Archives

Reviving the Odes!

Fundraising for your lodge can be accomplished a number of ways. Secretary Stacy Thomason of Gold Hill Odd Fellows Lodge #129 of Oregon is raising money by way of their “Reviving the Odes” music project. The music is free to use as MP3, MIDI and PDF. Each Ode was lovingly revised for ease of reading […]

Can an Atheist Be an Odd Fellow?

Can an atheist be an Odd Fellow? In America, the land of the free, you’d think the answer would be, “Sure. Why not?” Religious discrimination is illegal! But belief is very central to Odd Fellows because, as the largest Odd Fellows organization in America (the I.O.O.F.) says on its website, that “Any person of good […]

Time to Break Out the Axe

The emblem of the axe was demoted during restructuring of the post-initiatory degrees in 1881. It was a part of the initiatory degree and was viscerally intertwined with the most visible of our emblems: the three links. In The Brotherhood by Beharrell (1861), the author detailed the meaning of the emblems of our order (prior […]

Unity and Division Over a Float

While I have received emails and messages of praise for the online Odd Fellows public relations training lessons I have published from both inside and outside the United States, one of those lessons has caused quite a ruckus and I’d like to try and unite everyone on both sides of an argument to which I […]

Do the Odd Fellows Still Exist? Yes!

You may be asking, “Do the Odd Fellows Still Exist?” and the answer is an emphatic YES. What once was millions of Odd Fellows when the population of America was much smaller, is now tens of thousands with a much larger number of Americans. At one time, a bit more than a hundred years ago […]

Do Odd Fellows Wear a Fez?

Yes, Odd Fellows wear a fez. But not every Odd Fellows does and only certain ones can. It’s important to note that besides the “official” Independent Order of Odd Fellows guidelines (see below) which extend to Encampments and Grand Encampments, there are two appendant (or “side) degrees/organizations which are recognized in some form by the […]