2025 Message from President Robert “Rocky” Jackson
Greetings to everyone. Our annual meeting brothers were enthusiastic about revitalizing the Club, and many ideas were discussed. Over the years we’ve lost contact with many brothers, so we’ve begun cleaning up our membership rosters — checking obituary records and working with Grand Lodges who have generously helped us restore contact with living members and learn of those who have passed. In the jurisdictions completed so far, about half of our members have passed away.
We discussed becoming a study unit of both the American Topical Association (ATA) and the American Philatelic Society (APS); we need 10 GWMSC members who are also members of each organization to move forward. There is already a Masonic Study Unit of the ATA, and we’re coordinating with them on shared efforts.
Both ATA and APS require a newsletter or publication; Rocky and Walt have agreed there’s enough material to begin one, likely on a quarterly basis. Jeffrey Coney, who maintains the GWMSC website along with the archives of the now-defunct Masonic Stamp Club of New York and the Masonic Study Unit of the ATA, is working on fixing broken links and is looking for missing issues of the MSCNY publication — if you have any and can scan them, please reach out.
We also discussed quarterly Zoom meetings, and are researching other historical Masonic Stamp Clubs to learn what happened to them and their collections — the first article in our new publication will likely cover this history. If anyone has information, we’d love to have it.
I’ve been speaking about Masonry and Philately at local lodges, and am working on my first Masonic Stamp Exhibit with mentorship from my local stamp club. I’m hoping this generates interest among brothers and the public alike, and I plan to partner with local lodges so interested individuals can become Master Masons and then GWMSC members.
For $20 lifetime membership, the benefits are hard to beat: meeting in a historic Temple, receiving the Masonic Philatelic Degree, attending virtual meetings, and reading our new periodical. If you have ideas you’d like to discuss, please reach out — by email, text, messenger, or phone.
Your President, Robert R. “Rocky” Jackson