Unable to sleep in his tent because of the sound of gunfire from a military exercise, Chris Jones might have been less than pleased to hear from two members of his Lodge hundreds of miles away in Horncastle.
He was in his tent close to Lulworth Cove on the Dorset coast on the night of the Lodge installation, during which Shaun Whiting put Tim Miller into the chair of the Round Table Lodge of Lincolnshire for his third spell as Master.
As Lodge Secretary, Chris would normally have been there, but instead is making his way along the south coast during his round-Britain walk to raise money for the MCF and our Festival.
To cheer him up and remind him of what he was missing, Tim and Shaun had their pictures taken during the festive board, and Chris was able to reply before the night was out.
Against a background of the sound of gunfire, he said in a video message: “Can you hear all that noise outside? I’ve set up in my tent on the edge of Lulworth Cove, and there’s a full scale battle going on out there. They only do night firing on Tuesdays. It’s nine o’clock now, and this going on until one o’clock in the morning. Can you go to sleep to the sound of gunfire ? We’ll see, won’t we?”
In Chris’s absence the Round Table Lodge’s secretarial duties are being undertaken by Stephen Hill, who’s looking forward to Chris returning to take over the reins again. Chris contacted Steve during the day and said: “Good afternoon, Stephen, I trust you are keeping well mate. Just a quick message to say hello and to request you please pass on my best wishes to Tim when he takes on the chair again tonight at RTL.
On the night of the Round Table Lodge installation Chris’s fundraising had just topped £43,000, with a further £3,500 in Gift Aid to add to the total.
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