Digital gateway Portal takes Freemasons a step closer to the future, says Grand Secretary

You’re going to have better access to your own data and UGLE’s online resources thanks to the continuing development of digital gateway Portal, Grand Secretary Adrian Marsh told those attending December’s Quarterly Communications meeting at Freemasons Hall.

With more than a third of UGLE members now registered, Portal is on the threshold of new features and functions on its journey to replacing Hermes and Adelphi and being the future of Freemasonry for the 21st century.

He said Adelphi and Hermes were expensive to maintain and cumbersome to develop, adding: “In contrast every subscribing or honorary member can register and have access to Portal, which has been built using open system architecture which is cost effective to maintain and simple to develop.

“In the foundation phase Portal has provided access to your personal data, memberships, and meeting dates.It gave you control of privacy settings as well as allowing you to explore and find Lodges and Chapters throughout our constitution. Put simply, if you change your phone number or email address you can now change it and ensure you will receive all messages and communications from Grand Lodge, your Province or your Lodge.”

The next steps will be:

• It will replace ADelphi and Hermes
• It will assist with Secretarial and Treasurer tasks, making them easier for those officers
• It will provide and facilitate engagement with members to enable them to get more out of their membership
• It will provide them with abilities not only to search for Lodges/Chapters but also search for ceremonies, find special interest units, and ultimately book in and visit
• It will also streamline the process of handling direct entry or unsponsored candidates by providing tools for membership teams so they can deal effectively with the growing number of enquiries we receive.
• It will serve as a ‘Portal’ to every member as the gateway to other online resources such as Solomon, FMT live and First Rising.

“Ultimately you will only need to sign in to Portal and then be recognised across our digital estate, giving you simple, secure access to everything you need from one place – a true digital gateway for Freemasons,” he added.

He went on to say: “It has been a challenge to manage how we are developing the application. We are planning regular phases to introduce new functionality, each one providing more features, not only for officers, but also for members. Things we have never done before, but which we hope will engage and encourage you to make the most from our glorious fraternity and improve our overall members’ experience.”

Significant amongst them was the introduction of the ‘My Friends’ feature. He said: “A new mason using Portal, explained that the thing he loved most about his Freemasonry was visiting other Lodges and meeting new people. He then said “wouldn’t it be great, rather than jotting down contact details on an old summons or a menu, if I could just open Portal and go ‘tap’ to connect with someone, so he could visit my Lodge and I could visit his?”

Watch a video of ‘My Friends’ in action at this link.

He went on: “The new year will bring a major part of the internal functionality of Portal, allowing us to recognise who you are and then what you need to have access to. So, for example, a Secretary needs to have access to the details of all of his Lodge or Chapter members, but only for the unit for which he is the Secretary. So someone who is a member of one Lodge, but Secretary of a second should only have member access to the details in the first Lodge, but Secretary access to the members in the other. This is what ACL does. It is basically the holder of our data access rules.

“Other things which then become possible are providing Visiting Officers with the ability to see the members of the Lodges/Chapters for which they are responsible, or for the Provincial Grand Master and his Executive team to be able to see the details of all members within their Province or District.”

Being trialled at the moment are options to manage of Festive Boards, with members booking in and paying online, and to manage Lodge dues and expenses. “These, I have been told by the pilot Lodge secretaries, are game changers for them.”

Next summer a major revision will make it possible for Lodge Secretaries and Chapter Scribes when their Annual Returns will be completed on Portal. The next release after that will look toward meeting planning and the registration process. With these you will be able to search for ceremonies you might be interested in seeing at Lodges or Masonic Halls and be able to contact the secretary to enquire about visiting.

He urged everyone present who had yet to register to do so, and to encourage other members to do the same. “If they can’t do it, help them to do so,” he added.

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