Learnings online

The Learning and Development Team’s W Bro Nick Brown describes Solomon Fellowcraft Onboarding – a series of sessions for Fellowcrafts to discuss, debate and speculate

What is onboarding? A four-week series of webinars and interactive resources to encourage Fellowcraft Freemasons to learn about the lessons of the second degree and reflect on what the teachings mean to them.

We are all on a journey as we strive to learn and develop in our beloved Craft. We know that often we learn best with the support and encouragement of others, in a community we call lodges. This can be even better when there are opportunities to be more involved and ask questions. The onboarding course was put together with those areas in mind and the following programme of events has been created:

THE PROGRAMME

Week 1 Setting the scene Week 2 Webinar Week 3 Discussion panel Week 4 Reflection and participant empowerment

At every Freemason’s initiation, a commitment is made to try and make a daily advancement in masonic knowledge, and perhaps learn something about the history of the Fraternity or indeed develop confidence. Solomon is a tool for every Freemason to do just this.

While I was very disappointed that the virus prevented me from being raised last April, the onboarding has been invaluable in making me focus on this degree that otherwise I’d have probably rushed through to get to the next stage. By going through the details and extra materials and discussions, it’s meant more and provided extra understanding that I believe will stand us in good stead for the future. Thanks to all the team for the hard work putting it together and delivering it so well. I’ve enjoyed the Fellowcraft Onboarding. I like the structure, the progression, and how it encouraged readings and contemplations that I probably would not have otherwise engaged in to this depth. Given that the second degree is normally not paid much attention, it made me ask myself if perhaps lodges should encourage or require craftsmen to make some form of presentation on their researches and insights into the degree, before progressing to the third. It could be a short refl ection in lodge or at the Festive Board, written or oral – just something to gently encourage some refl ection on it to appreciate the degree. While being unable to join the live webinars due to attempting to negotiate bedtime for a three- and oneyear-old, I have very much enjoyed the learning afforded by this course. I do wish a similar course was available as an entered apprentice and am delighted to hear that is in the works. I would go as far as to suggest that, to enhance new initiates’ engagement with Freemasonry at an early stage, an onboarding course on Solomon should be encouraged. Thank you W Bro Nick Brown and team for the time and effort put in to this course. PROOF POSITIVE

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HOW TO REGISTER

You can register by scanning this QR code with your smartphone or copying solomon.ugle.org.uk in the browser address bar.

You will not be able to fi nd Solomon by searching for it on Google or the search line of your browser. Solomon is not registered on search engines and is only accessible directly from the address:

solomon.ugle.org.uk

On the front page, there is Getting Started with Solomon, a module that is open to everyone and provides details of how to use the system as well as help videos, quick-start guides, and a link to create an account on Solomon that will take you through the simple process of registration. Fill in your details, and once you have received the confi rmation email, log in, select your fi rst module and enrol.

If you are using a smartphone, you may want to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader app fi rst, as this will ensure that the PDFs used on Solomon retain their format.