Member Update

We are living through extraordinary times at present and in many countries – perhaps most – day-to-day activities are restricted, and many lodges have closed for at least the next few months. England is no exception, and Quatuor Coronati Lodge has been obliged to cancel its forthcoming May and June meetings. But although we won’t be able to meet physically, we intend to make available online the lectures that would have been given in lodge. We will provide full details once these have been confirmed towards the latter part of April.

Our plans for our Conference in Boston at the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts have also been thrown into the air. Although the event is not scheduled to take place until mid-September, some six months away, and we are already a third full, we are mindful that anyone booking flights and hotels from this point on will not be covered by travel insurance if we are forced to cancel as a result of ongoing or renewed Covid-19 restrictions. And there are many other issues to consider, including the possible pace and extent of development of the coronavirus in the USA, and the likelihood of a second round of closures and lockdowns.

With this in mind, we feel that the most appropriate course is for us to refund those who have booked to attend and postpone the event until a later date. This is, of course, hugely disappointing both for our speakers and the several hundred attendees we expected to host in Boston. It is also disappointing for us, although we hope that the efforts invested in putting the event together won’t be wholly wasted. Nonetheless, these are unprecedented times and we would prefer to be cautious rather than run the risk of cancelling after the summer with the more negative consequences that that would incur.

Our hope is that we will be able to put together a book of the papers that would have been delivered in Boston and to make this available towards the end of this year. We will provide updates on this over the summer.