By Stephen of Devotion
 My wife Sue gave a talk at Lodge Devotion on something that is very close to us both and that is the high country huts in Victoria. Being the very busy life that Sue lives I have quickly penned my perspective of her talk.
Sue has landed the (voluntary) job within the Huts Association within the Huts Association as the resident guest speaker and by my count her talk to Devotion was the fourth one in seven months.
I won’t attempt to duplicate her talk in this brief space but will just cover a few points that may be of particular interests to freemasons.
 · Of the dozen people on the Huts committee, three are freemasons to the best of my belief, including 2 of the 5 executive. · One of the 12 areas or regions included in the association is basically run by a Masonic group. · On the rebuild of Horsehair Hut completed in 2003, a mark was left signifying the contribution made by freemasons.
Another aspect that struck me was the number of connections and fond memories shared by members of Devotion and some of the high country huts. Sue’s talk was more of a discussion as there are members who were able to share their recollections of memories of the huts.
In many ways this does not surprise me as the two organisations share many values, such as a regard for the importance of heritage and tradition, the value of volunteer work and commitment 
Should any of our readers wish to organise a guest speaker on the huts please contact us via this web page and we will contact Sue
Also you may wish to visit the Association’s web page which provides lots of information about the huts and has an active forum which is useful for questions and discussions.
In another associated web pages...
The "Roughriders Hut"Starting with raw logs 3ft through, Lucus Sawmills arrived with two portable spot mills to cut the weatherboards and internal structural timbers. Starting at 6.30 am on the Saturday, they had all the timber cut by 10am. Volunteers then moved the timbers to the constructions site like marching ants. Photo at right - portable sawmill from Lucas gets a workout. The Northeast Freemasons Task Force arrived a day earlier and along with Peter and myself marked out the site and got things prepared for the weekend. The "Lucus Boys" arrived, but we were still awaiting the logs, which were obtained via the DSE and cut and transported by Gill Parker of ORC Logging Contractors Read more here http://www.vhcha.org.au/projects/rough-riders.html.
Wallace's hut birthday In 2002 extensive restoration work was carried out by The North East Freemason Taskforce under the guidance of DSE and the National Trust. |
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