“The Lost Seeker” by RWBr. Royston Colbourne

"The Lost Seeker" by RWBr. Royston Colbourne

RWBr. Royston Colbourne is introduced by friend of the show RWBr. Wes Regan. This was recorded during the traditional address of the Grand Junior Warden of the Grand Lodge of BC & Yukon, just after lunch at the 43rd Annual Grand Masonic Day on Saturday, April 18th.

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Graphics and web hosting by Art Szabo Creative. Special thanks to Organist for our theme music.

Happy to meet, sorry to part, happy to meet again.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Welcome to MysticTye. You can find us online at Mystictie.com. Email me feedback, guest suggestions, and any other questions at Mystictie.com. Wright Worshipable Brother Royston Colbert is being introduced shortly by a friend of the show, Wright Worship Brother Westream. This was recorded during the traditional address of the Grand Junior Warden of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia in Yukon, just after lunch, at the 43rd annual Grand Masonic Day, last Saturday, April 18th.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Wright Worshell Brother Royston Colburn was born in the UK in 1954, just as the Cold War was really heating up. When he retired from policing in 2003, he moved with his family to Vancouver, where he started a second 20-year career in the private sector, engaged with risk mitigation, which took him to the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South America, and across Canada. He retired in 2023. He was initiated in 1986, passed and raised in Woodgreen Lodge 2426 in London, England. He served as Worshipful Master of that Lodge and attained London Grand Rank in the United Grand Lodge of England. On moving to Canada, he joined what is now North Shore Lodge, number 93, where he served a year as Worshipful Master and several years as director of ceremonies. He has also served as junior grand deacon and district deputy grandmaster in BC Yukon. He has attained a 32nd degree in Scottish Right as a past first principal in the Holy Royal Arch, but is non-practicing in these concordant bodies at this time. As I can imagine, he is busy enough as junior grand warden. He is now honored to be serving the jurisdiction of your junior grand warden and is now senior grand warden elect. Right, Worship, brother, Royston Colboro.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Brethren, guests, I've listened to this morning's speakers. Thank you. Really enjoyed uh listening there. And uh I'm probably gonna bring you back down to Earth. At 7 15 on Christmas Day in 2021, an Ariane 5 rocket was launched by NASA. And in the nose cone of that rocket was the James Webb telescope. Now, James Webb, thank you, Trevor McEwan. I found this on your website. James Webb was actually a Freemase. He was also the administrator of NASA during all the Apollo series and during the Apollo landings. And it was named after him. The telescope was named after him because uh of his contribution to science. Now the interesting thing about the telescope is that it has taken cosmology and physics to a whole new level. Um, for those who don't know about it, and I have to say some of it leaves me cold, but it is probably one of the greatest scientific um things that have occurred in our time. So when it took off, it ended up in uh in uh an orbit around Earth, and after discarding all the rocket bits, it actually activated thrusters because NASA were going to park this uh telescope one and a half million kilometers from Earth in a position in space called L2, and that's exactly what they did, and it arrived. It took 29 days from Earth to L2, and during that process, the telescope itself was actually folded up almost like a complex bit of mechanical origami. It was it was crunched into this, into the nose cone, and and as you'll hear in a moment, it was it was actually very large. Um but it was all folded up in a meticulous way. Twenty-five years in design and build, that's how long it took. It cost over eleven billion US dollars. US, Canada, Europe contributed. There will come round a Masonic point, trust me. As it set off on this twenty-nine uh day journey towards uh towards L2, it started to unfold this or origami model. It put out some uh some uh solar shields, it actually unfolded a heat shield and it unfolded it mechanically five very, very, very thin layers of material, and then it tensioned them all on the way to LO2. It tensioned them to absolute precision tension to prevent the uh the telescope being damaged by sun's radiation. It then when when it was actually when the heat shield was actually uh fully set out, it was twenty-one meters by fourteen meters. That's the size of the heat shield, five layers, very, very complex. And then it started to unfold the the the disc, the mirror. In fact, that consisted of eighteen separate hexagonal discs made of beryllium covered in gold, and they all unfolded and fitted exactly into place. It arrived at