Support the Order
The Order charges nothing for its teaching. It is sustained by those who value it.
The Charter forbids the Order to charge for instruction, to sell its degrees or to make its membership a means of advantage, and it never has. Its work is sustained by the subscriptions of its members, by the Harrowmere Trust, which holds and maintains the house, and by the gifts of members and friends. The Order does not solicit donations and will not ask you for money. This page exists because enquirers have asked how the Order may be supported, and the Order owes them an honest answer.
What the Order needs
The Order's needs are modest and its accounts are rendered to the Convocation each year. They are, chiefly: the maintenance of Harrowmere House and its garden, which are old and require care; the conservation and cataloguing of the Library, and in particular of the manuscripts in the founders' collections; the Convocation fund, which assists members who cannot otherwise afford to travel to Harrowmere; the hardship fund, from which Commanderies remit the subscriptions of members in difficulty; and the publication of the Harrowmere Papers for the members.
The Harrowmere Trust
Harrowmere House was bequeathed to the Order in 1996 and is held by the Harrowmere Trust, a charitable trust whose trustees are appointed by the Grand Council and whose sole purpose is the preservation of the house, its garden and its Library for the use of the Order and of scholars. The Trust's accounts are audited and are available to any member on request. Gifts to the Trust are applied to the house and Library alone.
How to give
Gifts may be made by cheque or banker's draft payable to the Harrowmere Trust and sent to the Treasurer at the Chancery of the Order, Post Box 1987, Harrowmere Station. The Treasurer acknowledges every gift by post. Gifts may be designated for the house, the Library, the Convocation fund or the hardship fund, or left to the Treasurer's discretion. The Order does not accept gifts by electronic means and has no online giving facility; any website soliciting gifts for the Order by such means is not acting for it.
Members and friends who wish to remember the Order in their wills are asked to name the Harrowmere Trust and to inform the Treasurer, so that the Order may thank them in their lifetime.
What the Order will not accept
The Order does not accept gifts conditional upon any degree, office, recognition or influence in its affairs, and it returns them. It does not name buildings, rooms, lectures or funds after donors. It does not publish the names of donors or the amounts given, save in the audited accounts rendered to the Convocation, where gifts are recorded without names. A gift to the Order buys nothing. That is the point of it.
Other ways to support the Order
The Order is supported most of all by those who keep its Rule. Beyond that, members and friends support it by giving their time to the house and garden at the working weekends held each spring and autumn; by cataloguing and conserving in the Library under the Keeper's direction; by offering hospitality to members travelling to Convocation; and by the simple and difficult work of being courteous in the world, which is the only advertisement the Charter permits.