Massachusetts Lodges Merge
Posted in Patch Collecting by John E. Pannell on October 27th, 2008 at 12:49 pm 
Word has come to me from Richard Robie that Memsochet 507 and Allogagan 83 agreed to merge on September 28, 2008 at a meeting of the Lodge Steering Committee. Pocumtuc is the new lodge. The wolf will be their totem. As Order of the Arrow lodges are chartered on a calendar year basis, the new lodge will be officially chartered for the first time in 2009.
Pioneer Valley and Great Trails Councils previously merged to form the Western Massachusetts Council.
The lodge is currently soliciting designs for both their new flap as well as a special issue for the 2009 NOAC.
Now for an issue that really only matters to patch collectors and webmasters of patch sites…
I have no word yet on what number, if any, the lodge will use. Lodge numbers are no longer officially assigned either by the National Order of the Arrow Committee or the BSA. There are two other lodges, currently, that have never had an official lodge number, (364) Kittan and (146) Takoda. In both cases, I have put the number the local lodge uses in parentheses to indicate that this is not an officially assigned number.
For the purposes of this site, the two examples above present two different choices. The number for Kittan is that of its council, but was also the lodge number of the longest tenured lodge name in the merger. For Takoda lodge, the lower of the two predecessor’s lodge numbers was used.
I will refer to the new lodge as (83) Pocumtuc. Pioneer Valley Council’s number, 234, would also be a possible choice for an unofficial lodge number, especially if that is the number the BSA has assigned to Western Massachusetts Council. If the lodge chooses to use a different number then I will that instead, but still keeping it within parentheses as it is not an official lodge number.
At least one reader of this blog has suggested I start assigning numbers for the sole purpose of this site for all new lodges starting with 620 and working upwards. That has some merit from an historical point of view, but I am not willing to buck local customs and assume such a role for myself!
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The second nonabsolute number is the given time of arrival, which is now known to be one of the most bizarre of mathematical concepts, a recipriversexcluson, a number whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself. In other words, the given time of arrival is the one moment of time at which it is impossible that any member of the party will arrive. Recipriversexclusons now play a vital part in many branches of math, including statistics and accountancy and also form the basic equations used to engineer the Somebody Else's Problem field.
The third and most mysterious piece of nonabsoluteness of all lies in the relationship between the number of items on the bill, the cost of each item, the number of people at the table and what they are each prepared to pay for. (The number of people who have actually brought any money is only a subphenomenon of this field.)"
I was writing to you today to inform you of some of this info, but it looks like someone scooped me!
Some things to add (based on my conversation Saturday with a past lodge advisor of Allogagan Lodge 83)… The new lodge (Pocumtuc) will not officially use any number – this was reportedly decided upon explicitly by youth vote. No one I spoke to this past weekend could confirm the new council number (off the tops of their heads), but unless we re-index all of the current lodges by their council number (and hope that they all do the same internally), then that system will rapidly break down. As an example, one only need reference the confusion created by Tisquantum Lodge chartered to the Old Colony Council here in Massachusetts – who changed the number embroidered on their flaps from 164 to 249 and then back to 164 in the course of about a year (this will undoubtedly cause collectors some headaches for years to come).
Both of the lodges involved in the merger have very recently issued “death” flaps — both are “S” issues and both designs employ a grayscale color scheme. The Allogagan 83 flap includes some lettering in silver mylar (SMY) as well, while the Memsochet 507 flap includes the poignant phrase Last of the Memsochets.” I will send you scans later today.
Memsochet Lodge 507 had also issued a new Ceremonies Team “S” flap over the past summer, for those who are counting.
In wWw,
Roy Wetherbee
ISCA VP – NER
Editor, Region 1 (New England), Blue Books I-VI
Hi Roy,
Sorry it was me that scooped you. Didn’t mean to…..
I looked at the bylaws of the lodge which are posted in the new website and I quote:
“The name of this lodge will be the Pocumtuc Lodge, Western Massachusetts Council, #234, Boy Scouts of America, and shall be under the supervision of the council camping committee and the administrative authority of the Scout Executive.”
So it appears that no specific lodge number will be used.
