On the Isle of Cumbrae, the newly installed master and office bearers of Lodge Kelburne No 459 Millport on Saturday 28th November.

Front row - L to R – Depute provincial grand master, Argyll and Isles Br Donald S. Bannatyne. – Installing master Br Stewart M. Aitken. PM – R.W. Master Br A. Eric Smith. – Installing master Br John E. Horn. PM – Provincial Grand Master , Argyll and the Isles Br Kenneth R. Johnson.

Last year, the Millport freemasons celebrated their 150th anniversary on the island. The lodge in Millport held its first meeting on the 11th August 1866 in the Cumbrae Hotel and was officially consecrated on Friday 21 November 1866, and has been operating continually ever since.

The official Grand Lodge of Scotland website states; "Freemasonry is a society of men concerned with moral and spiritual values. Its members are taught its precepts by a series of ritual dramas. These remain substantially the same form used in Scottish stonemasons lodges, and use Scottish stonemasons' customs and tools as allegorical guides."

Although women cannot join the freemasonry, they can join a similar umbrella group - the Eastern Star - where both men, who are generally freemasons, and women can join in, and some branches do exist in North Ayrshire including Millport and Dalry. There are long standing masonic lodges in Largs, West Kilbride and Skelmorlie.