The Three Links Odd Cast

Like many lodges, True Fellowship No. 52 in San Jose, CA had seen better days.  As members got older, the focus of the lodge became more insular and they were less interested in connecting to the outside community.  That all began to change when a new member with an interest in building community joined.  Since that time, the lodge has become a dynamo in San Jose and has not only become a thriving...

A remarkable convergence of events led to the revival of Friendship Lodge No. 50 in Northfield, Minnesota.  A Mason in Red Wing, Minnesota started an educational program for his Masonic lodge and then reached out to the Odd Fellows to request them give a presentation about Odd Fellowship.  Four of the Masons present decided to check out Odd Fellowship.  One person turned to Reddit and podcasts (li...

Billy and Tara from Modern Goat Rider joined us for a thorough and in-depth discussion about leadership in the Odd Fellows.  The first half of the episode is available on their feed on your favorite podcatcher or directly from their podcast host .  In this episode we discuss the leadership at the Grand Lodge and Sovereign Grand Lodge levels and specifically ponder the question of whether we need t...

A recent email from a listener prompted this episode's discussion about what happens when a lodge sells its building.  A lot can happen, but only a very few things should  happen.  We dig into the question and examine the process and what knowledge members should have when dealing with major lodge property.  The Shoutout goes to Prestonsburg Lodge #293 in Kentucky for their impressive growth...

This year, for our Christmas episode, we present this adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."  Listen along as an all-star cast of Odd Fellows presents this unique Odd Fellows take on the classic story. Ebeneezer Scrooge: Gil T. Rodello Thomas Wildey: Steven Cross Bob Cratchitt: Joseph Benton Tim Cratchitt: Ainslie Heilich Ghost of Odd Fellowship Past: Michael Greenzeige...

Our Sovereign Grand Master, John Cupp, is a very busy man.  We were very fortunate when he made some time at the West Virginia Grand Sessions to sit down and talk with co-host Mike Duminiak about his time as Sovereign Grand Master and some of his experiences in Odd Fellowship.  He was joined partway through the interview by his wife Emilie who also shared some experiences and observations.  Both a...

Pueblo Lodge #8 was down to just four members after the passing of one of the five who was maintaining the quorum that kept their charter.  John Jones had recently moved to Colorado from another state and was looking to join a lodge.  One day, a man with a letter from the Grand Secretary showed up on his doorstep to meet him and possibly bring him into the lodge.  That man was Vernon Wolf, Past Gr...

We always like to do an episode about cemeteries around Halloween and this year is no exception.  Given our command to "Bury The Dead" as Odd Fellows, and how many lodges have administered cemeteries throughout our history, it's no surprise to find a lodge engaged in activities related to a final resting place.  For this episode we are joined with Past Grand Master Carol Woltjer and...

A life of academic wandering and creation has brought Dr. Heather Calloway to her present position as Executive Director of University Collections  and Director of the Center for Fraternal Collections and Research at Indiana University.  Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and having grown up in a fraternal family, Dr. Calloway was destined from an early age to make her way to the hallowed ha...

In a secluded corner of the wilderness around Mount Shasta in Northern California, a secret rite has been taking place for generations.  No, it's not something from the latest thriller novel, it's the Cave Degree!  In a natural cave that faces east toward Mount Shasta, Odd Fellows (and before them, Knights of Pythias) have been performing degree work.  The Odd Fellows of Yreka Lodge No....

Tucked away in a secluded corner of Oregon's rolling farmland northwest of Portland sits the Hahn Farm. Owned by Gary Hahn, a third-generation Odd Fellow and fourth-generation owner of the farm, it has become a beacon for Odd Fellowship in the jurisdiction of Oregon.  Every year since the early 1990s, on the third weekend of September, the farm hosts a Degree Weekend unlike most others in Odd...

Civic life in America has been in decline for decades.  A prescient few, including noted author Robert Putnam, have chronicled that decline.  In his book "Bowling Alone," Putnam explored the link between civic engagement and the function of government and described the nature of the decline in participation in clubs, churches, and other groups.  Pete and Rebecca Davis, a brother and sist...