Yours in www,
Rich Robie
Past Allogagan Lodge Chief 1979 & 1980
Numbering probably would be beneficial to the hobby, but I would suggest starting at 1000 for all lodges that were formed after the national office stopped issuing numbers. That what there would be no confusion at all.
[...] Pannell posted about a new Massachusetts Lodge, Pocumtuc Lodge. Memsochet and Allogagan Lodges made it official and merged September 28, 2008 at a meeting of the [...]
OK – I bit my tongue, and DIDN’T say it on Patch-L (Yeah, Buffalo U. ain’t dictating policy anymore, but I’ve been there long enough, to have “nice” ingrained into me…. yeah, riiiiight…), BUT… what a buncha screamin’ meemy TAXACHUSETTS CHEEZE WEINERS!!!
How can you be SO cowed by National (or WORSE – your spineless John Kerry-esque advisors), as to NOT pick a number?!?!? DON’T tell me “numbers don’t matter” – seen any OTHER Lodges go ‘cheeze weiner,’ and drop THEIR number? Didn’t think so…
Shoot – tick somebody off (BESIDES me – I don’t drink decaf, so MOST things tick me off…) – choose “1″ as your number, as in, “In OUR hearts & minds, WE’RE the number 1 Lodge in all the OA!” or some such at LEAST, but NO NUMBER?!?!?
I gotcha new number right HERE, ba-beee! I’ll call you, “Mitsubishi” Lodge, since you’re a big, fat, ZERO (Gotta know your WWII history there, but I’m sure the only thing they teach in TAXACHUSETTS publik skrools about WWII is, the “eeeeeeeeeevil Americans” dropped the atomic bomb on the poor, helpless, peace-loving Japanese >:-( )! Mitsubishi Lodge ZERO – gotta a nice ring to it…
Bob McCanless >:-(
Pittsburgh
p.s. – geez I’ll be glad when the elections over, and they go back to running tampon & cat food commercials again, instead of inane political ads. The good news is, the political ads are starting to work – they’ve definitely motivated me to “PO’d!!!”
Alapaha (545) has dropped their number
Na Mokupuni O Lawelawe decided to drop their number after National stopped issuing on the rechartering certificates. Good thing they aren’t cowed by National. The accounts indicate the kids made up their own minds. They had a choice and they made it. Good for them (imagine not being cowed by patch collectors!
Bob:
BREATHE! Take a deep breath! Calm down!
Lodge numbers haven’t served any significant purpose beyond making life easier for patch collectors for more than 35 years now. Their only real use was to indicate some sort of seniority of the lodge (or its direct founding predecessor). That changed with the founding of Mascoutens 8 and Wiatava 13.
All issues of pride, and some sense of tradition for tradition’s sake, aside the lodge numbers are just a shorthand notation. The number used — or lack thereof — has no impact upon the program or the youth it is supposed to serve.
Well, because you mentioned my idea, I may as well own up to it.
I still maintain that the *easiest* way to maintain sanity when it comes to assigning numbers to new lodges would be to start with 620 (Takoda) and progress sequentially from that point. My main reason for this is to rhetorically ask what happens should the new “(83) Pocumtuc” merge with another “(###)Lodge.”
Then what?
The end result will be tangled web of previous lodges that will be extremely difficult to track.
The benefit to my suggestion is that it returns to the original BSA policy of assigning numbers to lodges in the order in which they were created, and because there are no more numbers, there will no longer be any local contortions used to justify taking a particular number.
I grant that my way will cause old time collectors to have a stroke, but they are all old, and going to die soon anyway
This being the case, now would be an excellent time to restore a *rational* method of keeping track of lodges.
I am one of the Cheese Weiners from the former Allogagan Lodge 83. There are indeed several Lodges that have issued patches with no number. Lodge 10 of Connecticut issued a camp fund raiser set with 4 or 5 flaps. In fact they had 2 sets one with numbers one without. Their current standard issue also is un numbered. You cloth junkies (and I’m one) need to get a life. The Merged Pocumtoc will get along fine with out a number on their patch. Know one in the Lodge is thinking of sliting thier wrists over it so why is it such a big deal. Maybe now we need to use Lodhe names and not a meaningless number.