Scinde Lodge
Community and Charity.
Our community and charitable activities.
Our values of care and kindness are key to our charitable activities in our communities. Every year the Freemasons Charity supports families, medical research, university student scholarships and various other national needs. Locally, every lodge is active in their community and each year the Master choses a charity.
A hospital visit can be a frightening experience for a young child, especially in an emergency
situation. Teddies for Loving Care (TLC) is a way of providing much-needed comfort to children
in A&E departments, helping to reduce the shock and distress of their experience.
Every child that receives a teddy gets to take it home.
The medical staff can give a bear to a child that is suffering particularly from trauma,
injury or illness. They use the bears to befriend the children, to reward them for being brave
and in some cases to demonstrate what they are going to do.
TLC is locally managed by Freemasons who also volunteer their time to run the scheme.
Since its inception in 2001, over 30,000 teddies have been given away in New Zealand.
One A&E nurse said: "It’s not just a teddy, it’s so much more."
The Freemason's Charity hosts an annual Scholarship Awards Ceremony. The May 2024 ceremony was held in the New Zealand Parliment, graciously hosted by MP Greg O'Connor. 🏛️ This year we had inspiring contributions from the esteemed: Professor Graham Le Gros from the Malaghan Institute, Brad Olsen, CEO of Infometrics and a former scholarship recipient. 🎤 A round of applause for the 35 remarkable talents awarded this year! As NZ's largest charitable private funder of scholarships, we proudly distributed $250,000 to students from diverse backgrounds and all walks of life. 🎓 The only requirements? Good grades and a commitment to community service, echoing our masonic values of improving the world. 🌍 A huge shoutout to everyone involved in making the event a success. Your dedication truly makes a difference, and we are immensely proud of each scholar's achievements.📅 Mark your calendars! Our scholarships will reopen on 1st July. Know someone who could benefit? Direct them to our website: Freemasons Charity Let's continue to uplift and celebrate our future leaders! 👏💼
Scinde Lodge members are raising money to help Greendale/Tamatea Scouts take part in next year’s National Scout Jamboree. The jamboree happens once every 3 years and the Greendale Tamatea scouts will be hosting a group from overseas traveling to NZ for the event.
But the scout group’s tents are showing their age and fund raising is underway to try to get enough money to replace them before the jamboree, which starts late December 2023.
Each year Scinde Lodge adopts a local worthy organisation to back and this year lodge members will put their efforts behind the Greendale Tamatea Scouts, who help young people from 5 to 18 to gain confidence and realise their potential.
The Scinde donations each year sit beside the millions of dollars Freemasons New Zealand donate to worthy organisations around the country.
Pain relief and taking medication is about to become much easier for Cranford Hospice patients with new syringe drivers which automatically supply medicines to those who need them.
Syringe drivers are small battery-operated devices that administer medicines intravenously over a selected time, usually 24 hours. Medicines are drawn into a syringe that is then attached to the driver, which is set to move the plunger at an accurately controlled rate.
Scinde Freemasons Lodge, Napier, has been fund raising for the last year to buy five of the syringe drivers for Cranford. Each year the newly elected Master of the Lodge names a charity and fundraising is focused on that chosen charity for the rest of the year.
The past year has seen lodge members raising money to buy the syringes for Cranford, with top up funding from the NZ Freemasons Charity. A total of $15,000.00 was donated in June.
Some fundraising activities undertaken included brunch cycle rides, collection box donations, raffles and the renting out of the Lodge Refectory hall.
Scinde Master Steve Murray says, “Cranford is a worthy cause and lodge members have built a relationship with the hospice over several years, either on a personal basis or through workplace connections”. “The staff are amazing and do a wonderful job in what are very testing times for families”.
Using syringe drivers removes the need for patients to struggle with swallowing pills and ensures they are getting the right medication at the right time, whether they are in the community or in the Cranford inpatient unit. They result in a greatly improved quality of life for patients as well as assurance to their families that their loved ones are getting the best possible care.
Every day Cranford provides specialist palliative care for over 200 Hawke’s Bay people. Cranford needs to fund raise $3.5 million every year to continue delivering services to the Hawke’s Bay community at no cost to patients and families.
Freemasons in many parts of the country provide their hospitals with Essentials Care Packs for patients who are rushed to hospital and haven’t had time to pack a bag with their daily essentials. The packs contain the things patients need to help get settled for their stay in hospital.
Our almoners ensure the hospitals have the Care Packs on hand, they also take care of the needs of the members of the Lodge and the widows of deceased members, by looking after their welfare and acting as a contact for charity, this includes visits to the sick, aged and infirm.
Our speaker this month was Denise Gore from the Napier branch of NZ Remembrance Army. Denise volunteers, with others, to identify and restore war graves, predominantly those of the 65th Regiment, with whom Napier and Denise's family have connections. This presentation was particularly relevant to our Lodge as several past members of Scinde, approximately 25, have graves from the Maori Land Wars to WW1. In fact our very first Initiate was Lieutenant-Colonel AFW Wyatt of the 65th. In thanking Denise, Master, Steve Murray said - "having worked in Napier for the last 14 years, policing the streets, I was totally unaware of the significance and history of 65th Street up on the hill. I will be maintaining dialogue with Denise as she is keen, as am I, to build a lasting connection with Scinde and it was my pleasure to present donation to Denise to support the work of the volunteers of the NZ Remembrance Army."
Intiated by our brothers from Lodge Haeata in Hastings, Scinde are supporting this relief appeal. The lodges have contributed from their Benevolence Funds, as have Brethren who felt in a position to contribute personally. The funds raised were donated to Relief Aid to assist with the provision of food, and other needs, in this devastating time for them. And there was a personal connection, the Executive Director of Relief Aid is Mike Seawright, the son of a Lodge Haeata member. Mike crossed the border on foot, to deliver the humanitarian support. He reported "People are living in rubble of what was their normal lives with nothing to their name, faced with cold hard conditions, with little or no food, and are in dire need of humanitarian support."
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