Sir Tom?

This past November, we made note of the fact that Thomas Van Arsdale had his investiture as a knight of grace covered in the local press. It seems that he is a minor celebrity in the states and he has a feature story covering his rise in the Order in a local magazine, as well. This is a very interesting article and the author can be forgiven for some minor mistakes in the way that the Order functions and factual errors. At any rate, it is always nice to have publicity for the Priory in the United States of America.

Mountain Rescue

The VOSJ in Scotland provided a great boost to emergency care on the Isle of Arran. The beneficiary of the Order's support was the Arran Mountain Rescue Team, who were provided with a new base of operations built, in part, through donations from the VOSJ. Since the 1960s the team had been based in a hut behind the old Brodick Police station. Speaking on behalf of the the Scottish Priory, Sir James Stirling of Garden commented that "The Order of St John has supported Scottish mountain rescue teams for many years because we firmly believe that we must provide better accommodation for the brave volunteers who risk their lives in the cold and wet to save others." The team were very pleased with the new facilities that they had available for use.

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American Committees

Keeping up with our American theme, we've received word (though, admittedly a bit late) that the VOSJ's Priory in the United States of America has now appointed regional committee chairs in several metropolitan areas around the country. These regional committees had been approved by the Priory's board of governers earlier in the year, but the chairs in each region were appointed this June by the prior, Marshall Acuff.

There are now official representatives of the VOSJ stationed in Atlanta, Charleston/Savannah, Connecticut, Dallas, New York, St Louis, San Diego, San Francisco, and the Washington, DC area. In our opinion, this is a most welcome development. It accompanies the recent move of the Priory offices to Washington, DC in giving the Order's work in the United States a more organized, national feel. In a Priory that has no St John Ambulance presence, it is very difficult to maintain visibility among average Americans. With this move towards greater organization and mobility, it may be possible to increase the membership (it currently stands at about 1,100 confrères) and the support to the St John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem.
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Web Presence

One development in matters concerning the VOSJ that occured during our recent extended absence was the introduction of a new website for the Order's Priory in the United States of America. The web address is the same (http://saintjohn.org/), but the format and content have been greatly improved (as shown by the screenshot below).

The old website included very fancy Flash functionality, but was difficult to use. The new page is much more methodically laid out and all the information one could need is displayed clearly. There is even a section for Priory "Members Only," presumably to help confrères stay abreast of Order news. Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of the change is that the new American web presence fits in much more seemlessly with the international website of the Order at http://www.orderofstjohn.org/. This is certainly a positive development for our American confrères.

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Déjà Vu

About a week ago, we recognized the promotion of Margaret Hunt to the grade of Dame of Grace. It would seem that the local press in Queensland is enjoying sharing stories of VOSJ awards. In this case, the South-East Advertiser notes that Rosemary Moran was made a member of the VOSJ after nearly two decades of volunteer work. She was a prominent feature at public events in and around Brisbane providing first aid and assistance as so many St John Ambulance members do around the world. Well done! Below you can see the Governor of Queensland, Penelope Wensley, standing with the new confrère after the investiture.

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Venerable Confrère

In yet another oversight on our part, we forgot to mention the recent birthday of one of the VOSJ's highest-ranking members. Nelson Mandela was made a Bailiff Grand Cross of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in January 2004. In July of this year, the former President of South Africa was blessed to turn 91 years old.

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New Zealand News

A week ago, the Priory of New Zealand held its annual investiture service. One of the members promoted in the priory is also the recently appointed chancellor. Garry Wilson has begun his six year term in that post and also been made a knight of the Order.

The ceremony was presided over by Sir Anand Satyanand who, as Governor-General of New Zealand is also head of the Order's priory there.

Sir Anand welcomed Chancellor Wilson to his new role but noted that the job of a group devoted to health such as the VOSJ was more difficult today in the face of world problems such as the Swine Flu pandemic. He also made it clear that "St John is deeply involved with the Ministry of Health in helping to manage the response in the spread of the virus."

In addition to Mr Wilson's promotion to knight of the Order, four people were made commanders, sixteen people were made officers, and thirty-four were admitted as members of the order.

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More Recognition

Here at the VOSJ Source, we do our best to shine light on the work that the Order does all over the world. To date, the Priory of Scotland has largely been out of our view. We wanted to recognize a confrère who was awarded a couple of weeks ago with the Service Medal of the Order.

