Black Horse Council No. 555 - Allied Masonic Degrees, VA, USA

12/30/2022

Excellent evening of Masonry at the joint Annual meeting with our Brothers at C.A. Sinclair, Jr. Council No. 412! Congrats to the 2022 Officers of each Council for an excellent year, and a hearty welcome to the new 2023 Officers! A special thanks to Right Venerable Barry Bartley for installing all our new Officers, and congrats to Venerable Chuck Trude!

10/01/2022

Thank you to everyone who came out to our September Joint Communication on Thursday night, with our friends from C.A. Sinclair Council No. 412! A special thanks to Venerable Michael Huff , who arranged for our program for the evening to be none other than Rt. Ven. John Bridegroom, Grand Marshal of the Grand Council, AMD! The hospitality and fellowship were great! And we got to heartily welcome Sinclair’s newest member, Brother Mo Azizi !

03/13/2022

Black Horse Members! Our March Newsletter is out!

01/10/2022

Message from our Sovereign Grand Master, Mohamad A. Yatim, regarding additions to the Masonic Week Schedule!

Brethren
Registrations for Masonic week continue to grow and according to the hotel, the room block allotted to Masonic Week is almost all gone.

As some of you may have heard, the leadership of Athelstan decided that they will not have an in person meeting this year at Masonic week. To accommodate the change in schedule, we are planning to confer scarlet cord grades 1-3 on Thursday February 10 and hold a Scarlet Cord festive board in the evening. Scarlet cord grades 1-3 are open to all AMD members who register and the banquet will be open to all attendees.

The OSC grades are very popular and the ritual is beautiful and the table conclave will be fun and something we haven’t done since 2015.

Further details should be out shortly from our grand secretary!

12/31/2021

Fantastic evening of fellowship with our Brothers at C.A. Sinclair Jr., Council No. 412 for our Joint December Communication! Great dinner from our friends, followed by elections and an Open Installation of our two Councils! A special thank you to Venerable Mike Huff for the invitation to join his Council this evening!

A heartfelt and genuine thank you to our most recent Past Sovereign Master, Venerable Alan Spear. Thank you for your leadership and support this past year! Congrats to Venerable Chris Swihart on a stellar year on Manassas!

A very special congrats to our Past Sovereign Masters that we’re honored with the Knight Commander of the Red Branch of Eri.

11/29/2021

Brethren of BH555! Here is some information about AMD Masonic Week, that is coming up quickly! Stolen with love from Bro. Kevin Homan

Brethren,
This is going to be the first of several Masonic Week posts to the page, so apologies in advance for bombing your Facebook alerts.
Event page for Masonic Week 2022 is live, please see the included link for all relevant information. Forms for registration are included (there is a $35 registration fee) as well as a link to reserve a hotel room if you will be doing so through the Masonic Week block. A Calendar of events is also included, I will be creating events on this page for all the AMD related activities for the week.

All Masons attending any event during Masonic Week must complete and submit the Registration Form, along with the required $35.00 registration fee. Additionally, meal tickets may also be reserved and purchased using the Registration Form.

09/30/2021

Excellent September Council Meeting! Wonderful pot luck dinner, election of new Officers, and an amazing presentation by Companion Michael Villalobos! See you all in December!!

12/28/2019

Fantastic evening with our friends from C.A. Sinclair No 412! Magnificent feast prepared by the Costis clan, a heartfelt presentation on her charity by Ms. Gigi Costis, followed by a wonderful presentation on St. John the Evangelist, and capped off with a joint Installation for both our Councils! Great way to top off 2019. Onto next year!

12/27/2019

We will be having our Annual Council Meeting tonight!
The celebration will begin at 6:00pm with dinner.

We will be celebrating Saint John the Evangelist Day and Brother Jim Raines will be giving us a presentation of our Patron Saint.

In addition, December 27th is also Matthew Costis' birthday.
The dinner will be dedicated to Matt. Matt was the Son of Worshipful Brother Tom Costis and the grandson of Right Worshipful Bill Costis. The Grand Worthy Advisor, Gigi Costis, and the rest of the Rainbow Girls will be providing Matt's favorite meal of "Sloppy Joe's", Macaroni and Cheese, BBQ potato Chips, Salad (not one of Matt’s favorites) and mom’s homemade apple pie. I ask each of you to come out and celebrate Matt’s birthday with us.

