A Thought for Today #2
Posted in Why do so many of the powers that be within our Order assume that once a person completes his Ordeal and gets his sash he instantly becomes a patch collector? At least that’s how so many act.
How many lodge business meetings have you been to where more discussion and effort is put into some patch of some sort, rather than on improving program or service..
What’s the first idea that comes to mind when a lodge needs money? Let’s have a fundraiser patch!
What’s the first scheme used to increase attendance at events? Let’s have a patch!
The lodge is sending a delegation to a national event. They issue a patch!
How do lodges commonly encourage or recognize those who serve as elangomats or give exceptional service? They issue a patch!
The lodge has a significant ocassion that they wish to commemorate. How? They issue a patch!
In many of these cases one patch just won’t do. Amangamek Wipit lodge issued no fewer than 24 patches for the last National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC). Tahosa lodge is planning 30 patches for next Summer’s ArrowCorps5.
It is no secret that the membership of ISCA, the largest collecting organization in the US, and the subscriber base of this site are both very small when compared to the number of currently registered Order of the Arrow brothers. So, why do so many of our lodges act as if all OA brothers are patch collectors?
While patch collecting is certianly fun for some, how much better could the Order and Scouting be if some of the energy devoted to patches was redirected to things that really matter?
The money has to come from somewhere. Donations on a large scale overseas were few and far between. Support just is not what used to be. Of course, some of that is partly due to the current turnover rate over there.
I can tell you raising dues or costs of attending a fellowship or event is something that would not be very well embraced. Parents are the ones that usually fork over the costs for the events. There are so few things people can do over there to raise funds. When I left Europe about all that was left to raise funds for troops were popcorn and x-mas tree sales. Scouts aren’t even allowed to bag to raise funds in the PX anymore.
There isn’t a lot of big collectors in Black Eagle that are currently in Black Eagle. It is usually the folks that were once in Black Eagle. Lodges issues patches to help raise funds because there is enough interest in them. Its cheap, effective, and works. Few people in the lodge during my time horde patches. I can’t even name half dozen people that bought more than 5 of every patch at the trading post. There are a lot of people that buy 1 or 2 or 3. Most of them aren’t really what you can call collectors….They are bought mostly because they look neat or as a souverniors.
You don’t really have to be a patch collector to buy a patch or two.
I agree with you in general. If you issue more patches than you can count on hand for any event with the purpose of raising funds….you gone way over on the deep end. You could very well isolate the same people you counted to help support your lodge.
Its miracle patches have changed as much as they have in the last 10 years in Black Eagle. They were always struggling for someone to design something. At one point no one even cared anymore so they made one patch to last for 3 events. When I joined the flaps and neckerchief they had were in circulation for many years. There was no current lodge backpatch, chenilles, bullions, and etc. The only thing that was always new were the fellowship patches. The lodge never had a NOAC patch until 1996. The first 2-piece set didnt hit the lodge until the 2004 noac. The lodge never did a Jambo flap of any kind until this year for the world jamboree.
I was a collector of patches long before I even hit csps and flaps. So my addiction started well before I hit the normal items…or should I say items with greater monetary value.
Money for projects. You cannot add in the cost of buying 300 new cots at $60 a pop into the lodge dues. In our lodge of 300 that would have been a $68 annual dues that year. How many would pay for that? We continually sell our patches and use our income to buy things for the council camp and to support council programs. Selling several patches over time is a lot easier than trying to sell a bunch quickly. Individual budgets can only afford to buy so many at once.
You don’t have to be a collector to care about patches. We do not sell function patches until Sunday morning. We’ve worked to improve the Sunday morning program, but we have people that stay until Sunday just to get the patch because they paid for it.