The WikiMasonica Project

New site launch! Done

2010-04-08T03:39:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

WikiMasonica is now making it easier for masons to connect accross the world!

We have created a Web hosting service for masonic lodges and masons. This way we now have a resource for us all to establish a web presence in strength so that Masonry stands fast forever!

Visit WikiMasonica Web Hosting

Fraternally
Jonathan Teychenne

Watch out for the new Launch!

2010-03-26T03:51:00.000-07:00

Well this new project is going to be great! We are just in the final stages now and should be launching the site very very soon. Its taken literally hundreds of man hours.

Here is what we've done so far -
http://wikimasonica.org (The Wiki)
http://youngfreemasons.org (Social Networking Site)
http://masonitube.com (media sharing)

We are working on some iPhone apps, web hosting, web design etc But we are always looking for new ideas!

If you guys would like to contribute to the cause we would love your help! If there are any designers, developers etc who would like to give us a hand, post it here :)

Donations are welcome http://tiny.cc/Ag4E5

The WikiMasonica Project is self funded by the founder. Any contribution would be of great help!

Fraternally
Jonathan Teychenne
Founder - The WikiMasonica Project

Shriners Australasia - Brisbane and Melbourne Ceremonial!

2010-03-05T02:26:00.000-08:00

The time has come, details are being finalised for the next Shriners of Australia ceremonial to be held in Brisbane and Melbourne. The dates have been finalised, and has been pencilled in for Brisbane on the 13th of June, and Melbourne on the 20th of June.

Shriners Australasia will be sending a team to conduct the ceremony which will include the Chairman, President, the executive committee and a Delegation from the United States - Shriners International.

For those that don’t know, the Shrine fraternity run 22 children hospitals across North America & the pacific, with patients being admitted from all over the world for high quality, specialised medical care which is totally free of charge.

Shriners International has over 350,000 members around the world, an operating budget in excess of 1 billion AUD, has treated more than 1,000,000 patients, & figures have shown brand recognition of the Shriners is over 75% of the community aged 18 years & above, Freemasonry is a little over 30%! Note: Philippines & Europe are just about to open there own branches!

In addition to that over 20% of all mason that join in the US & Canada join on the basis of becoming a Shriner because of all the positive work they do. This is an appendant body to freemasonry that’s focus is based around 2 things, fun and helping our most important commodity, children.

Due to the success the Sydney Ceremonial in November we already have in excess of 40 founding members. Requirements to become a Shriner is simple, you must hold the degree of master mason!

If you require further information about becoming a Shriner please email mark@shriners.org.au or adam@shriners.org.au

I will finish with this, I have had the privilege to visit 4 of the Shriners Hospitals and can say it was just about the most heart warming experience of my life, The amount of respect shown from patients and their families towards members of the Shriners is simply overwhelming.

Adam Murphy
Chairman Shriners Australasia

Young Freemasons Social Networking site

2009-09-29T07:53:00.000-07:00

I would just like to take a moment to welcome all the new members of the site. After much time and effort we finally have a social networking tool for us all as Freemasons to connect across the world. This is a chance to get back to the roots of freemasonry and the true sense of brotherly love, relief, and truth. I got together with a few young masons about 3 years ago and we had a talk about what we actually wanted to achieve for a website. It really just started as "Young Freemasons of Australia" on facebook as an experiment to see if we could connect with other masons. Australia has huge distances between lodges and we are few and far between. A vast majority of us young guys were in lodges that had most members 3 times our age!

As we brainstormed ideas and came up with patchwork solutions, things began to evolve. I started a facebook fanpage called "Young Freemasons" which very quickly became popular. It now boasts over 4000 fans. We then created a Wiki (like wikipedia) for masons to add and edit information about anything they want - Lodges, orders, history etc. It was originally called YoungFreemasons.org but in a local forum in my district some of the older members felt left out, as they too wanted to be included. We changed it to WikiMasonica.org which then we created "The WikiMasonica Project" with the simple mission "to assist Freemasons connect across the world"

The change for us worked. It separated us from just another masonic website, to a worldwide project. With this in mind, no longer were we bound by a single Grand lodge or constitution - this gave us freedom.

Very soon we were collaborating with freemasons from all over the planet! We had input and contributions from Australia, United States, Canada, South Africa, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Israel, Philippines, France, Mexico, Venezuela, Lebanon, Bahamas, Belgium, Sweden, Panama, New Zealand, Macedonia, Mauritius, Pakistan, Bolivia, Denmark, Colombia, Greece, Kenya, Brazil, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Germany, Turkey, Ghana, Chile, South Korea, Croatia, Ukraine, Romania, Singapore, Serbia, Bermuda, Bulgaria, United Arab Emirates, India, Russia, Jordan, Norway, Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, Argentina, Taiwan, El Salvador, Tanzania, Gibraltar, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Egypt, Malaysia, Vietnam, Nigeria and over time I'm sure many more. We will be translating the Young Freemasons site into as many languages as I can over the coming months.

The Wiki - WikiMasonica.org - is a huge success. There are over 300 members and lots of great content. Well done and thanks to all brethren who have contributed. In saying this, a Wiki was just not what was needed. We wanted to "assist Freemasons connect across the world" but there was no real way on a wiki to chat to one another, message, share content, blog, create groups etc. It was obvious that something else was needed, something that had all the functionality of social networking. 'Cos thats what Freemasonry is all about right? Social Networking? Brotherly love?

