On April 15, after months of planning, weeks of promoting, days of decorating, hours of rehearsing, and frantic minutes setting up final details before people walked in, a party hosted by the District 107 Odd Fellows, and celebrating 175 years of Odd Fellowship in California, brought delight to about 80 guests from around the district and beyond.
In addition to members of our district lodges, we had visitors from Davis lodge and Morse lodge (including the Grand Master and Deputy Grand Master, respectively), Ocean View 143, Gilroy 154, Mission Peak 114, and a few others. We also welcomed a handful of non-member guests who hopefully came away with a new appreciation for who we are.
The party provided people with an opportunity to see the Grand Lodge museum, which I personally think doesn’t get the level of attention and visitation it really deserves. The collection was cataloged and put on display by former chair of the Grand Lodge Historic Committee, Nancy Johnson. She sadly passed away in late 2024, but we honored and acknowledged her contribution to California Odd Fellows historic preservation during the event itself.
Despite being on a Tuesday evening, the event sold out nearly a week before the date of the party, which demonstrated the high level of interest. Since no event like this had ever been tried in our district, the organizers really weren’t sure how many people would want to come. True Fellowship 52 hadn’t hosted a formal event like this one in many years, and didn’t even have all of the necessary equipment.
Jim Kabage and Cupertino 70 were able to supply several chafing dishes to serve the food and keep it warm. Paul Milleson and Saratoga 428 supplied several of the bottles of wine. A number of lodges covered the tickets for their members wanting to attend. And Ria Toolis of Mountain View 244 deserves special recognition, as she was put in charge of decorations, as well as making sure everyone had a checklist to follow for setup, cleanup, and the actual party timeline.
Debbie Wolf made the desserts, which included decorating a beautiful chocolate cake to celebrate 175 years of FLT in California. And then, in a moment of true horror, at 4:30PM our caterer informed us that he wouldn’t be able to deliver the meat as promised. Debbie was the one to get the last-minute replacement meals we served in their place.
Jane Beckman made the lasagna and vegetables. I made the salads. Kneaded Culinary Academy made and served the appetizers at Grand Lodge, which by the way, was probably the best part of the food that evening! (I hope some Odd Fellows attend their annual fundraiser on May 9th).
I narrated while Andrew Crockett, Steve Koehler, Erik Woodbury, Reed Sutton, and Scott Spence recreated the institution of Washington Lodge #1 in 1819, which would go on to become the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. And then Andrew Crockett (as Thomas Wildey) shared the story of how Odd Fellowship arrived in California.
But I need to step back and acknowledge just what a crazy thing this was to pull off, even aside from the catering snafu. The entire premise of starting the party at Grand Lodge, and then moving everyone to True Fellowship, meant that there was more work, and more logistical difficulty, than a normal event in the first place. And a formal dinner with entertainment is not a simple event to start with.
It was my idea, and the reason I did it was because I wanted more people to see the remarkable collection Grand Lodge has in its museum wing, and I felt like a party at Grand Lodge would be a bigger draw than just a party at True Fellowship. Plus, I wanted to end my term as DDGM with a celebration, and an acknowledgment of everyone who supported this district in the last year (including a few “outstanding Odd Fellows”, and one very long-serving Noble Grand).
But I did not realize how much effort it would take! And I could never have succeeded, except for the curious phenomenon that every time I talked about the party around Odd Fellows, more of them would volunteer to help make it happen. While I’ve given a partial list above, if I try to thank everyone who helped, I am in very real danger of forgetting someone, and in fact, I know that’s likely to happen, because I did forget to include some of the volunteers on some of the emails I sent to the planning committee because it just became so difficult to keep track of who all had joined it.
So full disclosure, I was a terrible organizer! I failed to make sure everyone knew when they were needed and where to go because so many people were helping and I lost track. But I am so grateful for so many people helping, because the party actually went pretty well in spite of me!
I created a ton of work for a lot of people, did a poor job of letting them know where they needed to be, had some close calls when people weren’t where they were needed because I hadn’t told them to be there (my opening line about “frantic minutes” was not an exaggeration), and despite that, it was SUCH a fun party!
The lesson I learned is this – if you have enough people who genuinely share a goal, you can make a lot of mistakes and still get a good result. I have never been more grateful for the can-do volunteer spirit of my brothers and sisters in the Order as I was on Tuesday, April 15th. But the other lesson I learned was to keep better track of volunteers and don’t waste their time or take them for granted. If I ever find myself in charge of an event like this again, I promise to do a better job delegating and organizing tasks among people. Though if I’ve truly learned my lesson, I might never end up in charge of something like this again!
To everyone who helped pull off this adventure, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And to everyone who attended, thank you for coming, and I hope you had a truly delightful experience.
— By Mason Wolf