The Three Links Odd Cast

The new year finds us with a new co-host: Sister Meredith Moore of Dallas Lodge #44 in Texas. Meredith brings a wonderful background in Odd Fellowship and in data collection and analysis to the show and we waste no time in putting her skills to work. She developed and posted a survey on member burnout that got responses from 37 jurisdictions. The results are, in most cases, not surprising. Members like meaning, ritual, and regalia. The real question is whether an...

What exactly is a Grinch, anyway? Is it a person? A creature? An outlook on life that sours every interaction? The Three Links Odd Cast does another adaptation of a timeless holiday classic focused on Odd Fellowship as we present, "How The Grand Master Stole Christmas." In our version we get to explore what happens when individual desire supersedes our duties as Odd Fellows and how we can get back in touch with those duties. Our all-star cast returns for th...

Odd Fellowship isn't something that can be joined casually. It requires a certain amount of effort to be expended on behalf of those joining the lodge to fill out an application, pay the application fee, and proceed through the interview and initiation. For the applicant, this process should ensure that they get an opportunity to find out about the nature of the lodge to which they are applying. For the lodge, this process should help them decide if this applicant should bec...

Waxahachie Lodge No. 80 is one of the largest and best-known lodges in North America. Because of their excellent promotion on social media, they have become household names in the world of Odd Fellowship. We talk with their Noble Grand, Alex Freeman, about his journey into Odd Fellowship, how it intersects with his professional life, (spoiler alert: he's a tattoo artist) and what it's like to be in charge of such a large, active, prominent lodge. Brother Alex offers some fan...

We always like to do a cemetery episode during October in keeping with the "spooky" theme of the season. This year, however, we're not playing up the spooky or macabre side of cemeteries. Instead, we're looking at the compassionate, caring side of cemetery operations with Brother Jon Hart, manager of the IOOF Memory Gardens in Livermore, California. Brother Hart had a meandering path to the job, starting with joining the Livermore Lodge and then jumping in to help save the c...

Mike fills two roles on this episode: one as host, and one as guest while we discuss his newest book, "Oddtistic." The book looks at how Odd Fellowship has become a refuge for those seeking acceptance in a world that is often dismissive and uninviting. It also outlines how community heals isolation and structure provides an anchor, all giving those seeking community a place to go with real prospects for inclusion and belonging. The Shoutout goes to yet another brand-new lodg...

Looking to get his life on a better track, Bro. Niles Schumm took his mother's suggestion and joined the Odd Fellows. That led him to his local lodge where he started to get more and more involved in lodge activities. After not too many more years, he started to get interested in serving at the Grand Lodge level and is currently the Grand Warden of Illinois. Bro. Schumm recounts his journey into Odd Fellowship and talks about his philosophy of desiring to bring about coopera...

When we last spoke about the Cave Degree, it's fate was left uncertain. The deck in the cave was in disrepair and there was a fundraising effort underway to restore it to a functional condition. Now, in its second year post-revival, the Cave Degree has evolved into a full-blown Cave Weekend, with a meeting of the Richard Brouse Degree Lodge No. 190 and an English Country Dance on Friday evening, the Initiatory and First Degrees Saturday morning, instructional session later in the ...

Season six kicks off in Grand—or, should we say—Sovereign Grand style! We recorded this episode of the podcast live from the historic hall of Kanawha Lodge #25 of Charleston, West Viriginia, host of the 2025 Sovereign Grand Lodge Session. We were joined by a wonderful live audience and guests who told us about what's going on in their jurisdictions. We heard about a tiny lodge in Rhode Island that suddenly had an influx of members, the growth of Encampments and Cantons in Te...

Five years ago, a new podcast emerged on the fraternal landscape, the Three Links Odd Cast. Shrouded in mystery, the reclusive hosts have done their best to keep knowledge about the show secret—until now. Join host Ian Love-Jones of Peninsula Lodge #128 of Portland as he guides this exposé of the Three Links Odd Cast. Host Love-Jones digs into the shady past of the show, calling on disgruntled former hosts for their perspective. Marvel as he reveals the secret process ...

