Gipps St Working Bee 2011 01

With the help of Grand Lodge and the Commitment of the Committee of Management, Gipps Street is now on a path towards a bright future.

While it is not for Grand Lodge to “save Gipps St”, the funds GL have made available will facilitate Gipp St saving itself. In partnership, together our goal is to preserve and improved the building for current and future Freemasons. Contactors have been engaged and roof repairs completed. Problems with Emergency exist signs and lighting have been remedied and the South has been painted. Works have prioritised with the view of safety then creating a lettable space which will generate cash flow for subsequent works, remembering always that Gipps St is there to serve all tenant lodges as a meeting place.

Our Masonic forefathers bequeathed a wonderful asset and tool to us in a quality brick building at Gipps St which has rested on it’s bluestone foundations since 1928. They sacrificed much and worked hard to gift us an asset we could no longer afford purchase today. Generations who followed preserved that heritage, and in recent decades men like Tim Dunlop and David Yole worked hard and tirelessly to preserve that gift as custodians of the future. It falls to us today to take up the challenge and ensure we too leave this legacy for future generations of Freemasons by safeguarding and improving Gipps St.

Since the departure of the Buddhists who used the South every Sunday and the slow erosion of the number of lodges meeting at Gipps St, the income to support the building has fallen. It is not just enough for a Committee of Management to pay the rates and effect any repairs, the building must be kept up to date in plant and presentation. They key ingredient beyond will and talent is cash flow, and it is to this the current Committee of Management will focus its attention.