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January 10th, 2010
Nisha Kittan 114: First Flap Issued
Previously I had reported of the formation of Nisha Kittan lodge, in Lewis and Clark Council, from the merger of Kishkakon 32 and Taleka 81. Thanks to Rich Dillow, I now have an image of the lodge's newly issued first flap. The lodge has decided to use 114 as a lodge number. As far as I know there are no other issues from this lodge at this time.
The design of the flap a simple portrayal of the lodge's black wolf totem, depicted baying at a full moon. It's nicely done. However some observant collectors, especially those in the Southern Plains may find this patch rather familiar looking. I have to wonder if the designer of this flap was inspired by another patch.
Read the Full Post on blog.oaimages.com
October 27th, 2009
Never Assume
There is an old adage about what happens if one assumes. Randy Holden recently gave me an example of why one shouldn't assume.
A few years ago this privately made patch bearing the name and number of "Unilachtego 107". Given the history of lodge 107 and what was already published in Blue Book, and a proclivity for the recycling of some old lodge names, I assumed this was a predecessor lodge to Kon-Kon-Tu 107 that never had an authentic issue. That was where I was wrong.
Read the Full Post on blog.oaimages.com
August 30th, 2009
The Unknown Lodges
The Unknown Lodges (Originally printed in Blue Book reprinted with permission of the American Scouting Historical Society)
by Jeff Morley and Bill Topkis
It is hard to imagine the Order of the Arrow of the early 1920s. The scouting program itself was less than 15 years old and the Boy Scouts of America was only one of several scouting organizations competing for national dominance. In those days, the program was not even called Order of the Arrow. What we now know as the OA began in 1915 as Wimactendienk W. W. and was one of several honor camper societies to form during the first decade of Scouting.
Based upon the few first-hand accounts by members who were active in the 1920s, minutes of early meetings of the Grand Lodge and the official History of the Order of the Arrow by Kenneth Davis, an amazing picture of the orders early years begins to emerge.
Scout councils began procuring their own camps in the early to mid 1920s. Before then, it was commonplace for councils to share large camp areas. Three such areas were Treasure Island on the Deleware River near Philadelphia, Lake Kawonanke, and Crystal Lake in New York. Scout encampments from many councils co-existed along the shores of the latter two locations and in the case of Kawonanke Lake, we know that well over thirty different scout councils had campgrounds there at the same time. In circumstances such as these, it is easy to see that if one council utilized a popular honor camper society, it would not be long before the idea would spread to neighboring council camps and such was the case in the early days.
Read the Full Post on blog.oaimages.com
August 25th, 2009
Guest Editorial: On Patch Restrictions
Rick Obermeyer taught a training session on "Ethical Patch Distribution" at NOAC earlier this month. The topic of patch restrictions often arises in conversation both at NOAC and elsewhere. It is raised often enough that he included an answer to this question in his handouts. I share this here with his permission.
Q4: How do you feel about restrictions?
A4: That really isnt in the context of this session, but since we have time, Ill give you my personal opinions, if you like. I cant speak on restrictions for everybody. That would be too presumptuous. I can only talk about what works for my own lodge back home. Shall I go ahead?
How my lodge feels about restrictions is based on some premises. The first premise is that we are all brothers in the Order of the Arrow. That is, equal brothers. We all got into the OA the same way, with election by others. If we have Brotherhood membership, thats because we all individually made a personal promise to accept the challenge to cheerful service that was shown to us during the Ordeal. If we are Vigil, that is a sign given to indicate that others feel that we have done a decent job of keeping that personal promise we made to ourselves at Brotherhood.
Read the Full Post on blog.oaimages.com
August 22nd, 2009
Patch Trading at NOAC
Now this is patch trading!
Jason Spangler, aka The Santee Swapper, took out his video camera during the evening patch trading at NOAC. Rather than showing every single patch that was out there -- an almost impossible task if I say so myself -- he wanted to capture the atmosphere of patch trading in Read Hall. The video clip is after the jump.
Read the Full Post on blog.oaimages.com
August 18th, 2009
2009 NOAC: Who Had the Most Patches?
Now that NOAC is over we can start to get a better grasp on what the lodges issued for this event. I would not be surprised if there's ultimately close to 1500 issues from the approximately 300 lodges. Keep those images coming.
Today's question: Which lodge issued the most patches for NOAC. Skyuka 270 had 14 pieces and they are not a lodge known for its large quantity of issues. Has anyone issued more?
