs Variety Caring for Kids, Variety Future Kids and Variety Freedom. Last year Freemasons WA and Masonic Care WA were lucky enough to be able to enter our own car in the Variety Bash from East to West and are very pleased to have had the opportunity to continue to support the event through the sponsorship of car 30 in this year’s bash. The teams are currently making their way back home and so the photos of this great event have begun to appear, here are a few shots from the journey taken by the talented Tony Tropiano.