Megan Phillips is the recipient of the 2023 Dr John B Lloyd Masonic Bursary Award. James Ross, Head of West Wales Freemasons presented Megan with a cheque for £1500 and a certificate to commemorate the award on Thursday 19^th October 2023 at Aberystwyth University.

The award is given annually by the Provincial Grand Charity of the Masonic Province of West Wales to encourage worthy students to further their education and Megan was selected this year because of her previous outstanding achievement in Higher Education.

Megan is taking a three-year master’s degree in Sustainable and Efficient Food Production, centred around increasing efficiency and reducing the environmental impact with the agricultural industry. Modules including Livestock Nutrition, Agricultural Genetics and Genomics, as well as a final dissertation. The genetics and genomics module will especially benefit her career development.

In addition to her successful academic studies, Megan has won medals for tug of war at the highest levels - gold in the UK championships and silver in the worlds; won stock judging awards; awards for her acting and she recently completed the Leeds Marathon.

The selection of the recipient of the Dr John Lloyd Bursary is handled exclusively by the University, with no input from the province, although the Provincial Secretary and the Provincial Grand Master do receive a copy of the successful candidate’s application. The reason for mentioning this, is that Megan is a graduate trainee at Dunbia Llanybydder and as some of you may be aware the Sales Manager at Dunbia is W Bro Adrian Thomas, the Provincial Assistant Grand Secretary. When the PGM read the CV, he immediately bounced it on to Adrian to see if he knew Megan. Not only did he know her, but they work closely together. Megan is part of the Operations team, currently assigned to Procurement, reporting to the Operations manager, which is where their paths cross. It was an opportunity not to be missed! The PGM invited Adrian to the presentation. Megan was completely unaware that Adrian was a freemason and that he would be at the presentation. Her face was a picture when she finally spotted him at the far end of a very busy meeting room. It was a fun moment, that brightened everyone’s day!

The Province of West Wales wishes Megan every success in her future studies and we look forward to Megan becoming Adrian's boss in due course.