The welcome mat at the Masonic Temple, Reid Street, Hamilton had to be spread wider than usual when Loyalty Lodge No. 358 held its Third Annual Wine and Cheese Tasting Night.

Loyalty has a reputation for doing things differently but with a distinctive Masonic cultural and social impact that has proven to have remarkable success.

Wor. Bro. Rodman Woolridge was the Wor. Master when he introduced the first wine and cheese social two years ago, and his successor Wor. Bro. Tudor Smith was equally as accommodating to the even greater number of patrons this time around.

While the copious amounts of food and beverage prepared by the brethren were by themselves an attraction, so were the displays and opportunity to meet personally such artistically accomplished brethren as Very Wor. Bro. Vernon Clarke and friends Carlos Dowling, Betty Trott and Gina James. As a diversion from lively conversation to appropriate background music and the absorbing discourse of wine tasting by maestro Andre DeSilva, the manager of Goslings Front Street Store at the Birdcage, and his assistant Sabrina Dove, several guests seized the opportunity to be taken on tours of the upper hall of the Masonic Temple.

Lodge of Loyalty is one of the five English Lodges under the Districts Grand Lodge of Bermuda. It is the third oldest, having formed in 1817. Initially it met in its own edifice at Ireland Island, but in October, 1956 consistant with the decreased activity at Ireland Island due to the closure of the old Royal Naval members moved their meetings to Hamilton. Nearly two yeas later, July 25, 1958 the original edifice was totally destroyed by fire.

Aside from the next happy round of cheese and wine tasting, members of Loyalty Lodge are looking forward to celebrating their own Bicentennial Anniversary, which coincidentally is in the same year as the Tercentenary of the Grand Lodge of England.