VW Bro Captain Lloyd Edwards

It is nearly three years since I last addressed Grand Lodge to update you on the New Masonic Samaritan Fund and I am delighted to have this opportunity of further informing you of the Fund and of the hospital Charity. After I have given you the overall view our Chief Executive Richard Douglas will provide further detail on the work of the Fund.

Whilst it will not be possible within this forum to take questions, I can advise that Richard, and some of the staff from the Fund, will be available in the foyer at the conclusion of Grand Lodge. They will be located by the display stand and will be very happy to answer any questions that you may have.

When I last reported to you I advised that the Receiver and Manager appointed by the Charity Commission to oversee the Royal Masonic Hospital had finally been discharged. I can confirm that the assets of the former hospital remain under the control of the Board of Management of the RMH Charity and that legacy income continues to accrue. I can also confirm that it remains Board policy to transfer funds equivalent to the investment income earnt by the Charity to the NMSF each year. In the last three years this has seen a total transfer of funds of nearly £800,000.

In November this year the NMSF will celebrate its 15th birthday. In this relatively short space of time it has established itself as a well respected element of the Craft. Having taken over the role of the Hospital Samaritan Fund it has supported over 6,000 applicants at over 300 hospitals across the length and breadth of the country, and several overseas as well.

This has involved the allocation of in excess of £30 million and not once has it had to turn down an application through lack of available resources. A fantastic achievement that has only been possible thanks to the hard work, dedication and generosity of so many.

In each of the last 3 years the Fund has allocated over £3 million in support of over 500 applicants. Support has been provided to applicants varying in age from 18 months old to 104 years young. Approximately 50% of the grants made are to the wives, widows and dependants of Freemasons.

I firmly believe that the NMSF continues to do exactly what it was established to achieve.

The Fund is now fully established within the Provincial Festival matrix and continues to benefit from the generosity and ingenuity of so many brethren. South Wales (ED), Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, Monmouthshire, Bedfordshire and Hampshire and Isle of Wight have produced magnificent Festival totals on our behalf already and we are looking forward to equally successful results with Gloucestershire and Nottinghamshire in the next two years.

As recently as last Saturday I attended the launch of the 2012 Provincial Festival which is being hosted on our behalf by the Province of Warwickshire. Even with the prospect of seven years of hard work ahead of them I was impressed by the obvious enthusiasm that was evident amongst all those present at the launch in Birmingham.

Throughout its early years the NMSF has benefited from co-operation with its sister Charities and from the staff within Freemasons Hall. Since my last report to Grand Lodge we have benefited from a grant from Grand Charity which enabled us to fund drug treatment for cancer and degenerative diseases. At the time the availability of such drugs via the NHS appeared to depend more on where you lived than on the seriousness of your condition. After a two year pilot scheme generously funded by the Grand Charity the NMSF continues to fund applications in this area.

Hopefully you will all have noticed that the last two editions of the Fund's newsletter have been direct mailed via MQ. We are extremely grateful to the members of the Board of MQ publications for enabling us to spread the word about the work of the Fund in this highly effective manner.

Much more recently I can report that we have now established a partnership with the RMBI to provide Respite Care. Initially this will involve provision being made to utilise spare capacity within the RMBI care homes for those in need who have no local authority funding and are unable to meet the cost themselves.

Finally in this area we are actively involved with the other Craft Charities in considering the potential benefits of co-location within this building. We continue, as always, to look for ways to work more closely with them both for the benefit of potential applicants and to keep costs under control.

I remain profoundly grateful to all the Lodge Almoners and Charity Stewards who continue to work so hard on our behalf. Without their continuing support the Fund could achieve nothing. Rather than taking my word for it I offer a quote from one of the many letters of thanks recently received at the Fund:

"I am pleased to tell you that the replacement of my right knee has been a total success. Prior to the operation I was unable to walk more than a few yards, and even then only with the aid of a stick. The constant pain and lack of sleep were making me unpleasant to live and feeling very ill. Until the successful operation I had forgotten what it was like to live without pain. Without the help of the NMSF I would still be languishing in pain, waiting for an NHS operation. I am most grateful to you all for giving me back my active life".

