London Commandery January 2022:
Like many others around the world the London Commandery has been heavily impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite this, we have continued to keep in touch with our members, and have also maintained our tradition of helping God’s poor and sick.
At present we are looking to having a joint Investiture later this year (2022) which it is hoped will be hosted by Glasgow Commandery in Glasgow. At present no firm details are to hand due to Covid. Our association with the Glasgow Commandery continues as always, and a forthcoming Burn’s Night Supper will be a Zoom affair, and is but the latest in a series of get-togethers via Zoom between the two commanderies. Our series of Virtual Cocktail Parties have been popular with a section of our members who enjoy this way of keeping in touch.
Regarding charitable funding, the core activity of the London Commandery, we have made two £1,000 charitable donations this past 12 months, one to Parkinson’s Disease charity, Parkinson’s UK, in memory of our former commandery treasurer Chevalier Gerard Irwin KSJ RIP, and another to Compliments of the House, a London based charity providing food banks in the capital. Our Charity Fund currently has a balance of over £15,000, made up of subscriptions and one-off donations by members. We are currently investigating which charities should benefit from this largesse. It is our intention to find a main charity with whom we could establish a close working relationship. This would hopefully bring our identity to the fore and assist the commandery in finding new members, as well as helping raise more charitable funds.
We are looking forward to coming out of the Covid pandemic, when we can at last return to something like our previous activities. We wish to put the “fun” back into fundraising.
John C Pettit KJSJ
Commander
London Commandery