Saturday 28th September saw a visit to East Lancashire by the Most Distinguished Grand Summus, Ian Currans accompanied by his team of Acting Grand Officers for the consecration of a fifth Consistory for the Province.

Stanley House, Audenshaw was the setting and is to be the home of the newly consecrated River Tame Consistory No.155. following an excellent ceremony by the Grand Summus and his team, which saw Dist.Comp. David L. Greenhalgh installed as the Primus President.The idea of a new consistory came from David, in his role as Assistant Provincial Grand Summus for East Lancashire, he saw that corner of the Province did not have a consistory and a lot of the members of the Order of the Secret Monitor , who are our catchment area for membership, did not want to travel the distances to the north of the province to become members of the Scarlet Cord.
David is a member of Freeman Conclave who also meet at Audenshaw saw this opportunity and the concept of holding a Scarlet Cord at the same venue. This idea certainly worked well as out of the twenty-five founders eight of them came from that Conclave with seven of them not being members of the Scarlet Cord prior to the idea.

Following David floating the idea with Paul Joynson, David asked him to be the founding recorder of the consistory, which along with all the consecration planning Paul had to arrange for seven brethren to attend various Consistories to gain the first grade of the Order and become ‘unattached members’ to enable them to become founders of the new consistory.Following the consecration, the companions were treated to a fantastic Consecration lunch, during which David presented gifts to the Grand Summus, his Deputy, his Assistant and Phillip Purves the G.D.C. who did an excellent job in keeping the proceedings in order throughout the day, and also Eric Bourne who acted as the Grand Episcipus who delivered a fantastic Oration during the ceremony.

With so many new members being part of this new Consistory there are some busy times ahead.