L2, and then they started a process of unfolding the various instruments that were on board, the the telescope, if you like. The first thing they did was had to adjust these 18 mirrors so that it produced an absolute precise six and a half meter um disc or mirror, and they had to be absolutely precise in three dimensions, little motors adjusting everything. They turned on a cryogenic unit because it will only operate at minus 230 degrees, 233 degrees Celsius. So they turned on that. They eventually turned on a telescope, mainly working in the infrared section. Details of that doesn't matter. What does matter is that it took data and it took unseen things from the universe never ever seen before, packaged them in data sets, did a bit of analysis, and bounces it back to Earth. The data that is produced as is absolutely monumental. So why is this relevant? Well, brethren and guests, the reason it's relevant is that it was successful because the NASA planning calculated that there were 344 different points at which if this happened or this didn't happen, the whole project is scrap metal. And those three hundred and forty-four critical points critical points, and for those of you who are engineers and work in that arena in risk assessment, you'll understand that identifying things that can go wrong is is absolutely critical to getting it right. So the unfolding of the heat shield, if one piece of it had been snagged and tore, torn, game over. If the cryogenic unit hadn't started, game over. There were 344 of those. And NASA literally sat there during the flight, ticking these off one at a time. That worked, that worked, that's deployed, etc. That's rocket science. Let's look at our critical points of failure. In Freemasonry, our critical points of failure are when we fail to attract the right man, or when the right man walks away from Freemasonry. And there are there are a handful of critical points in that process, just a handful, where things go wrong. And I'm gonna try and illustrate to you two things. First of all, how my crazy brain works, but I'm gonna give you a couple of examples and stories that are intended to illustrate how this all comes together. So bear with me for a moment. But I'm gonna say first of all, when I was about 29 years old, I was promoted to inspector, and a very wise person who I remember very clearly from my early days gave me two bits of advice. Don't assume that the person you're with does or says what you think they do. Don't assume you know what somebody is doing or saying. And the other bit of advice was to take everything that you learn, every circumstance you have in your in your lifetime, and try and file it away because at some stage that information may be of use. It's a learning moment. Whether it's a tragedy, whether it's good news, whether it's a scenario, try and call upon that as a learning moment. And that's where I'm coming from. So my first story goes back to when I was uh serving as a senior police officer. And out of my 30-odd years service, there was only 18 months when I wasn't in frontline policing of some description. And that 18 months was I was asked to go and solve a problem. And I was asked to go and solve a problem in our completely civilian-run recruitment department. And we were having very serious troubles recruiting and retaining police officers. Now, perhaps that sounds familiar to where we're at. We were actually recruiting 900 a year at the time that I went in. We were required to recruit 2,500 a year just to stand still in our numbers. So we'd slipped way, way beyond. So the first thing I did is I went to the first point of contact. What is the first point of contact we have with the applicant? And I want you to sort of in the back of your mind think about the first point of contact with a seeker. So I want you to think this is where these things join together. And I went to somebody that I'm going to call pause. Everybody that I talk about in this presentation, I honestly believe, I honestly believe thought they were doing the right thing for the organization. So however strange you think it is, I honestly believe that they were doing it for the right reason. And that will come into a Masonic story in just a moment. So I went to Justin, changed his name. I went to Justin and said, Where's the first point of contact? He said, That's my department. Here's my staff, I'm the supervisor. And I said, What do you do? He said, We get the applications by post. What do you do with it? Go through it, we vet some, we reject some at this point, the rest we pass on to the next department. What do you reject for? Well, residency and you know, if they declare they've got a uh criminal history even before we've done the checks, things like that. And uh and he said, we we sift a few out. I said, Well, okay, where does it go next? It's over there. And I was just walking away. And he said, Oh, on tattoos. I said, tell me more. And I sat down again. And he said, Wow, he said, we we we always check their tattoos at the point of application. I said, Well, what's our policy? Um, not heard of that. Well, we hadn't sort of got a policy. I'd become a bit of a specialist in it, and uh, and I deal with all the tattoos. And I said, Well, what did you I don't I don't understand? What are you looking for? And you're telling me that you reject people on the basis of tattoos. Yes, yes. I said, Well, tell me about it. He opens the bottom drawer. We'll call it Justin's bottom drawer. Now, inside this bottom drawer was probably two or three hundred Polaroid photographs. Now, for the younger people in the room, Polaroid photograph, instant photograph taken, three inches square. Who had access to a Polaroid Polaroid camera? Anybody? