How we Started Archives - Masonic Napkins

All posts in How we Started

How did Masonic Napkins Come About?..Part 3

These visits to the trade shows were taking place at the beginning of my final year as I needed to gather lots of information to support my final piece of work.

Sorry to digress but I’ve just had one of those dĆ©jĆ  vu moments…

I am writing this whilst listening to Simon Mayo Drivetime and the confessions segment has just come on. When that musical introduction came on, I can remember every time I drove to my lectures, I had to be at a certain point in my journey when that started to make it on time. If I was still on the M23, I was running late! It was a real rush always as I came home from work, changed and got all my books and notes together. Most importantly, I had to make a sandwich and a very large flask of coffee as my lectures were from 6-9 in the evening and after a days work, keeping awake was a challenge. Did I go home straight from my lectures? No. Not wanting to let my pub quiz team of some years down, I rushed straight to the pub and got there for the last few rounds. . The first thing was to try and answer questions they had written down that they either didn’t know or wanted another confirmation if something was doubtful

Top

How did Masonic Napkins Come About?..Part 2

This is a continuation of my previous Blog Article
…Some of the modules that I covered were Business Organisations, Human Resources, Business Accountancy, Law and Marketing. All of these were to come together in my final and major piece of work which was a Business Plan correctly laid out and researched for presentation to either a bank or an investor for my business.
I had to first of all decide what my business was going to be. The majority of my classmates chose businesses that they were very unlikely to actually proceed with. Among them were a snooker hall, an indoor play centre for children, a sports club franchise and a cleaning business. I was determined to make this Business Plan a really good piece of work and had the idea that I could improve upon my original masonic napkins, this was something that I knew about.
I managed to persuade my husband to take me to an exhibition held at Alexandra Palace for Knitting and Stitching. The purpose of this was to look at embroidery machines and see what I would need and to get some tips from experienced embroiderers. We had a really funny dialogue with a lady who was a member of an embroidery guild. She told us that there was another larger ‘knitting and shitting’ show and we all fell about laughing, as did she, when she realised what she had said. I must say, that was an ice breaker!

Ifield Lodge 7931 Simon de Montfort Lodge 9024 Old Steine Lodge 7875
Top

How did Masonic Napkins come about?

I have been asked on many occasions how Masonic Napkins came about, this is how :- My husband has been a Freemason for a number of years and having been Master of his lodge, is now a PM. I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that he very much enjoys his masonic dinners; the evidence of which, often comes to light when I have to wash his shirt. I can usually guess what he had to eat from the various splodges!

He often commented on the fact that the paper napkins were never much use to him. With this in mind, I made him a large dinner napkin with a buttonhole that he could use and keep with his other regalia. Along with his shirt, I just put it in the wash and then returned it ready for the next dinner. Whilst all this was going on, I had seen my daughter making her own t-shirts with band names and other logos, she printed them on some special transfer paper and then ironed them on. From that came my first bespoke dinner napkin with my husbands lodge logo ironed on. It was really admired by his brothers and I made a few more for them.

Moving on a couple of years and coping with the empty nest syndrome, I embarked on a Business Degree through Brighton University. Goodness, did this fill the time I now had? It most certainly did. Having never studied to this level in my educational years, I found the challenge harder than my ‘classmates’ as I was by far the most mature student and their study skills were still very fresh. Never one to admit defeat, I began to really enjoy the many and varied topics that we had to cover and began to get good feedback from my tutor on the assignments that I had to hand in.
To be continued…

Top
Page 1 of 1

Follow Us On :

Forget those useless paper napkins...

We can make you a

Smart Lodge Napkin

Call Us On 01293 344 522