Meetings

We meet at Freemasons’ Hall, on Great Queen Street in London (postcode WC2B 5AZ, near Holborn Underground station) on the fourth Thursday of February, April and October.  We also try to have one meeting a year in Oundle itself, usually over the summer.

As a London-based Lodge, we are administratively part of the Metropolitan Grand Lodge of London.

Charity

Charitable giving and activity is a central principle for Freemasons.  The Old Oundelian Lodge tends to focus its charitable assistance on the School and on charities local to Oundle.  The Lodge is a longstanding supporter of the School’s bursary scheme and, since its launch in 2010, has annually contributed to the School’s Life-Changing Bursary Scheme that provides opportunities for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who have the potential to benefit from a boarding education at Oundle.

Our 2018 donations, agreed at our February and April meetings, total £2000.  This money was split between our regular Life Changing Bursary contribution to the School, the Metropolitan Grand Lodge charity appeal for two extended height aerial vehicles for the London Fire Brigade, launched in 2018, and the local Oundle Community First Responders charity that provides on-the-spot medical assistance to 999 calls prior to the arrival of fulltime paramedics or ambulance crews.

In 2017, we donated £1500 divided between our Bursary contribution, the annual Mencap Holiday Week run in Oundle by volunteers from the School, and Volunteer Action – a small charity local to Oundle that helps individuals maintain their independence.   The cheques were presented at the white table dinner following our June Lodge meeting in the Talbot Hotel.

Visiting

One of the great pleasures of being a Mason is the ability to visit other Lodges at home and abroad and always receive a warm welcome.  It is rare, in the Old Oundelian Lodge, not to have several visiting brethren from other Lodges present at our meetings.

Visitors to a Lodge are most often directly invited by a member of that Lodge, but it is also possible to contact a lodge Secretary and ask (on proving one’s Masonic credentials) to visit that lodge where a fraternal welcome is guaranteed.   In 2016 the OO Lodge was delighted to welcome two visitors from South America who were in London on business and enquired at Freemasons’ Hall whether any lodges were meeting that evening that they would be able to attend; a few years ago a member of our lodge similarly asked whether he might attend a lodge meeting in the Far East while on business – and had a wonderful time.  In 2017 we were joined at a London meeting by an Old Oundelian who is a member of the Craft in Spain.  Our most recent overseas Visitor, in February 2023, was a brother from Edda Lodge No.1 in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Member Lodges of the Public School Lodges Council, of which we are a member, regularly notify their sister Lodges of forthcoming meetings with the aim of attracting visitors – whether or not they are already known to the Lodge concerned.  Being Lodges of similar background, there is an even greater sense of fellowship amongst PSLC brethren.