The Three Links Odd Cast

Sovereign Grand Lodge is over for another year and we did another live recording.  This year, we were asking the attendees in Frisco, Texas about whether their jurisdictions were growing or dying, and why they felt that way.  We got a wonderfully diverse group of members from all around the US and Canada to tell us about what's going on in their jurisdictions.  We heard all kinds of stories, from the triumph of a new...

One of the questions that comes to us frequently is if we have any training materials to help prepare members to step up and serve in an elected office.  To that end, we have recorded a series of training episodes to help members feel more comfortable moving up into those roles.  The fourth in our series is about serving as Secretary.  Since most lodges are small and don't have a separate Financial Secretary, we have...

One of the questions that comes to us frequently is if we have any training materials to help prepare members to step up and serve in an elected office.  To that end, we have recorded a series of training episodes to help members feel more comfortable moving up into those roles.  The third in our series is about serving as Treasurer.  These are by no means completely comprehensive; we may have missed something in the...

One of the questions that comes to us frequently is if we have any training materials to help prepare members to step up and serve in an elected office.  To that end, we have recorded a series of training episodes to help members feel more comfortable moving up into those roles.  The second in our series is about serving as Vice Grand.  As the line of officers is progressive, the Vice Grand needs to be familiar with ...

One of the questions that comes to us frequently is if we have any training materials to help prepare members to step up and serve in an elected office.  To that end, we have recorded a series of episodes to help members feel more comfortable moving up into those roles.  The first in our series is about serving as Noble Grand.  These are by no means completely comprehensive; we may have missed something in the proces...

Season six brought some exciting developments to the Three Links Odd Cast.  The biggest one was Meredith Moore joining as co-host and Director of Institutional Research.  We expressed our gratitude for Past Co-host Mike Duminiak and his years of hard work on the show.  We also reviewed and discussed our various episodes from throughout the season.  Some of those highlights included the on-location episode record...

Odd Fellowship is built around the principle of mutual aid, which implies that we should all be of service to one another.  Our current Sovereign Grand Master, Tom Calabrese, exemplifies the spirit of a servant leader.  Modest and unassuming, he has shown throughout his career in Odd Fellowship that he is always ready to pitch in and help out and that spirit of service has extended to his time as Sovereign Grand Master.&n...

Brother Aiden Brink returns to the podcast to share some insight that he has gained about his lodge, degree work, regalia, robes, community involvement, and a host of other topics.  Grab your notepads and get ready to take notes because this episode is chock full of great information that will be useful for every lodge, from the smallest kitchen-table lodge to the biggest traditional lodge.  Changes that can help a lodge ...

There are many historical connections between Texas and Tennessee, from country music to Davy Crockett to Willie Nelson to the many brave Tennesseans who helped defend the Alamo.  Because of those links, it's appropriate that we follow up two very Texan episodes with one from Tennessee.  Recently, Crockett Hall Lodge #59 was re-chartered in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee.  Brother Robert Gentry, who headed up the effort to ...

For nearly 150 years, prior to 2001, the Rebekahs were a strong and vital companion organization to the Odd Fellows.  However, once women were allowed to be Odd Fellows and were no longer restricted to just Rebekah membership, numbers for that unit of the Order started to decline precipitously.  Director of Institutional Research Meredith Moore attended the Testamonial of IARA President Pam Isenhower to meet with and inte...

Odd Fellowship has  a long, proud history in the state of Texas, dating back to Lone Star Lodge No. 1 in Houston, the first lodge chartered outside the United States by the IOOF, in 1845, before Texas joined the union.  A big part of that history was San Antonio Lodge No. 11, only a few steps away from the Alamo, the cradle of Texan independence.  On April 11th, San Antonio Lodge No. 11 was rechartered by the Grand L...

Pine Island, Minnesota is the kind of idyllic Midwestern farm town that most people picture when they think of anywhere in the middle of the country: friendly people, a strong sense of community, and civic pride.  The town also had one other fixture that used to be common in every little town in the Midwest: an Odd Fellows lodge.  Unfortunately, the lodge had fallen on hard times.  Membership was low and the building...

Coulterville, California is a relic of the Gold Rush; a small mountain community nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.  There are 110 residents of the town, which is situated at the crossroads of two state highways that take tourists to and from mountain tourist attractions like Yosemite National Park.  Like so many other towns of the Old West, Coulterville has an Odd Fellows Lodge, but one that was on ...

The annual Odd Market hosted by Tuscola Lodge #316 in Illinois has become a community mainstay.  It didn't start out that way, though.  The beginning had a lot more variety—and lizards.  Sister Rain Martin and Sister Renee Moore join us to talk about the current Odd Market, how it started, how it grew, and how other lodges can copy its success.  There were a lot of challenges along the way (some involving ...

The new year finds us with a new co-host: Sister Meredith Moore of Dallas Lodge #44 in Texas.  Meredith brings a wonderful background in Odd Fellowship and in data collection and analysis to the show and we waste no time in putting her skills to work.  She developed and posted a survey on member burnout that got responses from 37 jurisdictions.  The results are, in most cases, not surprising.  Members like meani...

What exactly is a Grinch, anyway?  Is it a person?  A creature?  An outlook on life that sours every interaction?  The Three Links Odd Cast does another adaptation of a timeless holiday classic focused on Odd Fellowship as we present, "How The Grand Master Stole Christmas."  In our version we get to explore what happens when individual desire supersedes our duties as Odd Fellows and how we can get back in t...

Odd Fellowship isn't something that can be joined casually.  It requires a certain amount of effort to be expended on behalf of those joining the lodge to fill out an application, pay the application fee, and proceed through the interview and initiation.  For the applicant, this process should ensure that they get an opportunity to find out about the nature of the lodge to which they are applying.  For the lodge, thi...

Waxahachie Lodge No. 80 is one of the largest and best-known lodges in North America.  Because of their excellent promotion on social media, they have become household names in the world of Odd Fellowship.  We talk with their Noble Grand, Alex Freeman, about his journey into Odd Fellowship, how it intersects with his professional life, (spoiler alert: he's a tattoo artist) and what it's like to be in charge of such a larg...

We always like to do a cemetery episode during October in keeping with the "spooky" theme of the season.  This year, however, we're not playing up the spooky or macabre side of cemeteries.  Instead, we're looking at the compassionate, caring side of cemetery operations with Brother Jon Hart, manager of the IOOF Memory Gardens in Livermore, California.  Brother Hart had a meandering path to the job, starting with join...