After 15 years of service, one John Brown was awarded the medal by Sir James Stirling of Garden, the Prior for Scotland, at Inverness Cathedral. As always, it is wonderful to recognize the great work the confrères do all over the world.

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Memorial Garden

It is with great pleasure that we report the breaking of ground for a St John Ambulance Garden at the National Memorial Arboretum. It may not be terribly interesting to those confrères outside of the United Kingdom, but it should be a beautiful memorial to the work of the VOSJ and the hospitaller movement in general. The ceremony at which work officially started on the garden took place last week. Currently, it is difficult to make out much of the layout, but we certainly look forward to seeing the promised Maltese cross which is proposed to play a key role in the design. As soon as we have photographs of the garden, we will share them with our readers.

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Well Deserved

Here at the VOSJ Source, we enjoy recognizing those that have been given awards by the Order. We are members, after all, of a confraternity whose main objective is service. A few weeks ago, the Priory of Australia rewarded Margaret Hunt for more than a half century of service to the Order. She was invested as a Dame of Grace of the Order by the Governor of Queensland, Penelope Wensley, on 10 July 2009.

Such news would probably not even reach our ears but for the fact that it was noted in the local media. This is another great point about this event. It has given publicity to the wonderful work that our Order does around the world.

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Master of the Hospitallers

As our first substantive post since returning to the world of blogging, we thought that we'd share some information about a new chance to further your education. The University of Malta has announced that it will begin offering a course of study in October leading to a master of arts degree in Hospitaller Studies. It would seem that we are a little bit slow on the uptake here as the application deadline was a couple of days ago. If anyone is interested, they should e-mail the University to see about starting the course next year.

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Back...

Firstly, we would like to apologize for our extended absence from the wonderful world of blogging. Our original plan had been to return to the pursuit after a short holiday over Christmas. Unfortunately, two of us fell ill shortly after the New Year and were unable to contribute to the musings on the blog. Familial and other constraints limited the time that the third of us could devote and the VOSJ Source fell by the wayside in all of our lives. We have now agreed that we would like to continue and hope to keep updating the blog much more regularly in future. If anyone has interesting or important news of the Venerable Order of St John that passes our notice, please do contact us.

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Holiday

Christmas is closing in on us all. As is our tradition, we will each be taking a holiday starting next week. We will be off on holiday for varying amounts of time, and may not get much updating done on our blog. We will, however, save up all the good bits and report when we return. See you all soon...

Secretary-General

In talking with our fellow confrères, we've determined that there is a lack of knowledge regarding a very important principal officer of the VOSJ. The Secretary-General, an office currently held by Admiral Andrew Gough, is the chief executive officer of the Order and in charge of the Order's headquarters at St John's Gate, Clerkenwell. He also serves as the secretary to the Grand Council and provides twice-yearly reports on the Order Secretariat's activities to all of the priories. According to the Order's regulations, the Secretary-General is accountable directly to the Lord Prior. Admiral Gough does a great deal of traveling on behalf of the Order and has done a great job as Secretary-General since his appointment.

Bravery in the Pyrenees

Yesterday, the VOSJ's award for bravery was presented to a very deserving young man. Will Close-Ash was given the Orders Life Saving Medal for an incident that occured in June. Mr Close-Ash was leading an expedition in the French mountains when it was discovered that a group of tourists had run into some trouble. Under Close-Ash's leadership, the tourists travelers were successfully rescued, and he is now being awarded the silver Life Saving Medal.

According to the Order's regulations, "the Life Saving Medal may be bestowed on a person who has performed a conspicuous act of bravery; in performing that act has endangered his own life; and has performed that act in saving or attempting to save the life of one or more other persons." The medal was instituted in 1874 and the silver has been awarded less than 200 times since then. With the humility that is often present in true heroes, Mr Close-Ash said, “I’m delighted to receive the medal, but even more pleased that all of the men survived. I’m proud of the work my cadets and staff did on the mountain that day, and without their efforts those men would have died.” Congratulations!

Australian Minister Promoted

We saw in the London Gazette recently that Dr Richard Westwood Worth was recently promoted to the grade of knight in the VOSJ. Dr Worth is the Minister of Internal Affairs in Australia and has been continually and quietly serving with the St John Ambulance in that Priory. This is a well-deserved honour--coming fast on the heals of his appointment as Minister. It is always a pleasure to see high-ranking government officials involved in the VOSJ, because it helps to give some visibility to the Order's mission.