I think there's at least 11 issues from Amangamek Wipit (not yet online) so they could be a contender with a few more patches. Wipala Wiki has been known for a large number of NOAC patches in past years, but I've not seen much from them yet.
On the other extreme: Were there any lodges in attendance that issue no patches for NOAC?
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Archive for June, 2008
Change is good, but I prefer improvement. Many Americans are disappointed in their annointed choices for this year’s presidential election. So, I would like to offer up an alternative that might be appealing to readers of this blog.
The video after the break is worth watching… really… 
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"Andy Warhol said we all get our 15 minutes of fame. I've already had an hour and a half. I mean, I'm so overexposed, I'm making Paris Hilton look like a recluse."
Barack Obama
A group of Rovers from the Boy Scouts of the Phillipines have produced a tribute to the four Iowa Scouts killed when a tornado destroyed their camp earlier this month.
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"I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously."
Charles De Gaulle
The eight remaining lodges of Area 6-A once again met for their area fellowship in 1956. The patch pictured here is the only item I know of that was issued for this event.
While the lodges of this area did meet in 1955, I know of no memorabilia issued for that year.
The patch design this year breaks with the standard of graphically simple designs of previous fellowships. While not a common piece, this patch can be found with some effort.
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"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
Ronald Reagan
The eight remaining lodges of Area 6-A once again met for their area fellowship in 1954.
This patch’s design is probably among the more questionable conclave designs I have seen in this part of the country. A caricature like this could not be produced to day. Such a cartoon-like depiction of an American Indian would be considered offensive today.
This started a period of nearly 30 years during which there was no change in the composition of this section. These lodge would remain together in Area 6-A until the BSA reorganized its 12 areas into six regions. Then starting in 1974 these eight lodges formed SE-3A until 1982.
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"An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field."
Niels Henrik David Bohr
Here is the next entry in the series of posts on state shaped patches, and state shapes used in patches. About a third of the states have now been covered. Previous entries may be found in the category, “These 50 States.”
The list for Indiana is rather short. Most of the lodges headquartered in Indiana have since merged or been absorbed by other lodges. The few remaining active lodges in this state are not known as prolific issuers of patches.
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"If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time."
Marian Wright Edelman
Unless you’ve been living in a cave or out in the woods, you now know that George Carlin recently died. He now no longer has to worry about what words you can say on TV, or about finding a place for his stuff. He now has all eternity to think about the differences between baseball and football.
He may have been a comedian but in many ways he was prescient when it comes to dealing with the arrogance of those who believe man can destroy the planet.
It should go without saying, but some of the language in the video after the jump isn’t safe for work.
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"The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. "
Mark Twain
The eight remaining lodges of Area 6-A once again met for their area fellowship in 1953. Lodge 188 rejoined their brothers from western North Carolina in Area 6-B. Though there have since been two lodge mergers, this area now covered the same geographical territory as today’s SR-7B.
This started a period of nearly 30 years during which there was no change in the composition of this section. These lodge would remain together in Area 6-A until the BSA reorganized its 12 areas into six regions. Then starting in 1974 these eight lodges formed SE-3A until 1982.
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"When you have eliminated the impossible, what ever remains, however improbable must be the truth."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
After the 1949 Area I meeting the Order of the Arrow’s areas were reorganized conform to the BSA’s twelve areas. This resulted in North Carolina being split between two areas.
The nine lodges in eastern and north central North Carolina formed Area 6-A. These included 70 Tali Taktaki, 104, 117, 118, 163 Tslagi, 188, 208, 296 and 331. This grouping only last a few years as Itibapishe Iti Hollo moved to Area 6-B for the 1953 fellowships.
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"They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves. "
Calvin Coolidge
The ten OA lodges of North Carolina returned to Morrow Mountain State Park for the 1948 Area I meeting. This was the third of three area fellowships held at this location, all hosted by Itibapishe Iti Hollo 188.
This year marks the issuance of the first patch with a design unique to this area’s meeting. As a commenter to an earlier post stated, the design used from 1945-1947 was also used elsewhere.
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"We have scarcely gotten home ... when our children's sneezes greet us, skinned knees bleed after waiting all day to do so. There is the bellyache and the burned-out basement bulb, the stalled car and the incontinent cat. The windows frost, the toilets sweat, the body of our spouse is one cold shoulder and the darkness of our bedroom is soon full of the fallen shadows of our failures."
