The Three Links Odd Cast

Our annual Christmas episode has become the place where we look back on the year in Oddcasting and this year was certainly delightful.  We brought on a new co-host, Mike Duminiak, and continued our tradition of making meaningful and relevant episodes for our Odd Fellow brothers and sisters.  This particular episode includes a greeting from Brother Torbjörn in Sweden, a Hanukkah message from Brothe...

Despite recent growth, Odd Fellowship is still predominantly full of retirees.  While they present a wealth of knowledge and experience, they can also be resistant to change and adaptation.  That can become even more of a challenge when young leaders emerge and try to work with entrenched members.  In this episode we talk to PGM Buddy Goetsch of Colorado and DGM Erik Fearing of Massachusetts.  Wit...

With the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, we thought it would be an excellent time to talk turkey about one of the great New Year's Day traditions—The Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, California.  The celebration includes the famous college football game The Rose Bowl and the accompanying Rose Parade.  Brother Mel Astrahan, PGM of California, joins us to give an exhaustive look at the his...

Our colleagues Billy and Tara from Modern Goat Rider join us to continue the crossover begun on their show.  If you've not heard it yet, you'll want to hit up the URL above and listen to it so you've got some continuity.  The episode rolls on with more comments about marketing Odd Fellowship in unconventional ways, discussion of the impact that podcasting is having on Odd Fellowship...

Just in time for Halloween, we take a look into the death care industry through the eyes of Sister Kait Osman of Emerald Bay Lodge #50 in California.  Sister Kait had a somewhat roundabout way of getting to the funeral world, going through studies of forensic anthropology and other subjects along her way.  Eventually she found herself in California with an interest in helping people as they face t...

Ainslie, Mike, and Toby are all experienced Odd Fellows.  They like to *think* they have a handle on what new members are looking for, but do they really?  To test that theory, they invited Josh Dandurand from Oregon and Randy & Caylee Chorrushi from West Virginia to come on the podcast and offer their insights.  All three are members who have joined within the last six months so their hot tak...

At its beginning, Odd Fellowship was just for men (though some groups of Odd Fellows retain that tradition).  In 2001 the Independent Order opened up membership to women.  Since that time, women have risen to the highest ranks in Odd Fellowship, including our current Sovereign Grand Master.  There are some lodges, however, that still maintain a (mostly) single-gender membership.  Brother Roger Sit...

We've all been there—years of neglect to important lodge business has left a huge mess behind and we've just walked into that void of neglect.  That happened to Brother Jack Crispin Cain of Upper Lake Lodge #241 in California several years ago when he started looking into the lodge finances and discovered that the lodge had lost its non-profit status.  Being a clever and resourceful pers...

On a dark, rainy September evening in Sweden, a young man stood on a curb as a nondescript sedan pulled over to meet him.  The rear door opened and he was beckoned into the car.  Inside were three gentlemen, all in dark suits.  While this sounds like it could be the beginning of a spy thriller novel, it was actually the beginning of the journey into Odd Fellowship for our guest, Brother Torbjörn A...

We had to call another audible at the line of scrimmage as our scheduled guest was out sick this episode.  With Sovereign Grand Lodge right around the corner we decided to discuss the Encampment branch of Odd Fellowship.  Once a vibrant and vital part of the Order, in many places it has atrophied to the point of irrelevance.  Toby, Ainslie, and Mike discuss whether it makes more sense to put an en...

Technical issues prevented us from interviewing our scheduled guest so, being resourceful Odd Fellows, we called an audible at the line of scrimmage and decided to talk about our mentors in Odd Fellowship.  Mentorship is an important part of any organization, and especially so in our Order.  There's much to do as an Odd Fellow and it can take years to get everything down.  Each of us has had...

July 2022 represents two years of podcasting for the Three Links Odd Cast and we are all very excited to commemorate this achievement with a celebratory episode.  As part of the celebration, we announce a new cohost, Brother Mike Duminiak of West Virginia, who had previously been a guest on the episodes about the Patriarchs Militant branch and the Freemasons.  Together, the three co-hosts discuss...

June is a month of many celebrations and we're taking the opportunity to join in with one of them, though not the one Toby had expected.  Brother Chris Emmons from Kanawha Lodge #25 in Charleston, West Virginia joins us to celebrate LGBTQ Pride and share his experiences as an out gay Odd Fellow.  The conversation wanders around quite a bit and covers a wide range of topics, including the many...

