WHO WE ARE

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, or IOOF, is a fraternal organization head quartered in the North Carolina that has more than a million members in at least forty countries throughout the world. Our members meet in "lodges", as is typical of members of other fraternities, which are the basic units of the order. A lodge may be an actual meeting place or building used by Odd Fellows to meet in, but it is also a local chapter of the order. A lodge has to have at least five initiated Odd Fellows as members, but they usually have many more than that. it all depends on how many have joined through the years, how many have stayed on as active members and how actively a lodge recruits new members to itself. Our lodge in Austin has about 9 active members who make it to most of our meetings at this time. While we may meet in lodges and our members will usually have paid due to and attend meetings at only one lodge the majority of the time, all Odd Fellows are brothers to each other no matter where they hail from, and they are obliged to treat each other as such even if they have not met before. To join Odd Fellows is to join an entire order, not just one particular lodge.

Odd Fellows, as people, have traditionally come from all walks of life. While we have had doctors, lawyers, politicians and other prominent community figures as brothers, Odd Fellowship has had a way of attracting people from many diverse backgrounds and those from many trades as it's member base. (Our founder, Thomas Wildey, was a coach maker by trade. His partner in establishing Odd Fellowship in America was a professional entertainer.) This history has served to make us a "down to earth" group of people and or organization free of any pretentiousness. But no matter what a brother's economic status, race or station in life may be, we all regard each other as equal in true brotherhood. No one Odd Fellow is more of a brother than any other Odd Fellow.

Odd Fellowship is about many things. It is about community service, loyalty to one's brothers, learning important lessons about Friendship, Love and Truth, and sharing the fraternal experience. It is about the positive changes that occur in a person when they feel the air of unity wherever Odd Fellows gather. It is about putting aside political and religious differences, and working with others from different walks of life to improve the world. It is about always striving to be a person of virtue who seeks to grow in our order's three main ideals: Friendship, Love, and Truth.

The Brothers of Capitol Lodge 23 after initiating 3 new members
(L to R, standing, John Stansell, AB Sanders, John Dodson, Zeke Ruiz, Dan Phillips, Greg Bayless, Mike Rodriguez, Virgil Ellis, Mark Rubin, John Saldano, Bobby Jones, kneeling, Chris Summers, Jeff Samec, Jim Letchworth)

We are the world's oldest fraternal organization functioning under a centralized leadership body. This is because Thomas Wildey saw the order as functioning best if it were managed in a way that mimicked the government of his new country. In other words: A Sovereign Grand Lodge to oversee all of the order and make general rules, then a Grand Lodge in every state to oversee the happenings of the regular lodges in that state. States are also to this day divided into districts which a person called a District Deputy Grand Master oversees and acts as liaison to between those lodges and a state's Grand Lodge. So in a way the Order really has it's own national, state and local chapters.

The Grand Lodge of Texas has no web site as of yet but is located in Corsicana. In the heyday of American fraternal life, as late as the fifties, a state's Grand Lodge was usually where there would be a widows and orphans home for members and their families, and old age home for members (Odd Fellows were the first fraternity to have this for their members, by the way) as well as many buildings which housed overnight lodging facilities, dining rooms, gymnasiums, theaters and offices. The youth chapters of the order throughout the state were known to rotate through there heavily. Staying at the Grand Lodge must have been a real treat for members of the Order's youth branches, known as Theta Rho (girls) and Junior Odd Fellows (for the boys).

Despite this governing structure, we are called the Independent Order of Odd Fellows because each individual lodge has a great degree of autonomy as to how they manage their finances, raise funds, seek new members, serve their communities, make new by-laws if necessary and serve the community. If they wish to have a charity fundraising barbecue, for instance, there is no need to consult with the state Grand Lodge over this, or to ask them what good cause they can put the money towards. A lodge's individual officers are elected from it's own membership by it's own membership. This is what can make being an Odd Fellow so fun: Every brother of a lodge has a well heard voice and a vote in all lodge matters, as well as a hand in problem solving and innovating to solve what challenges may face the lodge.

ODD FELLOWS ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE