Gipps St Working Bee – Magnificent Men ! January 2014

From WBro Damien of Devotion

A huge thanks to the magnificent 20 (!!!) Freemasons were able to make it to the Gipps St working bee .

Ten members from Devotion, nine from Evolution, (two in both) and an Entered Apprentice from Essendon who heard we needed help and gave it ! Members from both lodges are also members of Other Orders meeting at Gipps Street.

Sitting back after a day’s work - Drew and I were frankly shocked at the success of the bee. We (you!) got a huge amount done. HUGE ! Having a builder/carpenter (Reg), sparky (Laurie) and Painter (Sam) there was fantastic, as was Carlos's efforts with the sounds system. We were not expecting to get professionally qualified people to tackle jobs which otherwise we would have had to pay for...they were not even on the initial job list - but even the people who weeded and cleaned all made an important and noticeable difference... who knew lawyers, chefs, and nurses were good painters or police, debt collectors, lawyers, architects, JP's, spray painters and accounts top notch cleaners !

It was by far our most successful working bee to date and it was great to have such strong support !

We had an “aspiration” task list, with 44 jobs crossed off by the end of the day, but even more had been added due to professionals being present and enthusiastic workers finding additional tasks. Magnificent!

With 20 guys, at $20 per hour (tradies cost us more) there was $400 of labour there per hour – and we worked solidly for about 6 hours, the equivalent base of $2,400. I’m sure the electrical and professional painting work completed would have cost us much much more, but the generosity and fellowship was priceless.

Thank you all so much !