North Midlands Counties "The Operatives"
Welcome to NMCO Operatives
Hello and Welcome to the website of the North Midlands Counties Region of "The Operatives", or to give us our full title "The Worshipful Society of Free Masons, Rough Masons, Wallers, Slaters, Paviors, Plaisterers and Bricklayers."
Introduction To Our Society
OUR RAISON D’ETRE
The Society exists to perpetuate and preserve a memorial of the practices of operative Free Masons existing prior to, or continuing independently of, modern speculative Freemasonry.
OUR REGION
The North Midlands Counties Region has five Assemblages meeting in Dore, Belper, Mansfield, Long Eaton and Burton-on-Trent. The region’s oldest Assemblage is Beauchief Abbey Assemblage which first met in Dore in 1992, and our youngest is Burton Abbey Assemblage constituted in 2014. We have 110 subscribing members including 9 members of VII honoris causa. Membership is open to Master Masons who are also Royal Arch Masons and Mark Masons.
OUR STRUCTURE
The Society is administered by Grand Assemblage, headed by The Three Grand Master Masons who rule as a triumvirate. Current membership is in excess of 2,800, is growing at the rate of over 5% a year and is spread throughout the world, with representation in England and Wales, USA and Canada, South America, Europe, Australasia, South Africa, India, Asia and the Far East. Areas are divided into Regions which are overseen by a Deputy Grand Master Mason with a number of Assemblages within each. There are seven degrees in the Society; The first four are worked in a local Assemblage, the fifth and sixth are worked by the Region and the working of the seventh degree is the sole prerogative of the Three Grand Master Masons.