Friday 16th March Southend Masonic Centre saw the culmination of over 5 years hard work led by a bunch of Lunchtimers - with the Consecration of

 WEST ESSEX MERIDIAN LODGE No. 9821

The Lunchtimers involved were Chris Hicks, Julian Smith, Ron Carr, Mike Pinfield, Richard Hollier (all Past Chairmen), George King and Dave Fage (Chairmen to be?).

WEML is a Daylight Lodge, with meetings starting at 10:30 – 11:00 am on Saturday meetings in Ilford, having the ethos of being “A Lodge for Masons who could not get to weekday meetings and would still like to have Saturday afternoon and evenings for time with their families”.

The Lodge was first discussed amongst these eminent Lunchtimers in November 2001, when Chris Hicks was in the Master’s Chair at the Thomas Ralling Lodge. It led to many discussions with the Province of Essex as to how a Lodge could be formed - initially at Loughton. Interestingly, in parallel to this, Julian Smith was taking action to form a Saturday Daylight Lodge in London, which led to the rescue of the MERIDIAN Lodge.

After much “to-ing and fro-ing”, the final decision was taken to have the new West Essex Meridian Lodge meet at the Conservative Club in Ilford, where many London Lodges and a handful of Essex Lodges meet. The Lodge will meet February (Installation), June, September and December.

Pictures from the Consecration meeting will be available soon on this website, and hard copies can be ordered from the photographer.

Chris Hicks
Primus Master (Designate)                                     
WEML 9821