So I thought "bugger it" I am going to create something better. Establish something, in strength, so it may stand fast forever! And here it is - YoungFreemasons.org - For you to enjoy.

More features will be added over time, so make sure you check the site regularly. I'm working on some great things right now. Soon you will be able to trade over the site using the "social commerce" tool. It has a few bugs at the moment, but I will let you know when it comes out.

HINTS AND TIPS: To make your profile user friendly, add a profile picture and some information about yourself. This makes it more personal and people will feel more comfortable adding you as a friend.

I will be keeping you updated from time to time on whats going on with Young Freemasons and the site. But for now - enjoy - I made this site for you Brother.

Fraternally,
Bro Jonathan Teychenne

The WikiMasonica Project

2008-11-06T04:28:00.000-08:00

What we are after for the site that we are setting out to achieve, is to connect all Freemasons and Masonic Lodges across the planet. So we want every Lodge in every District, on every continent on earth, to put up their Lodges information, history, contact details, meeting times, geographical location, and anything else they want to add, so that any Mason wherever they are in the world can find and visit a lodge, and know who to contact.

It all started late 2007 early 2008 when two young Masons from a small corner of the world came up with an idea to re connect young Masons. After a lengthy chat and a few ideas being thrown around, we quickly realized the monumental task at hand. So many lodges, so many Masons, so much information! We eventually came up with the idea of creating an online Wiki. A wiki is an online collaborative tool which enables anyone from around the world to add pages and, add and edit content. Which means any Lodge or Mason everywhere anytime add and edit their information. They can add as much or as little information as they wish.

The first stage of development and testing has been completed, only within a few months we have over 50 contributers from all over the world. In the beginning we thought we would just test the site out and see what the universe threw back at us. We didn’t want to put too much time in something that wasn’t going to take off or last, if it got a good response then we would see what we would do. Its now coming up to the first year anniversary and its going strong!

This brings us to stage two. We now are sending out a call to all the Masons we can, to get involved in this world wide project. And that again, can only be done as a mass collaborative effort on all our parts. That means all of us working together to promote our own Lodges, Districts, Grand Lodges and any affiliated projects, through our Wiki.

From talking to some of the elders of my lodge and district, I had some very constructive criticism. Freemasonry is about ALL Masons working together, not just the young, or the affluent, or the experienced. The older men said that they want to help too, but it being called ‘Young Freemasons’ they felt as if they weren’t welcome to contribute. And I tend to agree with their sentiments. They want to build a strong Fraternity just as much as us younger guys, AND, they have been dedicated to the task for far longer than we have.

This created an opportunity that I had not expected. What a better way to connect the older Masons with the younger guys than having us work together on this project! Young and old working as one! Isn’t that what Freemasonry is all about? Us younger guys have the technology and the means to gather and promote the wealth of information of those who have seen the craft reach where it is today.

We had to figure out what to do about the exclusivity of the name. We came up with a few ideas, ‘New Era Freemasonry’ ‘New Masons’ ‘Future Masons’ etc but none of them really stuck. We needed a name that described what it was and what we were doing, so after much deliberation we decided on a new name. Taking inspiration from Wikipedia, we came up with WikiMasonica! We loved it, it just seemed to fit.

So we are now re launching and re branding YoungFreemasons.org in 2009 as ‘The WikiMasonica Project’. Everything will remain the same but the new Wiki URL will be http://wikimasonica.org

There are two parts to stage two of the WikiMasonica Project. Firstly is promotion. We need to get out there and inform as many Masons as possible about the WikiMasonica Project. This means utilizing all communication lines as possible available to us. The Wikimasonica Project isn’t just an internet site, the WikiMasonica Project transcends throughout the Masonic community, connecting old and young, connecting lodges and districts, connecting Masons across the world!

Secondly is content. It is not enough just to get people to ‘look’ at the site. The WikiMasonica Project is about getting involved within the Masonic community. Its talking to Masons about their Masonic experience, gathering information, documenting the history of your Lodge and those in it. We want Masons to come together not just on the web, but in the real world, to be able to find a lodge anywhere they go. The WikiMasonica Project aims to have the essential information a Mason needs to be able to seek his brothers.

What this means for you, my brother, is the opportunity to do your part in connecting Freemasons across the world. There are a number of ways that you personally get involved.

Add content. List your Lodge on http://wikimasonica.org Add content on anything you like, you are totally free to add and edit almost any page on the Wiki. An example of a lodge page can be found at http://wikimasonica.org/Example

Edit Content. You may not have anything to add, but you still can edit the pages of someone else if you feel you can tidy up the look and feel of the page, or improve its functionality.

Gather information and Lodge/District history and post it to the WikiMasonica Site.

Talk about The WikiMasonica Project. Simply tell another Mason about the site and what WikiMasonica is doing for Freemasonry.

Donate. The WikiMasonica Project is currently 100% self funded by its creators. Any donations to the Project will help The WikiMasonica Project achieve its ultimate goal of connecting Freemasons across the world. You can donate by clicking on the ‘Donate’ button on the main page of http://wikimasonica.org

Promote! Post a link to WikiMasonica on your Masonic related website!