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M.W. Bro. Raymond S. J. Daniels was born in Orillia, Ontario, where
he attended public and high school. At an early age, musical studies
enabled him to become an organist and choirmaster serving at several
churches in southern Ontario. He is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier
University with a degree in music and history and holds diplomas
from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, and Trinity College
of Music, London, England.
His professional life was spent as a teacher, conductor, composer
and keyboard performer. For twenty-three years he taught music and
history at Eastwood Collegiate in Kitchener, where he helped
establish the Arts Program. In 1991 he was awarded the K-W Arts
Council Award for Music in recognition of artistic achievement in
the community.
Daniels was initiated into Freemasonry, passed and raised in his
father’s lodge, Orillia No. 192, Orillia, in 1959. He served as
Worshipful Master of New Hope Lodge No. 279, Cambridge (now Mystic
Tie Lodge No. 279), and was the founding Worshipful Master of New
Light Lodge No. 744, a daylight lodge instituted in Waterloo
District in 2001. He is a member by affiliation of several lodges,
and has been accorded Honorary Membership in others.
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Grand Master,
M.W. Bro. Raymond S.J. Daniels |
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Between 1999 and 2002 he served as Secretary to the Lodge of
Instruction Team with M.W. Bro. C. Edwin Drew, the Custodian of the
Work. Daniels was elected Grand Junior Warden 2000-2001, and was
appointed to the Board of General Purposes in 2001, and subsequently
elected in 2003 and 2005, where he served as Chairman of the
Membership Resources Committee and the Committee on Masonic
Education. He is the Grand Representative to the Grand Lodge of
Quebec. Daniels was elected to the office of Deputy Grand Master at
the Annual Communication in July 2007 and installed and invested as
Grand Master on July 16, 2009.
Daniels is a member of several Appendant and Concordant bodies in
both the York Rite and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. He is
Past Principal of the Kitchener Chapter No. 117, Royal Arch Masons,
Past Most Wise Sovereign of the Guelph Chapter Rose Croix and Past
Senior Grand Deacon of the Grand Council of Allied Masonic Degrees
of Canada. He was coroneted Honorary Inspector-General 33° Supreme
Council of Canada in 2005 and was inducted into the Royal Order of
Scotland in 2003. He is also a member of Mocha Temple, Ancient
Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and Preston Springs
Chapter No. 208, Order of the Eastern Star. Daniels is a Fellow of
the College of Freemasonry.
Since 1968, he has resided in Kitchener with his wife Brenda. Times
of relaxation and refreshment are spent at their cottage in Muskoka.
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