Wyvern Lodge Ladies Festival

Wyvern Lodge Ladies Festival - Songs of innocence and of experience

Douglas Spencer

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Wyvern Lodge Ladies Festival	[May. 6th, 2007\|08:51 pm] Douglas Spencer
What's a "Ladies Festival", then? Well, the problem arises because we Freemasons (not Wee-Free masons, they're quite different) go out to our meetings several times a year, leaving our womenfolk at home. Once a year, to address this serious issue, we encourage them to dress up really nicely and take them out for a really wonderful evening involving fine food, good wine, nice music, constant politeness, ceaseless compliments and all that sort of thing... in the hopeless delusion that it'll mean they'll be okay with us going out with the lads all the time over the preceding/ensuing year. Each lodge hosts a Ladies Festival once a year, where the wife/girlfriend/partner of the Master of the Lodge for the current year is fêted most especially, but all the other ladies are treated very nicely too. On Saturday I collected flick and we went up to Freemason's Hall in Leicester for Wyvern Lodge Ladies Festival as guests of archaro, who'd also invited purple_peril to grace his arm, together with another couple of friends, Martin and Tanya WANOLJ. It was a jolly good evening, the ladies all looked stunning, and the gentlemen and bretheren were very pleased to have had the opportunity to spend some time in such delightful company. if you get the chance to go to a Masonic Ladies Festival, go for it.
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Comments:

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From:

dougs
2007-05-06 08:11 pm (UTC)

Not necessarily -- lots of gentlemen there weren't masons, including Martin from our little party.

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From:

watervole
2007-05-06 08:31 pm (UTC)

Sounds like an excellent evening.

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From:

lucas_t_bear
2007-05-06 09:41 pm (UTC)

I'll preface this by saying that my Dad's a mason and thanks to him I've got a lot of respect for freemasonry and the work it does.

HOWEVER - having now endured 2 ladies nights I can honestly say that one of my most annoying evenings was spent being patronised by a bunch of antediluvian masons. Short of patting me on the head I don't think they could have been more sexist.

Some lodges really need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century (I'm being merciful here - the culture shock of the 21st century would probably be too great for them)

Oh my - it's a long way down off this soapbox isn't it? Could one of you big strong men lend me a hand? ;-)

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From:

lucas_t_bear
2007-05-06 11:40 pm (UTC)

I warned my dad that the next time I have to go to one of his ladies evenings I'm wearing my double venus lapel pin just to see how many old farts spontaneously combust.

I haven't had to go to one since ;-)

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From:

dougs
2007-05-07 03:42 am (UTC)

Looks like you're an ideal candidate to go to a Ladies Festival, then.

I think I shocked some of the other people on our table when I made some comment about the number of same-sex Clergy couples who are likely to be at my Mother's 70th birthday party.

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From:

dougs
2007-05-06 10:49 pm (UTC)

I would echo the words of Bro. Pudding -- there are lodges whose Ladies Festivals are best suited to ladies who like to be treated traditionally, but there are also lodges whose members are capable of treating the Ladies like real human beings with minds of their own, an approach I always try to work towards.

Your paragraph "Some lodges..." has it exactly right. There's an art in finding out which kind of lodge you're likely to be dealing with.

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From:

lucas_t_bear
2007-05-06 11:30 pm (UTC)

Owing to his reputation for being 'cosmopolitan' (i.e he doesn't always wear a black waistcoat to meetings) my father was recently co-opted onto a committee set up to moderise his region.

I was heartened to learn that he is the only committee member who hasn't yet mastered e-mail (although at 76 I think he can be forgiven). This is real a pain for the others since they're all sharing their powerpoint presentations online and have to keep printing out copies and posting them to Dad.

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From:

ramtops
2007-05-07 06:44 am (UTC)

gosh - if that's the Lodge on the corner of London Road (by the station) and Prebend Street, I used to live literally round the corner form there. In (OMG) 1976, when I married the first Mr Jordan.

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From:

dougs
2007-05-07 09:23 am (UTC)

That's the one, yes.

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