IT is a special year indeed for the Loyal Orders, and for the City Grand Master, Victor Wray, this year's celebrations will have special significance as he has been invited to take a seat at a three day conference of the Imperial Grand Council.
The council meets every three years and was last held in Northern Ireland when it was held in Belfast in 1997. The three day conference on issues affecting the Orange Institution will include more than 100 delegates from the Grand Orange Lodge of I
reland, England, Scotland, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Togo and Ghana.
Commenting on the Council, Victor said: "We are only allowed one representative from Londonderry, because only one representative is allowed to go from each specific area, and as City Grand Master I was asked to attend.
"It is a great honour to be representing your city, firstly, and when you are up there you are representing the whole Orange Institution of the City of Londonderry and there may be some points that you can pick up that you can pass on to the rest of the community," he said.
On a personal level, he said the invite to attend as a delegate was "a great privilege and honour".
"I thought I would never ever be invited to the Grand Orange Council of the World. It is a great privilege," he said.
Now serving as City Grand Master, Victor said he had another three years to go before his tenure at the top was over - his intention is to serve for at least five years.
"This is a very big thing for me. It starts on July 14, so we barely have time before they go to Scarva on July 14, and the conference starts then on the 15th at the Sormont Hotel."
On the table will be all matter from Institutions from all over the world, encompassing religion and community voluntary working.
Asked what he hoped to bring to the conference, he said: "We in the city were the first ones that, we feel, brought the parades issue to a head and got the parades back in the city, the formum we have with the business people, the clergy and the Chamber of Commerce, and that is one of the things I hope to bring to the Conference. What I hope to bring home from it includes whatever ideas stand out at the conference that work in the rest of the world that maybe we could try them here - including the possibility of changing rules to bring the Order into a more up-to-date position."
