OA or Not OA – Half Moon Lodge or Camp Tri-mount

OAornotOAA couple of month back, I wrote about an non-OA issue which could be easily mistaken for an OA issue.   John Pannell posted last October his thoughts on What is an OA Issue? His criteria included:

# There is documented evidence of what lodge or chapter issued the item in question.
# There is text on the patch that reasonably point to it being an Order of the Arrow item.
# Verifiable testimony from someone active in the lodge or chapter at the time the purported item was issued.
# There are design elements used that reasonably point to it being an Order of the Arrow item.

So here is the patch in question, a jacket patch.

Half Moon Lodge #28 or Camp Tri-Mount Jacket Patch?
Half Moon Lodge #28 or Camp Tri-Mount Jacket Patch?

So following John’s points.

1. There is no documentation that this is a lodge issue.

2. The text “Gather the Clan” is frequently used on OA issues.  As a matter of fact, it was the theme for the 2009 Section NE-7B Conclave hosted by Half Moon Lodge and held at Camp Tri-Mount.
Below is the conclave patch.

Section NE-7B 2009 Pocket Patch
Section NE-7B 2009 Pocket Patch

4. Design elements used that reasonably point to it being an Order of the Arrow item, check – Native American with OA Sash who looks like he is wearing eyeglasses.

3.  Verifiable testimony from someone active in the lodge or chapter – ZZZZZ Testimony confirmed that this is not an OA issue but is merely a Camp Tri-Mount issue.

So while I hate to clutter up the Blue Book with non-OA issues, should this be listed with the notation “Not an OA Issue” to avoid someone thinking that they ‘discovered’ a previosuly unlisted OA issue 10 or 20 years from now?

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“[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” –James Madison

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Author: nyoatrader
To share information about new or newly discovered Order of the Arrows patches, flaps, odd-shapes, neckerchiefs, event and chapter issues from New York State Order of the Arrow Lodges, warnings about fakes, spoof, and reproductions and any other information that may be of interest to New York State OA Collectors.

1 thought on “OA or Not OA – Half Moon Lodge or Camp Tri-mount

  1. Yes, I would say it definitely needs a not-an-OA-issue listing, or it will cause confusion for years to come. The combination of arrowman in regalia with sash and the words from the OA song are enough to imply that it is an OA issue even though it is not.

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