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm talking about. And so I said, Well, what are these? He said, they're the people we've rejected on the basis of their tattoos. So I took a handful, put them on the desk. The first one I pick up, I said, Well, this is strange. And it's a man's forearm, and on the forearm is the Union Jack. And I said, Well, you've rejected him on that basis. Wow, yeah, it could be a right-wing extremist. And it's fair to say in England the Union Jack is used by right wing extremists as their as their banner amidst the other million uses, legitimate uses of the Union Jack. And I said, Well, what's that motif underneath the Union Jack? He said, I had no idea. I said, Well, that's actually the motif of the Royal Marines. This this man is an ex-soldier, highly likely. And at least he should have a hearing to see if he's his extreme right wing, but he's more likely to be a committed serviceman. Oh, yeah, I suppose so. The second photograph I took out, I immediately I had to turn it upside down, but I immediately recognized what it was. And it was a picture, it was a cartoon character of a devil. Now, the devil was a little a little fat man wearing wearing red clothes, red tail. He had this really um strange smirk on his face, on his face. And and I'm looking at this, and I suddenly realized what I was looking at. He's actually holding it, it was about two inches high. He's actually holding a trident, which was about twice as tall as him. Now, the point of the trident was actually in extreme close proximity and very, very, very close to the young woman in the picture's most intimate part of her body. And I look at this and and her only her only bit of modesty was the thinnest piece of material in this photograph, but there was no no doubt of what it was. And I said, I've got three questions, Justin. The first one, how do you get a woman to send you a photograph like that? I said, Well, it's easy because I remember this one because she said she had a photo, she said she had a tattoo. And and I said, Well, you have to send us a picture. And she said, Well, I don't really want to, it's rather personal. And and he said, Well, if you want to be a police officer, you have to send a picture. And she sent a picture, and there it was. I said, the second thing I'm asking is, can you think of any scenario where a police officer, where this would actually be revealed to the public in this particular location? And he said, Oh, no, not really. I said, Why have you rejected her? Could be a devil worshipper. Now, in that drawer were many, many, many photographs, and some of them were legitimate. In fact, a thing at that particular time uh across the knuckles, uh, particularly from uh uh people from Ireland and Scotland was ACAB uh tattooed on your um all Catholics are bastards. That was what it meant. Obviously unacceptable. But the devil in the Royal Marine I was sort of struggling with. So how does that come down to what I'm talking about here, brother? Sometimes we find information that we don't want to hear and we don't want to repet. But I'm actually going to be honest with you tonight and switch to some a couple of Masonic stories that link in with what I've already told you. A Freemason who I know, who sadly has um departed to the Grand Lodge above now. Really, really nice man. He was in his early 80s, fantastic guy, um always very friendly, always very helpful, master Mason, never aspired to be anything else. Um, very, very popular guy. And I'm having coffee with him one day, and uh we're sitting there having coffee, and I'm reminding you about the issue, don't assume what people say and think. Right, so this is at the back of my head. And I said to him, and I'll call him John because that's Knightley's name, I said, John, you spend so much time invested in Freemasonry. You spend time with the new Freemasons, you sort of informally mentor people, you're a very friendly guy. You're the first guy to put his hand up when we have first contact. So we have first contact, perhaps through the website. I'll go and see him. You're the first guy to do that, and you've done it many times. You're also the first guy to get involved in the Seeker program. I I want to be involved, I'll do that. And you're also, I can't remember an investigation where