Afternoon Tea to Welcome Attendees at the Grand Installation of the New Grand Master of Freemasons Queensland

Kaye and I are delighted to welcome you all to Government House this afternoon, on the eve of the installation of a new Grand Master of Freemasons Queensland.

This is a signal event, not only for Queensland Masons but also for Masons further afield, as today’s guest list amply demonstrates.   

Tomorrow’s Grand Installation will, of course, be conducted with solemn ceremony and ritual, commensurate with the importance of the smooth handover of leadership within the organisation. And the celebrations, I understand, will extend into Sunday.

Kaye and I are particularly pleased to launch these celebrations by hosting you at this beautiful and historic house, the first part of which was completed just six years after the first lodge meeting in this State in 1859, the very year that the colony of Queensland was established.

The change of leadership within Freemason’s Queensland is important in far more than ceremonial terms. 

Masons in the State will look to the new Grand Master, as they have with his predecessors, to epitomise and promote long-standing Masonic values including fairness, honesty, generosity and self-improvement.

They will look to the new Grand Master to lead and further encourage the organisation’s philanthropy, its activities in aged care, and the many good works, large and small, that Masons carry out in communities, large and small, throughout Queensland.   

In that spirit, as Governor, I thank Grand Master Dr Gary Bacon most sincerely for his commitment to Freemasons Queensland over the past three years.  I congratulate him on the organisation’s achievements under his leadership. Kaye and I wish you well as you step down from this important role.

I heartily congratulate Mr Alan Townson who, tomorrow, will be invested with both the privilege and the responsibilities of the role of Grand Master.  Kaye and I wish you every success in the discharge of those significant obligations.     

We also thank the many thousands of Masons in Queensland for their dedication to the Masons’ on-going mission – personal improvement and generosity to community – carried out in the uplifting spirit of the Freemasons Queensland motto: Recte et Fideliter.  

Thank you.