North Leeds Freemasons Lodge launches recruitment-driving video

The Lodge of Dawn, whose members mainly come from Alwoodley and Moortown, has launched a video highlighting the benefits of Freemasonry as part of a recruitment drive.

The video, ‘A step in the right direction’ highlights LS6’s Lodge of Dawn in particular, featuring interviews with a number of members.

It aims to give those with an interest in joining Freemasonry an opportunity to hear directly from members to squash any conspiracy theories.

Lodge Preceptor, W Bro. Raymond Diamond, said “Last October, at a lodge meeting, our Worshipful Master, Rob Phillips, brought up the idea of improving our very small website and to use it as a tool to help to recruit new candidates.

“My aspirations, at the time, were to take our website from the fourth division to perhaps the third division.

“This video on the website, is the icing on the cake.

“What this video has done is taken us to the Premiership. It comes across that we are a band of brothers and it’s very eloquently put by those people that volunteered to be interviewed.

“We’re not giving any secrets away. We’re just showing the plus points of Freemasonry and why someone should consider becoming a Freemason.”

The interviewees discuss what Freemasonry isn’t, the type of people who can join the Freemasons, charitable giving, the social side of Freemasonry, a little about the ritual and the enjoyment members get from being part of The Lodge of Dawn.

Ed Marks, from Thunder & Lightning Films in Cleckheaton, near Leeds, who produced the video said: “It wasn’t scripted – that was the whole point.

“We were aiming for people to come in and just speak. We had open-ended questions for them to give their responses.

“The reason for having asked so many people to come along was so that we could ask most of the people the same questions.

“In total, there was just under three hours’ worth of interviews to go through to get that final four minutes narrative.

“It’s been quite an interesting project from a creative point of view.

"You’ll notice it is completely, as it’s termed, ‘talking heads’ with no cutaways whatsoever; there’s nothing to go away from the people that are talking, where normally there would be something visual we would cut away to, but we don’t, which was a challenge.”

To watch the video and find out more details about joining The Lodge of Dawn, click here.