Muscogee Lodge 116 First Patch Designs
At the end of 2022 Muscogee Lodge 221 and Santee Lodge 116 merged as the councils had already tied the knot in August of that year. At a joint Winter Banquet held on January 7, 2023 in Sumter, SC the youth of the new lodge voted on bi-laws and elected officers for the coming year. At this time they also voted on the designs for the lodge flaps going forward.
The merger committee decided that the name of the combined lodge would retain that of Muscogee and use the number from the earlier lodge 116 (founded 1938). So hence the decision to call the lodge Muscogee 116 was agreed upon. This tradition of merging names and numbers was done quite a bit decades ago when lodges merged. However, as lodge numbers are no longer used by the National BSA it's not as common. Some lodges are now referenced by their council number. In this case the Indian Waters Council is #553. But the merger committee preserved the tradition of the number 116 and going forward it will live with the new lodge.
The other interesting decision by the merger committee was to preserve both totems of the lodges rather than picking a new one. So going forward both the red fox and Carolina parakeet will represent the new lodge.
The youth decided to take a page out of the book of the old Santee when it came to patch traditions for it's first patches. Probably very unique to Santee the lodge issued a standard flap available to everyone in the lodge in addition to a three flap system with an Ordeal-Brotherhood-Vigil designs. So going forward as the new Muscogee 116 issues it's first patches there will be four flaps made in the first run. At this time I am not aware of any restrictions being placed on the purchase of any of these issues. The tradition of the old Muscogee 221 was to not have any restrictions and this seems to have carried into the new decision making.
Ordeal Flap
Brotherhood Flap
Vigil Flap
Standard Issue Flap
In addition the flaps another upcoming event patch needs a little explaining. Muscogee 221 had the tradition of holding two Ordeal weekends for new members to be inducted. The old Santee 116 did all inductions during regular fellowship weekends. So the new lodge will hold Induction Weekends but instead of issuing a dated patch for each one they will use a standard patch for the time being. It is assumed that at least for the first year this patch will be issued at both the Spring and Fall induction weekends. No details have been confirmed as to any requirements to get the patch other than attendance at the event.
Standard Inductions Weekend Patch
As the new lodge continues to build it's traditions I will try and help document that history here on CarolinaOA.com.
Contributed by Jason Spangler, Webmaster