Something Funny

As we are often known to do, we were spending some time in the local library this week. We stumbled on a ridiculous book. It appears to be the work of a conspiracy theory group in the western United States, but it specifically mentions the VOSJ, so we thought we would take a look.

The "book" in question is called Taking Off the Blindfold, by G.C. Hatonn. Essentially, it espouses the theory that the entire world is controlled by a Jewish/Satanist group of which HM Queen Elizabeth II is a part. The following paragraph comes from the section of chapter 1 entitled "Knights of the Order of the Garter:"

The Knights of the Order of the Garter are the leaders of the Committee of 300, Queen Elizabeth II’s most trusted “privy council”. When I did my research on the Order of St. John of Jerusalem some years ago, I went to Oxford to talk with one of the Masters who is a specialist on ancient and modern British traditions. He told me that the Knights of the Garter are the inner sanctum, the elite of the elite of Her Majesty’s Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Let me say this is not the original order founded by the true Christian warrior, Peter Gerard, but is typical of many fine institutions that are taken over and destroyed from the inside, while yet appearing to the uninitiated to be the original.

The next section is entitled "Order of Jerusalem (and a Little Satanism!)" and goes more specifically into the VOSJ. Here, the author states:

I learned from the papers in the museum named after Victoria that she changed the name of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in 1885 in order to break away from the Catholic connection of the Order’s founder, Peter Gerard, and renamed it the “Protestant Most Venerable Order of Jerusalem.” Membership was open to every oligarchical family that had made its fortune in the China opium trade and every thoroughly decadent family received a place in the ‘new order.’

The next section brings the discussion to Canada discusses "the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who control Canadian commerce in all of its facets." Now we had a long discussion about this book amongst ourselves. Some of us wanted to make mention of this odd publication and some of us wanted to leave well enough alone. In the end, we decided that the negative consequence of free press for these conspiracy theorists was less than the positive consequence of sharing what a few nuts in Las Vegas think. If we know what misinformation is out there, we can more easily defend ourselves against it...and it was good for a laugh.

Lord Prior Interview

With the installation of a new Lord Prior, the VOSJ has posted a short interview on its webpage. Gemma Mullick, the communications and training coordinator at the Order Secretariat has interviewed Professor Mellows. You can find the interview here. We look forward to seeing what great things Mellows has in store for the VOSJ.

Changing Focus

We were looking at the website of the Priory in the United States of American yesterday and saw that the Priory has finally completed its relocation to a new location. The Priory's historical center has been in New York City since the formation of the American Society of the VOSJ in 1958. The first American investiture service took place at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York on 6 January 1960. This year, the Priory offices have moved to a truly national headquarters--Washington, D.C. This fit very well with the most recent American investiture service held in the same city and also is convenient for the new Prior, who resides in Virginia instead of New York.

Esquires

One of our readers e-mailed us recently to ask us a question regarding the rank of Esquire (Grade VI) in the VOSJ. There was some talk in the last couple of years about getting rid of the grade. In fact, at the May 2006 meeting of the Grand Council, it was decided that Grade VI would in future be abolished as a Grade of the Order. Statutory changes would have been required for this action. Since the statutes have not yet been changed, personal esquires can still be appointed by knights of the Order pursuant to the current Statutes.

Recently, we've heard talk that the grade of Esquire will not be abolished, but only personal esquires. The main problem originally seems to have been that personal esquires could be appointed to the Order by their knights without much involvement from HM The Queen--the Sovereign Head of the VOSJ. To keep this from happening, some wanted to do away with the grade. Priory Esquires are another matter. They are defined in Grand Council Instruction #10 and are appointed by the various Priories and not individual confrères.

The e-mail that sparked this post came from one that hopes to join the Order soon. He wondered if he ought to start as an Esquire or a Member. His main concern was that he was past a certain age. We have seen Esquires that are well into and past middle age. It is true that most of the Esquires in the VOSJ are in their 20s and sometimes their 30s, there is no age limit to the appointment. Esquires do not have most of the same privileges and are entitled to wear the Order's button in their lapel as their only insignia.

So if advising someone who has a choice, we would undoubtedly say that one should be admitted to the Order as a Member and not as an Esquire.