OAImages Blog

This past weekend was the annual “Conch Craziness Weekend”, hosted by Nok-Su Chapter of O-Shot-Caw Lodge 265 in the Florida Keys. Folks came from four different lodges to attend, with the furthest attendee travelling over 500 miles to Camp Sawyer (Mile Marker 34 oceanside, just north of Big Pine Key). Still, a longer trip than the Cuban refugees that sailed their raft a few weeks ago, to land on the shores of the camp. Continue Reading »

John has beaten me to the punch with postings about the recent Section S-4S Conference. Osceola Lodge 564 hosted the event, held at Flying Eagle Scout Reservation near Bradenton. Over 1000 Arrowmen were in attendance. The number of patch traders seemed to be lower than usual, making it hard to find some of the more difficult items. Along with the host items that John had previously mentioned, three lodges (Aal-Pa-Tah 237, Echockotee 200, and O-Shot-Caw 265) made items for their lodges’ attendance at the Conference.

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Several of the S-4S lodges issued odd-shape patches for their delegates to the 2008 S-4S conclave. Collectors are not united in their opinion on how to list lodge delegate patches that are not flaps. Until the listing are officially updated, I have listed them as odd-shapes, “X” issues, in the main body of lodge issues.

Echockotee lodge’s issue is a gray bordered oval. In keeping with the lodge’s sea life theme for its 2008 activity patches, this issue depicts an eel. I have listed this on the site as “X26?”.

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.

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 At the 2008 Winter Fellowship this past weekend, Echockotee 200 began their series of themed event patches for the year, along with the annual “year patch”.  With the theme of “Florida’s Coral Reef”, the year patch measures 10.25 inches at its widest point, by 7.25 inches at its tallest point.  And it has 22 colors.

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 Also made available this weekend is a flap (S-34?) by Echockotee 200, for the ArrowCorps5 trip this summer.  The lodge sold these for $15 each, and all 250 were sold out. 

In October, Echockotee Lodge 200 served as the staff for the North Florida Council Special Needs Camporee, serving Scouts and other children involved in special educations classes.  As regular readers of this blog will remember, John had referenced the patch for the 2006 event as one of the ugliest OA patches ever made.  Well, some improvement hase been made.

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Normally this is something Robert Mathis would be more likely to take up on but I will this time.   It gives me the opportunity to go a little further afield.  Echockotee 200 has issued a patch for its 2007 Fall Fellowship.   Unless I am missing some issues, I believe this would be listed as eX2007-4.

This is not yet on the Echokotee page but I will add it soon.

This is the most recent entry in 2007’s ceremonial principals series.    The designs and wording should be very familiar to all Order of the Arrow brothers.  They’re all cool, my only reservation is that I would have questioned the propriety of the text included on the patches.  I would  have pushed either to have that text entirely excluded or have much shorter quotes used.

It’s kind of neat to see how far the use of laser cut-edge technology can be used on patch, but I wonder how these will hold up over time.   I would imagine that the bow and arrow are very fragile, prone to bending and breaking.

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The latest piece to come from Florida (aka “God’s Waiting Room”) is out of Echockotee Lodge 200.  Saturiwa Chapter has made their first non-camporee patch (R-1), made in memory of a chapter member that passed away on January 17 of this year.  The Indian characature was used by Saturiwa’s Shawnee District as far back as the 1970s, and permission was obtained from Mohawk Carpets to use their logo for this patch.

Other recently found obscurities have also come from Echockotee.  The first, from Saturiwa Chapter, was for a camporee that was put on in 1998.  The “saturn” design is a totem of the chapter.  I have been assured that the design in the middle of the patch is an Indian.  I will have to take their word for it.

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