TWO Order of the Arrow Lodges in ONE Council?

[hawksfan]

What are your opinions about councils having more than one OA Lodge in it. From what I know, there is only one council that has TWO OA Lodges in it and that is the Greater St. Louis Area Council. The Shawnee Lodge #51 and Anpetu-we Lodge #100 are in Greater St. Louis Area Council.

[scoutldr]

Never heard of it. I would guess it's the result of a Council merger, but usually the Lodges merge, too.

[NWScouter]

In 1994 my council merged with the council to the north. Our OA lodges both were up for their 50th anniversary in '95. We were able to keep our lodges going and have big anniversary celebrations and then festivities creating the new lodges. I've got the lodge flaps to prove it. (This message has been edited by nwscouter)

[belayer_StLouis]

I am an active member of the Council Camping Comm. of the Greater St. Louis Area Council and a past lodge chief of Shawnee Lodge (in the dim ages, long ago). There are 2 lodges in our council because of a merger of 3 councils. If we had just one lodge I think we would deprive many young men an opportunity to be active lodge leaders. The population center of the council is centered around the St. Louis metro area but the council includes SE MO and Southern Illinois. Its a long haul for our southern guys to the metro area. I think asking young men to go to Lodge Exec meetings in a geographical central meeting site is unrealistic, for both ends of the council. Lodge boy leadership, largely camp staff, serve on all of our camp staffs with plenty of mixing of both lodge memberships. Its a non-issue in our council because we think the kids get the benefit of being lodge leaders. Both lodge chiefs sit on the Camping Comm. and they work well together. Our lodges don't have holes in their leadership like I see on many lodge websites. The thing that most aggravates both lodges is that they can't be Honor Lodges, or whatever the current recognition is called, because the council has 2 lodges. They don't feel they are graded on what they accomplish in things like camp promotion, etc. Hey, it works for our young men - sort of the most important standard.

[epalmer84]

The Greater New York Councils have five lodges one per borough.

 

The Pony Express Council and the Long Beach Area Council do not have lodges; they have their own honor societies.

 

Ed Palmer

[John-in-KC]

withdrawn(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)