Lt. Col. Richard Douglas

In preparing what I wanted to say today I found it very difficult to know where to start. In the three years since I last addressed this meeting very little has changed within the work of the NMSF. The President of the Fund has already updated you on all the latest statistics. There is therefore a very real danger that I will either repeat things you have heard or leave you with the impression that I have done nothing for the last three years. Even if that were true this is neither the time nor the place to declare that publicly.

The NMSF continues, as it has for 15 years, to provide support for Freemasons, their wives, widows and dependants who have an identified medical need but, faced with a long wait for treatment via the NHS, are unable to afford to fund their own private medical care.

The demand for this support continues to be high as does the cost of meeting that demand. In its last financial year the Fund allocated £3.3 million in support of over 524 individuals. This is the highest amount allocated in any given year so far. I must at this point add a word of caution. As we approach the end of our current financial year it is clear that we will have supported fewer applicants this year than in any of the previous three years. I believe this is partly due to the general election in May which saw a considerable amount of effort put into reducing NHS waiting list times. However, some 4 or 5 months later we are already noticing a significant increase in the waiting list times of applicants now applying to us. It is also worth noting that demand for support from the Fund has increased in the year following both of the two previous general elections. It is therefore far too early to suggest that this apparent reduction in demand is anything other than a temporary situation, however there is a need to confirm that the NMSF is still meeting the needs of the membership and that the membership knows about and understands the support that is available.

We continue to spread the word about the support that is available from the Fund. Our efforts have included contributing to each edition of MQ and, more recently, the direct mailing of our own newsletter with MQ. This has proved a popular and effective move. We are now able to make regular contact with more people than ever before and no longer have to ask Lodge Secretaries to act as postmen on our behalf. The only concern is that previously we had a significant number of spare copies available within Lodges which could be made available to widows. We are continuing to develop effective means of distribution to ensure that this important group of potential applicants is not overlooked.

We have also made full use of our involvement in the Provincial Festival matrix. In addition to the obvious benefits every Festival has a second aim of ensuring that the work of the Fund, and the support available from it, is understood across the length and breadth of the Province. Hopefully this will ensure that I will never again be congratulated on the work of "those wonderful people the Samaritans" as I am about to walk in to the Celebration Dinner at the end of a Festival campaign that has run for many years.

It is equally important to remember that the majority of applicants in any one year come from Provinces that are not currently in Festival to the Fund. Most members of the Board of Management of the Fund are appointed to represent a specific geographic area. Rather than simply attending a few committee meetings each year they are now being encouraged to become increasingly involved in either giving presentations about the Fund themselves or training others to deliver information locally.

However, despite all this effort a letter recently received at the Fund contains an all too familiar request. I quote "I hope you don't mind me asking for some more details on the Masonic Samaritan Fund which I know very little about. My father is a senior mason and I am also a mason but know very little of the working of the masonic charities." That quote is not from an applicant or an almoner but a consultant surgeon who wrote to us because one of his patients was being funded by the NMSF. Although it is unusual to get correspondence from such a source the sentiment expressed is, unfortunately, not unusual.

The majority of the support we provide is for treatment associated with advancing years. Hips, knees and hearts continue to be our major areas of expenditure. Today 20% of the national population is over 65. By the year 2025 it is estimated that there will be 1.9m people in Britain over the age of 90. If an accurate age profile of the masonic population was available I am sure that a similar trend would be visible. So why is demand for support from the Fund not continuing to increase?

I have already laboured at length on the need for improved communications but it would be wrong for me to lay the blame entirely beyond the doors of the Fund itself.