you've not bombed been present. You're always volunteering. What what is it? What what excites you about doing that? His answer shocked me. He said, I've got to make sure that no queers get into Freemasonry. Now I can tell you there is nobody that knew him that knew that that was his mission. Nobody. So I beg the question, and I'm thinking about Justin and his photograph draw, and I'm thinking about uh uh John and his his personal mission. So I embarked over a series of months on sort of this little informal inquiry, and I'd sit at a festive board and I'd say, I'd say, tell me Wes. Um when you have a first meeting with a prospective uh seeker, what is it that you would hear, or what is it that you would see that would cause you to say, this should go no further? And you report back wasn't a good fit, or whatever the expression. We've all heard these expressions, yeah, I met him, it wasn't a good fit, not quite ready, not maturing up, all those sort of expressions. What is it that you would look for? Now, it's fair to say that I heard a lot of people, a lot of brethren refer to the Constitution and talking about eligibility, and they're either eligible or they're not eligible. Um suitability is generally something that you can't find out in one meeting. But then became a pattern. They became a pattern, and they were in the minority, but they are in our midst. Because some of the answers I got were these. Well, if he's late or he's pretty scruffy and there's coffee meeting, probably not suitable. If his family are Catholic, we couldn't possibly take him because that would obviously cause conflict. If he had any form of disability totally unacceptable. I said, What do you mean by disability? Forgive me, Bill. If he's blind, would would that make him ineligible? Definitely. He couldn't join if he's blind. What else? What about if he had a prosthetic leg? Well no, of course he couldn't join if he had a prosthetic leg. Um and I'm not hearing this once, I've hear this a couple of times. Not overwhelmingly, but I hear it a couple of times. And st some of the answers that you get, you just sit there and you go, Well, where is this in the Constitution? I started thinking, how many how many prospective initiates are in Justin's bottom drawer? They've actually been turned away for the wrong reason. Now you can sit there and you can say to yourself, that wouldn't happen in my lodge. I know that's not happening in my lodge. You can say that, Brendan. But I dip my toe in the water and asked those questions. And what I found made me very uncomfortable. And I think we've got to make sure that we educate those that are going out, uh, well, everybody, in fact, to go out uh meeting, making first contact, that they understand what they're doing. Now, this is an amazing coincidence that this morning, true story, I'm at Park Royal getting on a bus, waiting at the bus stop, and a guy comes up, comes up, there's just the two of us, and he says, Morning, great weather, eh? And I said, Yeah. And he he looks at me and he said, Oh, you're going to work. I said, No, I'm actually going to a Masonic education day. He said, Oh, he said, I I thought of joining the Masons years ago. He said, I approached uh somebody I know is a Freemason. He said, and the first conversation, he said, Well, let's start with this. There are things in Freemasonry you can't possibly discuss with your wife and family. So he said, I'm out. He walked away. He walked away. We still have Brewerin. We still have members who are delivering the wrong message. And it's not only about the one that gets away, it's about the one that gets away like the poor restaurant. It'll tell ten other people. And so we've disaffected a whole a whole group a whole group of people that we we will never probably see again for the wrong reason. And let me give you some statistics here. Our membership as of two weeks ago was 4,04 members. I have to tell you that I've traveled the jurisdiction more this year, probably than uh this year and last year more than I have done in a long time. There's an energy out there, there's an enthusiasm out there that I haven't seen before. Many of many of you are doing the right thing, but we're not quite there yet. One of the other statistics I will give you is that petitions we receive on average over the past three years, 230 petitions a year. We are losing through either Grand Lodge Above or Brethren Walking Away, we are losing 270. That's an annual short for of 40 members. I wonder how many of those 40 members are people that have been turned away at first contact. So that's just that's just uh that's just one thing. I want to drift into retention just for a moment because one of the things I'm seeing, and I'm just being candid with you here, one of the things I'm seeing is I'm seeing lodges doing really, really well. I'm seeing lodges say, we're voting tonight, real story, I'm we're voting tonight on five initiates. That's fantastic. And we've got seven more seekers in the works. There are lodges meeting