As more and more people are searching the Internet for Odd Fellowship, many of them are finding this podcast. As a service to them, we put together this episode where we give an introduction to Odd Fellowship, including what it is, how it's structured, how to join, and what members get out of it. We hope this will be helpful to those of you looking for a way to connect with your community through Odd Fellowship. As always, you can contact us for help in finding a lodge to jo...

Spring is here and many jurisdictions are having their Sessions, which means electing new Grand Masters who will be traveling around to visit lodges. In response to a listener's question, we discuss the process and protocols involved in a Grand Master's visit. Should you feed the Grand Master? When does he or she get introduced? Where should they sit? When do they speak? Who else gets introduced with the Grand Master? There are a lot of questions to a...

Not everyone understands fraternalism or takes the groups at face value. The suspicion of Freemasonry by the Roman Catholic Church is well known. Lesser known is the skepticism of so-called "secret societies" by Evangelical Christians. In response to a listener question, we asked Paul Michaels (not his real name), an Evangelical pastor, to come on the podcast and shed some light on why some Evangelical Christians are highly suspicious of Odd Fellowship and other fraternal gr...

Brothers Aiden Brink and Will Sparks both joined their respective lodges in the past couple of years. Each have become very active and spurred growth in their areas. They were both kind enough to join us to discuss their perspective on Odd Fellowship: what we get right, what we get wrong, and what we can do to build a solid future for our Order. Some of the answers may be surprising, especially to long-time members, but they are incredibly insightful and provide a very appea...

Although it's tempting to think that Odd Fellowship has been handed down from the past completely unchanged from some visionaries at an ancient building site, that's not the case. Odd Fellowship has adapted and changed through its history to meet the needs of members and the Order as those needs have changed. In this episode, Kris Gratz of Virginia shares his research into the developments in Odd Fellows' regalia through the ages and how that has coincided with changes in our ritu...

In 2016, an exhibit opened at the American Folk Art Museum showcasing various artifacts from American fraternal orders, most notably the Odd Fellows and Freemasons. The collection shared the best of fraternal folk art with the wider world. One of the curators of that exhibition, Dr. Aimee Newell, joined us to talk about the collection and give us some background and history on where the items came from, their significance, and their influence into culture at large. Once agai...

Most of us know about our local lodge and may be familiar with a couple other lodges in our area. However, Odd Fellowship is global in scope and scale—or is it? Brother Chuck Hillberry of the State Of The Order Committee of Sovereign Grand Lodge joins us to discuss exactly how much global reach Odd Fellowship has and how various overseas groups are connected to the Sovereign Grand Lodge. The truth is a lot more complicated than most members realize and Brother Chuck shares t...

We think we all know the story of how Odd Fellowship began in North America: five brave souls, led by Thomas Wildey, held the first meeting in Baltimore in 1819 and, from there, Odd Fellowship exploded across the continent spreading friendship, love, and truth from sea to shining sea. The reality, though, has a lot more detail and challenges than what we know. Mike, Ainslie, and Toby delve into the history of the founding of our Order a couple centuries ago. They reveal some...

Thirty years ago, in a small town in Washington State, a young twenty-something man stood surrounded by five elderly men in a leaky, damp building doing something that would change the trajectory of his entire life. In that moment, Kelly Hughes made a commitment that would shape his destiny and give him a new purpose in life. From that time forward, as an Odd Fellow, Kelly would work tirelessly for the betterment of his community, his lodge, and his jurisdiction. Through his...

Every lodge wants to grow—but how many lodges are actually able to incorporate new members successfully in such a way that the new members feel valued? Brother Matthew Thornton, NG of Houston Heights Lodge #225 in Texas, joins us to talk about how his lodge maintains a healthy lodge culture with a mix of everyone from oil workers to urban hippies. Spoiler alert: their secret is holding a lot of events that give people an opportunity to do something. Brother Matthew goes into...