As Odd Fellows, we're not surprised by any old thing we find in a lodge hall.  For non-members, though, it can be quite a shock when relics of a former lodge are left behind and discovered while exploring a new building.  Such incidents usually end up getting some kind of media coverage and one of those stories inspired hosts Sara Buesing and Emily Coleman to do an episode of their podcast  A...

GRAND LODGE.  The mere words strike fear into the hearts of Odd Fellows everywhere.  What is this strange, mysterious conglomeration of Odd Fellows who gather for some unknown purpose?  Since Grand Lodge season is upon us, Ainslie and Toby sat down with Brothers Adam Potolsky and Matthew Finkelstein to discuss their experiences at the 2022 session of the Grand Lodge of California held in Modesto. ...

What if the narrative we've all been told—that the government takeover of social services led to the decline of Odd Fellowship—was wrong?  Esteemed Canadian economist, author, and educator Herb Emery, author of "A Young Man's Benefit," joins us to discuss his research into the end of beneficial membership in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.  What he discovered from researc...

As recently as 2017 Portneuf Lodge #20 in Pocatello, Idaho was moribund.  Six people met twice monthly in a dusty old hall downtown with a worn-out, broken sign out front.  It might as well have said that the lodge was permanently closed.  Then something remarkable happened—the lodge decided to spend some money to fix up its sign.  The newly painted and refurbished sign, with its glorious neon lig...

Odd Fellows, like all fraternal orders, have to exist in the long shadow cast by the only fraternal group that has any awareness in popular culture: Freemasons.  Whether because of wacky conspiracy theories, blockbuster movies, thriller novels, or seemingly endless supposed connections to various historical figures and events, Freemasonry is the template against which most fraternal orders get com...

An interesting and unusual confluence has occurred where tattoo artists and Odd Fellowship have mixed, creating some interesting results.  From some of the most famous tattoo artists like Oliver Peck and Luke Wessman, down to the average corner tattoo shop owner, the stunning, bold symbols of Odd Fellowship have called out to the tattoo community and brought them into our august fraternity.  Their...

A week and a half ago, Brother John Reitzer-Smith was presiding over a lodge meeting as Noble Grand when the question arose if there were any Ukrainian Odd Fellows in need.  Within the span of a few days, Brother John had made contact with a lodge in Poland that, before the war in Ukraine, had been initiating Ukrainians with the intent to form lodges in that country.  Now those new Ukrainian Odd F...

For this very special episode we visit with Meredith Moore, Past Grand of Fort Worth Lodge #251 in Texas.  Sister Meredith has become an active, indispensable, and inspirational Odd Fellow with her years of service in various lodges in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  She talks about her journey from being invited to a lodge function at Dallas #44 to being one of the most active Odd Fellows in North T...

For this episode we had put out an invitation to members of the Rose Float Committee to join us and talk about how they put the float together and what it does to raise awareness of Odd Fellowship.  Despite some encouraging communication initially, no one from the committee joined us for this episode.  Ever the resourceful members, Scott, Toby, and Ainslie launched into an impromptu discussion of...

In 2009, a hall at the Stroud School of Arts in Dungog, Australia revealed an engaging secret: a hand-painted silk banner from the 19th Century.  Two years later the banner wound up in the collection of the Newcastle Museum where David Hampton would eventually find it and begin unravelling it's fascinating history.  Made in London by Tutill and Company, it was the pride and joy of Williams Ri...

A popular novel inspired a curiosity about fraternalism back in 2016 for Gary Harper which led him to start researching various fraternal orders.  After some study, he settled on joining the Odd Fellows.  There was just one problem, however: he had no way of finding a lodge to join.  Various emails to addresses he had found online went unanswered for years until finally, in 2019, he visited the IO...

UPDATE: the correct audio file has been uploaded!  For those that downloaded the previous version, we hope you enjoyed a preview of "The Scandinavian Polka Party," hosted by Brother Toby on 247PolkaHeaven.com. *** This is the second half of The Important Crossover.  If you haven't heard Part 1, go check it out from our friends at Modern Goat Rider. For the second half of The Importa...