in that exact building that haven't had an initiate for two years and haven't got any in the works. We have to think from a perspective of free what is the best interest of Freemasonry. And initiating a large number of brethren during a year brings problems. It brings problems because one of the last statistics I'm going to give you is one in four, one in four Freemasons from initiation to Master Mason leaves the craft. Never comes back. We are losing twenty-five percent of those men that stood there during their initiation, those faces that you've seen and I've seen full of enthusiasm, full of just go, I I want to do it, I want to do it, we're losing them. We're losing them. One of the reasons I suggest to you that we're losing some of our members, one of the reasons I suggest is that if you're one of four entered apprentices and you join, and you happen to be a quiet one that's a little bit slower in learning ritual, that doesn't quite get it yet, you know, it's going to take you a little bit longer. And two or three of the others, they're there. They're delivering ritual, they're they're they're they've learned everything, they've done everything, they get all the attention, oh, fantastic, how well you're doing. You know, you can do a toast tonight. And this this this guy who's struggling a little bit, who's not quite um not quite in tune, will gradually drift to the back and he will leave. How many times have you sat there at a festive board and said, or is this only me? And said, Hey Wes, what happened to that guy? Do you remember that guy joined about two years ago? Um, was he from Saskatchewan? Had a big dog. Do you remember? I can't remember his name. And and you would typically reply, I can't remember his name. Is it Bill? I don't know, I don't know. And he's drifted away and we didn't even notice because we got a couple of superstars. Brendan, the way to bridge the gap between 230 and 270 is to actually concentrate on each and every brother. And if you find yourself in a lodge that is overwhelmed with initiates, look around at where you can actually refer this individual to in the in the interests of the craft and in the interests of the individual. It will make a significant difference. Last thing I'm going to touch on, and following this morning's presentation may be sensitive, but uh for those who know me, I don't care. Um what else do we do, brethren? We encourage our newly made Master Masons. We encourage them with some urgency in some cases to join concordant bodies. And some of our Master Masons are joining concordant bodies within months of becoming Master Masons. And some of those are joining concordant bodies within months, really not even understanding the the degree. They might not have even seen a Master Mason degree, and there they are going into concordant bodies. Now that may be that may be for all sorts of reasons. It is not in the individual's interest to do that, I believe. It's in the individual's interest to bed down into craft masonry and understand craft masonry, and perhaps, perhaps at about five years, when they may perhaps hold office in uh in uh in the lodge, or at least they've delivered ritual in the lodge, and they've become to understand it that they might be ready to move into concordant bodies. Don't rush those people because two things is happening. Some of those people are leaving, they're just overwhelmed, it's all confusing. Some of those people are absent from the craft, and yet they are full attenders at concordant bodies, and not only full attenders, they're full participants in ritual, delivering great ritual in concordant bodies, the craft is suffering. Now that might mean that for a few years concordant bodies might struggle. You will get stronger members if you allow them to bed down in craft masonry. I said that was the last thing and it's not. We rush brethren through offices. Thank goodness, you know, you're you're brilliant on your prove up for the master mason degree. There's the junior deacon's job or a bit short. Oh, you junior deacon's job the next year, well, it was a bit short again, jump in at the as the junior warden. And then within a couple of years, there they are sitting in the east, very often ill-equipped, very often not enjoying it. But more important than that, when they step out of the East, many of them do not appear as the IPM. They break away, they leave, they go and do something else, because it's done. I've I've been in Freemasonry for four years and I'm the master. Five years and I'm the master of the lodge. What what next? And you look, you look down, of course, there's all sorts of things. Um, you're probably not going to get a uh a Grand Lodge office with four or five years uh service um in the craft, and it you've just wasted, you've just wasted that time. Brother in by pushing people through offices, you are doing them a disservice and you're doing the craft a disservice. So I say to you think about Freemasonry more broadly. Think about the critical points, the critical