Recently the Deputy Provincial Grand Master, V.W.Bro Kevin Stannard, was honoured to be invited to the official opening of the new “Sensory Room” that had been funded by a £15,000 grant from the Richard Henry Holmes Masonic Benevolent Fund.
Although the grant had been approved back in October 2019, and the work to re-fit the room was completed just a few days before the first lockdown in 2020, the pandemic delayed the official opening until such time as it was considered safe to allow visitors from outside the school to view the new facility.
Happily, with the return to more normal school-working from September last year, the pupils had been able to make full use of the room over the past six months, and Kevin was delighted to be able to meet several of the pupils whilst they enjoyed interacting fully with the various activities in the Sensory Room, under the watchful eyes of the dedicated and hard-working teaching staff.
With Easter almost upon us, it was particularly apt that the opening of the Sensory Room coincided with the annual visit from Brethren and associates of the Widow’s Sons Masonic Bikers Association, as they called in to distribute Easter Eggs to pupils and staff of the school, having just come from the Percy Hedley School in Newcastle and from Ashington where they had similarly distributed hundreds of eggs to children and staff that morning.
For the pupils, the highlight was being able to sit upon the motor bikes, and in some cases rev them up, and their smiles, as they experienced the sights and sounds of dozens of gleaming motor-cycles, was a joy to behold.
The Freemasons of Northumberland are indebted to Ms Liz Davison, the Head Teacher of Hexham Priory School, for her generosity in the invitation to the school to witness the Sensory Room in action, and the Widows Sons to the staff of the Co-op Funeral Care Group for so very generously providing the Easter Eggs that were distributed by the members.
Many thanks go to V.W.Bro Kevin Stannard for the submission of this article.
If you have a story, event or news item you would like to have published on the Provincial website, or social media, please get in touch with our Communications Team at news@northumberlandmasons.org.uk