The rules we aren't allowed to change.

A message from our Grand Representative (who is also our Grand Secretary!) after Sovereign Grand Lodge 2025 in Charleston, WV:

It's a strange thing when one joins the Odd Fellows. From the first meeting as a new member, each of us has equal ownership and equal power. Everyone who shows up gets to decide together how to use our collective resources and time. After spending our lives in jobs and institutions with strict hierarchies, where each step above us can wield a veto against any progress, the Lodge often feels radically democratic. At first.

Then we all start asking about the things we aren't allowed to change. We can spend money however we want, but it has to follow annoying, seemingly outdated steps for authorization and reporting. We elect new officers regularly from the ranks of the willing, but what those officers must do is seemingly set in stone. We all speak freely as equals during a meeting, but we use a rigid script to open and close each one. 

Who makes the rules we aren't allowed to change?

It's this question that brought me to the 200th annual meeting of the Sovereign Grand Lodge in Charleston, WV. I went as the Representative for the jurisdiction of Vermont. I was one of 96 Representatives who had the honor of changing the rules we aren't allowed to change. Everything we did there is open to scrutiny from members of any Lodge. I'll be filing my official report later this year, which will cover budgets and bills, elections of officers, and states of the order. If you can't wait, ask me about it now, and I'll answer as best I can.

For now, though, I want to tell you about the feeling in the room. It's friendly, but confused. After decades of slow and steady decline, there's now clear signs of growth that can't be ignored. New faces are coming to Sovereign from places where Odd Fellowship is vibrant and energetic and scrappy. Instead of running into a brick wall of institutional power, we ran into foggy marshes of malaise. So we called out to each other, and lit our lanterns, and found a path.

There is an obvious trait that unites the new faces at Sovereign. We know that the best years of this Order are not behind us. And we act like it. We work with an urgency bought by knowledge that what we do there matters. We know that when we return to our Lodge families, they'll all want to know what we did to make things better. 

I hope to see some of you join us as new faces in Texas next year for the 201st annual session. If you've read this far, I know you'll love it. 

In Friendship, Love & Truth,

Ryon Frink

Grand Representative, Vermont IOOF

Ryon & one of the Grand Representatives of Pennsylvania, Laura Huchel at this year's SGL installation banquet.