Throughout the life of the Fund medical science has continued to advance at an incredible rate. New and better drugs are now available with an increased emphasis on preventative medicine often reducing or removing the need for surgery. Surgical techniques have improved to the extent that many procedures previously considered major surgery are now almost routine. Against this background of progress the NMSF has evolved from a young and financially immature charity into a robust fund that can afford to consider the changing needs of those it seeks to support.

All aspects of the process of applying to the Fund have recently been reviewed. The application form itself has been revised in order to make it easier to complete and to make the requirement to review the applicant's financial status less intrusive. I do fully appreciate that it can be extremely difficult for an applicant to declare his or her financial state to an Almoner or other member of the Lodge. Our allowances are based on, but more generous than State allowances and we do not expect an applicant to have to be destitute in order to qualify for support. However, the charitable objects under which we are required to operate make it essential that a financial assessment is undertaken.

We have reviewed our waiting list criteria. If someone is faced with a three month wait for general surgery or a two month wait for cardiac surgery then they should consider an approach to the Fund.

We have also relaxed our stance on supporting retrospective applications. Although the majority of applications submitted after treatment has taken place will still not be funded, it is accepted that there will be a few cases where exceptional circumstances have made it impractical to apply for support first. However, the much used response of 'I didn't know about the Fund' is no longer a valid plea in mitigation.

We have also expanded the areas where we are able to provide support. With support available to the entire masonic family of all ages the potential demand is endless. Within the last year we have taken over the funding of drug treatment for cancer and degenerative diseases following an earlier trial using funds from the Grand Charity. We have funded a number of individuals who have been identified as being morbidly obese and in urgent need of surgical intervention to assist with weight loss. As recently as last week we funded the acquisition of an exercise machine to assist the 17 year old son of a mason. The son is tetra-plegic and only able to use one arm. It is hoped that this machine will enable him to make better use of his one remaining usable limb.

All applications for support are treated according to their individual merits. Some are clearly more straightforward than others but each and every one is subjected to the combined opinions of the medical and lay members of the Petitions Committee. This process itself has been opened up with every Provincial Grand Almoner and London Group Almoner being invited to attend to see for themselves how the application process works.

With an ever increasing number of elderly people and a lack of appropriate care facilities it is inevitable that an increasing number are being cared for, at home, by family - usually their spouse. These carers do a fantastic job often on a 24 hours a day 7 days a week basis. Their life can be almost as restricted as the person they are caring for and are in desperate need of some respite. That is why we are now embarking on another initiative to provide funding for respite care. This is in conjunction with the RMBI and will initially make use of spare capacity within their care homes across the country. It will also enable us to determine the long term need for this type of support in order to determine if the provision of support needs to be expanded further.

This year the Fund will celebrate its 15th birthday. Had this been a marriage it would be celebrating its crystal wedding anniversary. We at the Fund do not have the benefit of a crystal ball to look into the future. We therefore continue to rely on people like you across the length and breadth of the country to ensure that the support that we can provide is made available to all those who need it.

I trust that my remarks have shown that there has been quite a lot going on at the NMSF over the last three years as we seek to ensure that the donors who continue to generously support our work understand how their support is put to good use. Whilst at the same time trying to ensure that the Fund is meeting the needs of the individuals that it was established to support. Evolution rather than revolution remains the key as the New Masonic Samaritan Fund looks to meet the medical needs of the full masonic family for many years to come.

At the end of the day whilst statistics and fundraising efforts are essential it is important not to lose sight of the individual men, women and children who continue to benefit from the work of the Fund.

To finish I offer you one more incentive to maintain your support for the ongoing work of the Fund. A letter received recently at the Fund tells the story of a 73 year old mason who had been a long term Angina sufferer. He was unable to walk more than 100 yards without pausing for breath. Having recently undergone a quadruple heart by-pass, paid for by the Fund, he is now a tri-athlete. This involves walking 2 miles a day, swimming at least ¼ of a mile at least once a week and doing 2,000 meters on the rowing machine at his local gym. In his own words: "I am a man reborn". To everyone of you who has played a part in restoring that mans health I offer my sincere thanks.