Lodges 70 and 104: A Very Odd Coincidence
Posted in Occoneechee 104, SR-7B Lodges, Tsoiotsi Tsogalii 70 by John E. Pannell on March 22nd, 2007 at 5:46 am 
Here in the Southeast we hold our Section Conclaves in April. It is customary for lodges to have a theme for their delegations, in order to create an espirit d’corps among the brothers. If a lodge decides to issue a conclave flap, it will usually depict that theme.
Usually this theme is not disclosed outside the lodge until conclave, so I breaking custom by disclosing it here. Picture here is the artwork for Lodge 70’s conclave flap. The theme should be self-evident.
Occoneechee 104 chose “Happy Halloween” as their theme this year and have already issued several patches. This is where things start to get odd.
At our (lodge 70) Fall Fellowship last weekend, there was discussion about the conclave theme. The leading candidate at that point was to do something around a Halloween theme. A potential flap was even designed. The newly elected EC had other ideas and at LLD chose the James Bond theme instead.
But that’s not all!
Occoneechee lodge also had their own thoughts on their lodge’s theme. Ironically their second choice was James Bond… and they had artwork for a flap!
Just imagine the reaction if each lodge had gone ahead and used these two flaps! Neither lodge knew what the other was thinking as, by custom, this is not usually discussed with members of other lodges until Conclave, or shortly before it. The designers of both patches had no contact with each other, and don’t even know each other.
I find it very interesting both lodges were set to interpret this theme in almost identical manners on their patches. Tsoiotsi Tsogalii 70’s conclave flap will not be issued until Friday evening at the SR-7B conclave, as is customary. I hope I don’t get too much flack for disclosing the theme before then.
I come from an area in which a lot of this is completely foreign. I just checked, and NONE of the lodges in my old section (NE-6, now NE-4C) have EVER issued a flap or patch for a conclave delegation except for a small handful of host lodge issues. (Susquehannock XI, Nentego 20, Guneukitschik 317, and Tuckahoe 386 have had host flaps; Amangamek Wipit 470 had a host neckerchief; Nentico 12 has never had more than host t-shirts.) This past year it appears that Susquehannock XI had a delegation neckerchief, which would be the first non-host-lodge issue in the history of the section.
(BTW, John–I noticed the Susquehannock XI listing does not have their ‘99 Conclave Host flap… I’ll try to remember to send you the image when I’m at home.)
Also foreign to me is the notion of a delegation “theme”–the conclaves themselves have themes, but delegations have not.
John: While it is the time for the Southern sections to have their conclaves (Dixie Fellowship in SC/ GA, Florida has a Section Conference), the themed activity flaps are not a Southern thing. A few lodges in Florida have had contingent patches (265, 237, 200), but those are usually part of their year’s themed activity patches. Flaps and other items made by the host lodge are much more common.
BTW: Echockotee 200 is hosting the S-4S Conference. Two host flaps, host pocket patch, host jacket patch, host neckerchief, host chenille. And available to the host members once they arrive, a host CSP (Florida Gators - The King of College Sports). Oddly enough, when compared to O-Shot-Caw 265, this year’s list is pretty restrained.
Well, the theme thing is done in both SR-7B and SR-5 (Dixie) and aren’t the Carolinas the center of the South… You mean the world doesn’t revolve around them?
It could be argued, that Robert makes my point by telling how some of the FL lodges tie this in with their themed activity patches… no?
I’ll have to ask: how will all the 200 host items be catalogued? That’s an ongoing argument I have with some folks down there. For reasons I never really understood or agreed with, it seems only the flaps get listed??
What can I say….great minds think alike! It’s bound to happen sooner or later on a couple of lodges within the Section having the same theme the way we fail to disclose our themes to the other 5 lodges…but with almost identical patch designs and no communication between the two designers….well that’s spooky….Happy Halloween!!!