William H Gass
The ten OA lodges of North Carolina gathered again at Morrow Mountain State Park for the 1947 Area I meeting. This was the second of three area fellowships held at this location, all hosted by Itibapishe Iti Hollo 188. The meeting date was to late October.
This year marks the issuance of the first neckerchief for a North Carolina area fellowship. It is a simple red silk-screened design on white cloth, very similar to the 1945 slide and 1946 patch. It would be many years until another conclave neckerchief was issued for this group of lodges.
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"We first have to find the way of freedom from involvement before we can introduce freedom in involvement."
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
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Recent OAImages News
December 5th, 2009
A Fun Few Days
I'm sure most of you noticed the problems this site has been having over the past few days. It went offline several times. It was a frustrating experience. To add to my woes, I somehow managed to pick up some "bad stuff" on my computer at home. The last time I had this much trouble with my site, server, and home PC I was also let go from my job. Luckily that did NOT happen!
"Techie Talk" follows...
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October 4th, 2009
Blocked Emails
I have been made aware this evening of a couple of issues with email.
Hotmail is currently blocking email from some RoadRunner servers at this time. RoadRunner is my ISP and my outgoing mail, except for messages automatically generated by my server come from there. RoadRunner currently has published this notice:
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September 30th, 2009
More NOAC Images
To those who are wondering where the rest of the NOAC patches are... A large group will be uploaded to the site later today or this evening. I'm working on large groups from the 200s and 300s ranges of lodge numbers right now. Stay tuned.
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September 21st, 2009
Temporary Email Outage: Resolved
Last Friday RoadRunner started blocking email from my server because of spam without my knowledge. I had been filtering all my incoming mail at OAImages through my RoadRunner so as to filter out most of the several hundred spam messages that I get every day. RoadRunner apparently did not like that. I had no idea the server was being blocked until I saw over 800 notices that email was rejected on my server's queue last night.
This is now resolved and I am now receiving mail again, but it is coming directly (unfiltered) to me from my server, spam and all. I am currently working to block the spam.
If anyone sent me email between Friday morning (9/18) and this morning (9/21), please don't assume I received it. I probably did not see it. Please send again.
Thank you.
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August 7th, 2009
OA Blue Book Going "Web 2.0"
One of the big items of discussion at the recent pre-NOAC TOR was the fate of Blue Book. For those who don't know, the various legal issues in which this became entangled are now resolved. The new editor in chief of the Blue Book is Roy More. His desire is to maintain this resource in electronic and online forms. It has become impractical to publish this in book form as was done for the first six editions.
The goal is to create an "ever green" resource, with active input by collectors. It will be going "Web 2.0" in many respects. OAImages, will remain an integral part in this. This does not mean uncontrolled anarchy though, with lodge listings being changed at will by anyone who chooses. Roy writes:
...OA Blue Book will not become a Wikipedia. This is a standards (sic) project which means there must be structure, discipline and stability. That said, Blue Book will become much more open for all...
There are still many issues that need to be worked out. Roy More has started a blog at oabluebook.com to discuss some of the various issues that need to be resolved. There are only a few posts there now, but he plans to update this frequently. Please check this out and comment on the posts there.
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April 1st, 2009
New Policies on Patches Announced
This post covers an important change in policy that will soon become effective regarding patches issued for all Order of the Arrow lodges chartered by the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Please read the whole post carefully.
At a recent meeting at the National Headquarters of the Boy Scouts of America, it was announced that a new policy will be put in place by both the Boy Scouts of America and the NationalOrder of the Arrow Committee regarding lodge patch issues. Further announcements and clarifications will be made at this Summer's National Order of the Arrow Conference and at section conclaves throughout the year. This policy will be effective September 1, 2009.
All lodge flaps, and patches issued as multiple piece sets (most commonly two-piece sets) must be ordered through BSA Supply Division, or an official BSA licensee. The national OA and the BSA has decreed that all items must be produced in a minimum quantity of 1000 (one thousand) pieces. In the case where a lodge wishes to make minor changes in design or colors, 1000 of each must be produced.
Should the lodge feel they do not need that many pieces to suit their needs, the BSA Supply Division will purchase all remainders from the manufacturer and retain them. They will be available to the lodges should more be needed. At the BSA's discretion, they will also be made available for sale in all BSA run Scout shops.
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