Odd Fellowship has found many spaces in which to adapt its Degree work.  Our beginnings were in pubs and taverns so Degrees were originally performed there.  Eventually we built lodge halls but we still looked for more interesting and unusual places to perform Degrees.  Caves became a popular choice in the 20th Century.  California's Cave Degree near Yreka is the most well-known, but other lo...

Hard to believe, but it's been three years since the launch of the Three Links Odd Cast.  Way back when, Sergio, Ainslie, and Toby could hardly imagine the cultural touchstone this podcast would become.  Here we are at the beginning of Season Four and we're just as excited to make new episodes as we were when we started in 2020.  We take a look back at the episodes that made Season 3 spe...

Insurance can be a touchy subject that's all too easy to avoid.  There are multiple different reasons to avoid it including cost, complication, and just a general desire to not think about bad things that might happen.  Those bad things are a fact of life, however, and lodges need to be prepared for whatever kind of bad things may occur.  Fortunately, Sister Malia Murchison of Morning Star Lo...

Take one seventy-year Odd Fellow, his great grandson, a twenty-year Odd Fellow from Indiana, a guy from the neighborhood looking for a "thirty-year project" and a few other new folks and put them together and you have the recipe for reviving a lodge that had become profoundly inactive as they retreated from the community and membership had shrunk.  They had become a "kitchen-table l...

Like many western jurisdictions, Nevada is small.  The bigger cities—Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City—have lodges and there are a few scattered around the rest of the state as well.  Recently, though, activity and interest has been building in the Silver State as younger members have joined and been appointed to various jobs to help build Odd Fellowship.  Our guest, Brother Jonathan Wettig, is an enth...

Odd Fellowship, like many fraternal groups, is predominantly full of older members.  For retirees and others in the later stages of life, our traditional focus on things like death benefits makes sense.  However, for younger members, it's a lot harder to see the value of a benefit they may not take advantage of for decades.  In this episode, Mike and Toby are joined by Brother Brandon Clark a...

For the past couple of years, despite the challenges of the pandemic, something has been brewing in Upstate New York.  Two Masons and and Odd Fellow, all beekeepers, found themselves together on a mission to charter a new Odd Fellows Lodge.  Brother Kevin, a member of Wawayanda Lodge #34, was ready to fulfill his destiny as "lodge curmudgeon" with nearly thirty years of membership.  Brot...

Music enriches every aspect of life so why should it not enrich our lodge meetings as well?  Brother Mike has been adding music into the meeting of his lodge—Kanawha #25 in West Virginia—to great success.  Obviously, music can be used in all the places indicated in the ritual, like singing the Odes, but this episode goes further and talks about some of the musical background of Odd Fellowship and...

Brother George Glover III, Past Sovereign Grand Master, joins us on this episode to pull back the curtains on the inner workings of the Sovereign Grand Lodge and share how legislation makes its way through the Legislative Committee and onto the floor for a vote by the Sovereign Grand Lodge as a whole.  Brother George has over thirty years' experience working at the Sovereign Grand Lodge, much...

As a special for the Presidents Day Holiday in the US, we interviewed Dustin McLochlin, PhD of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums .  Brother Rud is frequently maligned in popular imagination (if he's remembered at all).  Tagged unfairly with nicknames like "His Fraudulency" or "Rutherfraud" by detractors, he has earned a reputation as a self-interes...

What do backpacks for the homeless, a late 70s Chevy Nova, and a "Sausage Grind" have in common?  Earnie Taylor of Chester Lodge #281 in Virginia, that's what!  Brother Earnie joins us to talk about how he's been able to apply his skills of bringing people together for various charitable projects to building Odd Fellowship in the Jurisdiction of Virginia.  One of the current pr...

Inspired by a recent series of emails from a listener, Ainslie and Toby discuss the phenomenon of "kitchen table lodges"—those lodges which don't do any ritual or hold formal meetings.  Instead, they meet informally around a table to do the minimum amount of business.  As more and more people are finding their way to Odd Fellowship, more new members are running into the discourageme...

What happens when a barber in an old river city on the Mississippi finds a bunch of Odd Fellows collectibles?  He starts a lodge, of course!  That was the genesis of the newly-rechartered Gem City #357 in Quincy, Illinois.  Members Matthew Roegge and Jacob Bertram joined us to talk about the beginning of their lodge which was chartered in June 2022.  They tell some great stories of learning, camar...