points of uh of failure. Analyze why people are leaving. Don't just don't just base yourself on the Saskatchewan guy whose name you can't even remember. Why did they leave? What is it we did wrong? Because I can tell you, and you know, that the enthusiasm that comes out of an entered apprentice at the end of that evening, or the enthusiasm that comes out of a Master Mason at the end of that evening, is is something that it's yours to lose and we are too often losing that. Master Mason, we hand him a certificate when he proves up. Most lodges don't even say to him, and here is the Ashler College Master Mason course. It's free. You can do it in your own time, it doesn't matter. It actually will help you in your Masonic career. I haven't heard Ashler, I probably heard Ashler College mentioned in a Master Mason at the end of a Master Mason degree, probably twice in the last two years. We're letting the individual down, we're letting the craft down. So I'm going to finish with this, and I really do mean this, but not only is the enthusiasm for Freemasonry um building and building, I do feel that. Not only in our jurisdiction. But let's let's try and forget trying to aspire to big numbers. Just a little fact here. If every lodge, if if we wanted to obtain six thousand members, it would require every lodge we have to initiate and retain three members a year, and then by 2065 we will have six thousand members. It's not gonna happen. Let's hang on to what we've got. Let's bring in let's bring in men, let's keep them. The amount of energy we put into getting a man to a Master Mason stage, um, or even to uh or even to an entered apprentice stage, we're wasting that um more and more. We're we're focused on the shiny things, the good guys, we're focused on numbers. You know, don't applaud the fact that you've got seven initiates that you're that you're voting on. Applaud the fact that when a man is a master mason after five years he's still there. Because somewhere between there and somewhere between the start, we are losing men and it's our fault. It's not their fault, it's our fault. So we need to do something about it. So if you think what I've said doesn't apply to your lodge, if you think you haven't got the guy who's um who's uh you know concerned with uh with uh somebody who's interested having a Catholic family or somebody who's got a disability, if you think if if you're sure that that's not the case, ask questions, Brennan. You'll be shocked at the answer. When I asked John why he did this, and he told me what his mission was, I cannot tell you how shocked I was at that. Not only because a Freemason was saying that, but him as an individual, and we had no idea. So how do you cross-check what is being said when you hear in lodge they're not suitable, they're not ready, what questions are you asking? What do you mean? Explain that a bit more. Well, let's somebody else go and see them, let's have a second opinion. I share that with you, uh brethren. I I look forward to uh working with you over the next year. I know I haven't visited you you all. Um the the the life of a uh of the Grand Lion is um it's taken up in two chunks. There's the stuff you don't see, and then you see us at meetings. And I can assure you that the stuff you don't see um adds up to significantly more time than the time I have to get out to see you. My view is that free the benefit of Freemasonry is best served not by me coming to all your meetings, but by me working in the background for improvement of the craft, and that's my determination. Brethren guests, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 38:29

Thank you very much for the most important. Well, as a catholic with several tattoos to experiment in college and very glad.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

I think for listening today. We are looking to create a directory of pre-Masonic events and publications. If you are aware of something coming up, please let me know by email. In the meantime, check out the Masonic Conferences website at Masonic Conferences.com. Hi, Brother Troy Sprue will be speaking at Capilano Lodge number 164 on Wednesday, April 22nd. I'm presenting my talk, Memory Palaces Everywhere, about emblematic imagery and western esotericism. Lodge TALS at 7.30pm at the Vancouver Masonic Center. This same talk will also be presented on Wednesday, May 13th at Star of the West Lodge number 29 in Nikasta. To see other dates for my presentations, check out my updates on the Mystic Die Patreon. Shouturacism and Freemasonry Conference will be held Saturday, September 19th. Our keynote speaker will be Juan Milo Duquette, author of the Terror Architect. Get your tickets in advance by RSPP to Estrotyric Masonry at gmail.com. For other events, check out our calendar at Mystictie.com and don't forget to sign up for our newsletter while you are there. Graphics and web hosting are by Artsable Creative. A special thanks to Organist for our theme music. Happy to meet. Sorry to part. And happy to meet again.