£3 million target for Nottinghamshire Masons in the 2007 Charity Appeal

By June 2007, the Masonic Province of Nottinghamshire hopes to have raised in excess of £3million pounds in aid of The New Masonic Samaritan Fund. This is the most recent of the four principal Masonic charities operating under the auspices of the United Grand Lodge of England.

Funding for these four charities is derived in part from our unique “Festival System”, whereby each Masonic Province organises an Appeal amongst its membership according to a predetermined pattern. An Appeal usually runs for a period of eight years, at the end of which a symbolic cheque is presented on the occasion of a special celebration or Festival, which usually takes the form of a banquet.

Tell me more about Nottinghamshire’s 2007 Festival appeal

Tell me more about the New Masonic Samaritan Fund

About the New Masonic Samaritan Fund. Founded as recently as 1990, The New Masonic Samaritan Fund exists to relieve poverty and sickness in Freemasons, their wives and widows, children and dependants who are unable to obtain treatment on the NHS without undue delay or distress. Thus, it reaches out to a very large potential audience.

The Fund has assisted over 5000 petitioners with an outlay in excess of £19million. Patient ages have ranged from the very young to the very elderly. In addition to the more common requests for hip/ knee replacements, heart bypass surgery and heart valve operations, the charity has funded patients’ needs in the fields of cancer chemotherapy and surgery, laser surgery, radio-isotope therapy, renal dialysis and many others.