Echockotee Lodge 200 Ceremonial Committee Patches
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At the Echockotee Lodge 200 Spring Fellowship last weekend, the Ceremonial Committee released their set of patches created as an incentive to increase participation in their programs. The set includes a pocket patch with a WHT background (X-21?; 250 made), to be sold for $7 each, in order to finance the incentive program, and a BLK background (X-22?; 100 made), to be given to those that participate in a ceremony as a character. The last piece is a jacket patch (J-3?; 100 made), to be given to those that participate in four ceremonies.
Some of the lodge members noticed a few problems with these patches:
1) On the pocket patches, there are no button loops; therefore, no way to wear them on the pocket.
2) On the jacket patch, there is no lodge name, number, WWW, or anything that relates this emblem with Ceremonies. Aside from the handclasp (totem of Echockotee 200), future collectors may ponder the origin of this item.
3) At 9.75 inches in diameter, this is the largest patch in the Echockotee collection. It is also too big to fit in a standard binder, with the rest of the lodge collection.
As an adult member of Echockotee 200, my own opinion has the equivalent value of squat. But for what it is worth, patches and other collectables are seen by many leaders and executives as the first and easiest available option to create incentives for participation and fundraising, when there are other ways to attract activity without depending on collectors. To paraphrase Rick Obermeyer: “It is assumed that there is something magical that happens in the Ordeal ceremony, that turns ordinary Scout and Scouters into patch collectors.”
And, there was also the patch for the Fellowship, part of the 2008 series “Florida’s Coral Reef”. 
600 patches were made, and with over 400 in attendance, all have been sold.
Actually there is a way to wear those chevron shaped pocket patches. It’s old-fashioned and heretical to some patch collectors.
They can be sewn onto the uniform!
Not everyone may become a patch collector that obsesses over patches, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about patches. We have a patch for each function and it is not distributed until clean up is over on Sunday. Before the patch we had maybe 25% stay through clean up. Now it’s 99.9%. Why? Because they paid for a patch, they want it. Because “I attended, I want it to remember.” Most of those guys will never buy another patch to be part of a collection. People do care about patches whether you think they do or not.
Maybe the boy really doesn’t care about the patch, but he’s willing to be on the ceremony team to get one. One possible reason? Because he can turn around and sell that restricted patch to some adult or youth that did not participate. The boy is thinking “cha ching, $25-60″, suckers.”
Every time Rick brings up this argument I ask “what are these other incentives that actually work?” Boys want real recognition not just an applause in the dining hall after supper, not just a cheap certificate that’ll get left on the table after a banquet.
We don’t make LEC issues (we reward the LEC with trinkets that are unique and useful in everyday life), but we make a ceremony/elangomat issue. I can’t earn one and I’m one of the suckers that has to fork over the $25-60 to get one. I still support it because in the end it really works and sometimes even helps a youth build a collection to get those older pieces that are worth more than a flap.
My lodge has recently initiated a “Sunday distribution” patch policy at its events. The first application of this will be this coming weekend, presumably for the same reason Mike B states.
They also have significantly increasted the weekend fee and raised the price for Saturday dinner (for those who come up just for the evening) from $5 to $15. I have been told the reason for this was that it was felt the lodge was not making enough money on the event.
It will be interesting to see how folks respond. It seems like a bad move to force folks to stay until Sunday… on PALM SUNDAY.
As for too many leaving lodge events on Saturday, instead of Sunday… Gee, maybe if there was a PROGRAM on Sunday folks would want to stay.
I know my response. I knocked me off the fence, in a manner of speaking. This year, I will miss my first Spring Fellowship since the lodge was formed. I just don’t care about the patch anymore… it’s not a bullion. ACC basketball seems more entertaining.
Mike B:
I have believed that patches and other emblems should represent a lodge, but they should not define a lodge. It is one thing to have cool patches for the emblems of membership (i.e. flaps) and for lodge events, but quite another thing for patches to become the means to every end, without consideration for other solutions. From what you have indicated here, your lodge is unable to recruit ceremonialists without creating a special collectable for them to hold over the rest of the membership, and that your lodge cannot clean up after their weekends without withholding the weekend patch. If you are who I think you are, then I know that this is not the case, that your lodge should not be defined by its patches and the policies surrounding issuance and distribution.
I do not know what your lodge has done in the past to recruit Arrowmen for your Ceremonial Team. If your lodge has tried other methods of recruitment, such as communication within the lodge of the need for more ceremonialists, one-on-one recruiting, workshops at lodge events to train on the importance of these activities, and other attempts to involve Lodge members from beyond one or two metropolitan areas within your lodge’s area, and these efforts have not worked, then perhaps an emblem would be the next step to consider. From what you have indicated here, however, the motivation is still based on the idea that “Arrowmen are collectors”, and the value of these emblems is not based on the purpose of the emblem, but the ability of a participant to squeeze as much “cha ching” out of the “suckers”. This may be a good lesson for the American Business merit badge, but not brotherhood. The incentive that you speak of is beyond applause in a Dining Hall, it is a means by which they can trade their service for cash. And while the price may go up for rarer and rarer “appreciation pieces”, it cheapens the service for which it is meant to recognize. It also creates the incentive for other committees to create their own, even more exclusive “incentive”, as a means to compete.
Pavlov’s dog, thy name is “Arrowman”?
Egwa Tawa Dee’s contungent to its 2007 Area Conclave was about 120 people. Let’s say a third of those were adults. That means that they fielded six (that’s right, 6) ceremonial teams to compete out of only about 80 yiuth. They do not have a ceremonial team patch, so those youth are finding motivation someplace. Maybe their version of the Ordeal ceremony is missing that particular transformation spell.
Do you really need to have people there at camp who won’t otherwise stay without getting a patch? The reason for doing that is…. ?
-Rick O.