Our History!

The Victoria Masonic Bulletin Board System (BBS) was born in July 1994. It was a dial-up BBS (single line) running Wildcat as the BBS application and a 2400 baud modem. The Board ran independently of any network. Mail etc. was only internal with in the system.

In mid 1995 the VMBBS joined both Fido and Masnet. Fido was probably the largest network  for BBS's in the world. Masnet was a strictly Masonic Network. At that time there were approx. 12 Masonic BBS's in Masnet. Most in the USA and Canada, but some in the UK.

The VMBBS owes an un-payable debt to it's fellow Masnet Sysops. They provided technical advice, moral support and many of the Masonic files that now make up the extensive VMBBS file library. We would be amiss if we didn't single out Bro. Dave Stites who was and still is an inspiration to the Masonic World in general and to all who have struggled to bring Masonry to the electronic medium of computers and the internet.

In early 1998 the VMBBS turned down it's dial-up server (after 5 years of continuous operation) and went to the Web. Since then the Victoria Masonic Web Site has maintained a major presence on the World Wide Web.

We continue to support the main goals as set out with the establishment of the original Dial BBS. Masonic education is our main objective. We accomplish this by maintaining and adding to the Masonic files available through the VM Web Site. We are always looking for contributors and will provide access to all Freemasons. The files are excellent for general study, serious research and education lectures with in Lodges.

We also support our original secondary goal which was to be a focus for electronic communications between Freemasons. This appears to be not so critical on the WWW due to the proliferation of mail lists. Even so, we maintain a mail list. The mail list provides the ability to send out select articles to members who have chosen to add their email addresses to the mail list. 

We welcome comments or suggestions.