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 »

Nok Su Chapter of O-Shot-Caw Lodge 265 will host their annual “Conch Craziness Weekend” on May 2-4, at Camp Sawyer, located on West Summerland Key, just north of Big Pine Key. This event attracts Arrowmen from all over Florida, and even a few making the trip from Alabama, for a weekend of fellowship, tourism, camping, fishing, and patch trading in the Florida Keys (for those that want to visit but stay in civilization, Marathon is about 15 miles away, and Key West is 30 miles the other way. Miami? 120 miles). Camp Sawyer is extremely small (less than 4 acres), but no where else can you set your tent up 20 feet from the ocean like this. Activities include self-guided tours of Key West and the nearby Key Deer National Refuge.

Cost for the weekend is $22, which includes meals and a patch for the weekend (also a breakfast for Vigil members on Sunday morning). While this has been an annual event since 1993, this may be the last for two years, as construction on new facilities may cancel plans for 2009. If you are interested, contact Bob Wolz (chapter advisor) at Bob.Wolz@Craftsmandesigns.com, or: Bob Wolz, Advisor, Box 1411, Key West, FL 33041. Please let Bob know by April 25 if you are interested, by sending in your registration fee. Anyone that needs a ride from out of town, let me know, and I can put you in touch with the people to make it happen.

Oh yeah, the Section S-4S Conference (Florida) begins tomorrow, with 1200+ expected to attend. See you there.

Occoneechee will soon issue two new “standard” flaps. To comply with policy that there not be any special Ordeal, Brotherhood and Vigil flaps these will be sold as the lodge’s “standard” flap and a “gold mylar special edition” flap. As the lodge has an ample stock of their older Vigil flaps, there will not be a “silver mylar special edition” flap at this time. It is expected these will be issued at the lodge’s Spring Inductions in May. Thanks to Greg Grimes again for keeping me informed of this lodge’s issues.

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Since special flaps for Ordeal, Brotherhood, and Vigil members are now officially forbidden, Tsali lodge decided they needed to issue a new standard flap. Thanks to Hank Birdsong for letting me know about this.

This new flap uses the design of their most recent OBV set (S51-S53), changing the border color to blue. As an aside, it’s interesting to note that all previous blue bordered flaps from Tsali lodge (S11, S22, S33, S43) are among the lodge’s toughest flaps to acquire.

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In the latter part of last year I was made aware that Catawba lodge had planned a new set of Ordeal, Brotherhood and Vigil flaps.   Shortly after that the directive came down from the National Committee that lodges were not to make special flaps for the various honors.   I had assumed Catawba issued the flaps anyway, as they were in the works, and left space on my site to insert them once I had images.

Recently Larry Banks told me that due to this new directive the Ordeal and Vigil flaps were not produced.  Only the Brotherhood flap was made and issued.   I pressume the lodge had run out of stock of their former brotherhood flaps before the change in policy and needed the new flap.

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Skyuka lodge has recently issued new OBV set of flaps, using their traditional double headed thunderbird design. What happened with the prohibition regarding such flaps? Has the prohibition been repealed or modified, or is Skyuka lodge ignoring it?

Thanks to Jeff Cook and Richard Cash for passing these images along to me.

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Santee lodge has completed the redesign of their standard OBV series with the release of the new Vigil flap at their recent Summer Fellowship.   While maintaining many traditional design elements, it is a significant change for one of the more conservative southeastern lodges.  Thanks to Jason Spangler for the image of this patch.

The Ordeal and Brotherhood flaps in this series were issued in 2006.

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This Occoneechee item has been around for a while now, but never catalogued. From what I have been told, there seems to be some disagreement as to whether this is a lodge issue, which should be added to Blue Book, or not

Thanks again to Greg Grimes for sending me the image of this piece. He reports that this is presented to all of the lodge’s Vigil candidates once they are called out for this honor. After completing their Vigil, the new Vigil brother is presented another copy of this leather with their Vigil name inscribed upon it.

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There are four more patches from Occoneechee lodge for the recent SR-7B conclave that have not yet been reported here. I have alluded to two of them.

In addition to the trading post staff patch (X33?) two more conclave committees had officially approved staff patches. They were for the campsite hosts, and cook crew.

In addiition there was a patch used by the medical service staff. This was not authorized by the lodge and should be listed as a “Z”, at best. Continue Reading »