Our Council meeting will be a joint endeavor with Charles A. Sinclair, Jr. No. 412.

At the conclusion of our presentations, we will adjourn upstairs and have a short council meeting and the elections of officers for both Black Horse Council No. 555 and Charles A. Sinclair Jr. No. 412.

We will then close the Council meeting and allow in all visitors for the installation of our new officers.

It will be a fun evening.

08/30/2019

Brothers of Black Horse Council No.555 and to you Sovereign Master Carl Dunn,

I don't believe the we could have had a better evening! We had great camaraderie among our friends and among our friends that are new to us. Brother Joe gave a magnificent presentation on the beginning of rituals and being initiated. Brother Joe, I am always impressed at the presentations that you give.

Brother Michael Villaobos is our newest member. SM Carl Dunn initiated Brother Michael and VM Barry Bartley read him the AMD lecture. Welcome Brother Michael to the Black Horse Council No.555!

Brother Todd, our Secretary, brought the ordered AMD Ritual Manuals and I believe after last night, we may be sold out and will have to order more! Brother Todd and Brother Ken, I do appreciate all of the work that you do for our Council.

VM Barry Bartley talked for a few minutes about his new position as Grand Superintendent with the Grand Council. We congratulate VM Barry for his new position and we know he will do a superb job in monitoring the councils throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Most of all, I would like to thank you Brother Carl and the Brothers from the CA Sinclair Council for their hospitality and friendship. You all were very accommodating. On behalf of the Black Horse Council No. 555, I thank you very much for such a wonderful evening!

Sincerely and Fraternally yours,

Paul Lockhart, SM
Black Horse Council, Sovereign Master

08/29/2019

Brothers of the Black Horse Council No. 182,

This is a reminder that we will be having our Stated Council Meeting this evening at Manasseh Lodge No. 182.

Sovereign Master Carl and I have worked up a good agenda and I believe that you will all have a wonderful evening.

Dinner is at 6:30pm and will be cooked and served by the Eastern Star. An expected donation of $10.00 is requested.

Our Stated Council meeting will start at 7:30.

The excused absences for this evening are:

VM Barry Constant, Brother Greg Hubley, Brother Jim Raines, and Brother John McDowall.

I look forward to seeing you all there!

Sincerely and Fraternally yours,

Paul Lockhart, SM

Black Horse Council, Sovereign Master

07/30/2019

Brethren of Black Horse Council No. 555:

Greetings my friends and Companions, our joint Council meeting with C.A. Sinclair is set up and ready to go! Our next Council meeting will be held on August 29th at Manasseh Lodge. Dinner will be served at 6:30pm by The Eastern Star.

Our paper for the evening will be by our very own Companion, Joe Martinez. His paper will be “An Overview of Initiation: The Road to Freemasonry”. We normally would ask you to do some research prior to our Stated meeting. In this case, however, I ask you to bring your memory. Yes, your memory of when you were first initiated into our craft. What did you think about when you heard the terms “the Golden Fleece or Roman Eagle” and the “Star and Garter”? Or, “fitting our minds as living stones”

I have talked with the Sovereign Master of C.A. Sinclair, Rt. Wor. Brother Carl Dunn and we are looking forward to this first joint Council meeting. I have asked him to initiate our new member Michael Villalobos. We are working on an agenda together and I hope that the evening will be one that we will all remember.

Another item that I have been working on is a book reflecting back on our first year as a council. I would like to include each of the presentations that have been created thus far and include Brother Chuck’s presentation that he will be delivering in October and Brother Jim’s that will be in December.

I ask for those that have done their presentations, to please send them to me and include any pictures that you have that would go with the presentation.

I also ask that Brother Todd, please send me the Minutes that we have thus far. I would like to reach out those members that have done Masonic Minutes and document what that minute was about.

I would like to have this book as an archive of what we have accomplished and make them available to each member.

We have openings for additional members. Consider nominating those Royal Arch Masons that you know who might benefit from AMD and might want to join our Council, if invited. Nominations can be made at any meeting. If they pass the ballot, they will then be invited by the Secretary to be initiated at an upcoming meeting. If you make a nomination, you will need to provide his contact information to the Secretary.

Companions, it is truly my pleasure to serve you as Sovereign Master for this year. I look forward to the journey that we share together.

Sincerely and fraternally yours in friendship and service,

Paul Lockhart

Paul Lockhart
Sovereign Master
Black Horse Council No. 555, AMD, USA