DISCLAMER:
Santee Lodge It is not officially affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts of the USA or the World Organization of Scout Movements.
In the Fall of 2004 Duncan Norton proposed a new standard issue flap designed by Kyle Hughes to replace the Moritz ordeals. The reasons stated for changing was that some people wanted to go back to the original Audubon bird from our first issues. There was also an itch for change as the Steven Askin’s S12 had been around for nine years. The changes for the Brotherhood and Vigil flaps were not approved until the next fellowship in Spring 2005. There was a delay in selling the new designs since the lodge still had an inventory of the flaps from Moritz. It appears as if it was not until Fall 2005 before the new flaps were sold. Vigil flaps were not sold for many more fellowships because of inventory in the box. When the Vigil flaps were ordered they were lost. At this time it is believed that the lodge adviser simply can’t find them. None of them have turned up. These missing Vigils would be Krelman made flaps to match the Ordeal and Brotherhood flaps. However, by the time the decision was made to order another batch of Vigils fate would have them come from yet another patch company. During 2006 the BSA decided to license their memorabilia so that only patch companies who paid the BSA royalties were allowed to produce patches for councils and lodges. This new merchandise would have the BSA seal on the back noting it as an officially licensed product. At the time that the new order of Vigil flaps was being placed the Krelman Company had not obtained it’s license. Therefore, the new run of Vigil flaps were ordered from the A-B Emblem Company. These new Vigil flaps were sold for the first time in 2007.
One of the concepts that became a part of the lodge lexicon during this time was the idea of a patch being the lodge totem. This was a concept that the scout executive brought and basically said that the one flap that you wore – the Ordeal flap – was the “lodge totem”. This was the flap that could be restricted and sold only to lodge members. All other flaps he considered to be special issues including the Brotherhood and Vigil flaps. The new trader flap also fit into this category. By taking the proverbial trigger off the conservative ways of the lodge in just the year 2003 the lodge had three new special issue flaps. It should be noted that from 1997 to 2004 the lodge executive committee made all decisions regarding memorabilia without consultation with the entire lodge through a business meeting. In fact many brothers lamented that business meetings lost their cantankerous flavor during this period of ECM power. Some will point to the Fall 2007 business meeting – 10 years in the making – as the possible return of youth led great debates about the memorabilia of the lodge.
The first special issue of 2003 was a first for Santee. Jay Carlson designed a “Night Vision” set that would have a special 65th anniversary flap accompanied by three fellowship segments called by many chevrons that would fit under the flap making eventually a full pocket set. His original design called for the use of iridescent glow-in-the-dark thread which was a new curiosity in the early years of the new century. However, when the price quote came back excessively high for this thread the lodge staff adviser squashed the idea and instead ordered the set with regular embroidery. We will never know what the “Night Vision” set would have looked like glowing in a dark space. Even so the set was popular with Arrowmen and many purchased the flaps as they were reordered at least once and sold out by the end of 2003.
Santee hosted the 2003 Dixie Fellowship at Camp Coker. The ECM supported by the Dixie Committee voted to have two flaps available to brothers in conjunction with this event. The first was the Dixie Service flap again designed by Jay Carlson. This flap had to be earned by a brother taking part in Dixie work weekends. The flaps were not distributed until the event and sales were tightly controlled by the staff adviser. The other flap issued for the Dixie was a conclave delegate flap. Ironically, neither of these Dixie issues was allowed to use the words Dixie Fellowship by order of the scout executive. The 2003 Conclave Delegate flap was sold at the event. There was a reorder on this flap because of confusion over when and how they were sold to members. It was also during this time that the lodge began using the Krelman Company again to create its patches. The Dixie Adviser David Surrett became the lodge adviser shortly after the Dixie in April. Since Krelman was used to issue the Dixie memorabilia they were given the lodge’s business. It is worth noting that the ECM in later years approved delegate flaps for the 2005
After the summer of 1999 Santee Lodge was in turmoil. The lodge chief had been removed, the lodge adviser had resigned (the third in three years) and the scout executive decided to suspend operation of the lodge and reorganize it. During the shut down a district executive who had worked at Camp Coker in the summer of 1999 decided to order a batch of three dozen flaps because the lodge had been closed down. The Death Flap was an all red ghost flap with a black border ordered directly from the Stadri Company and delivered to the council office. He gave out the flaps to various people such as other members of the professional staff and some adults in the lodge. Eventually all of the flaps were collected back up from the people and turned over to the scout executive. David Lee and Jimmy Duffy later burned the flaps behind the dining hall at Camp Coker. However, of the 36 flaps made only 32 were burned. No one seems to know the whereabouts of the 4 missing Death Flaps.
Stadri Flap Sold on eBay without rolled edge border or plastic backing
Eventually several of the death flaps surfaced on the Internet auction site eBay and were sold by a trader out of Missouri. It was also during this time that some of the Stadri patches including the One Arrow Vigil showed up on eBay for sale by a Canadian wholesale patch dealer. Apparently he got patches from Stadri’s overseas supplier (some missing the border and plastic backing) and sold them starting at $3 each.
The story of the Death Flap is also the beginning of the story of the “Island” flaps. When the lodge was reorganized after having missed the 1999 Fall Fellowship and 2000 Winter Banquet the first event was a February workday held at Camp Coker. The executive committee met and voted to undertake the project of turning Belk Island into a new staff city area. A motion to sell the Death Flaps as a fundraiser was debated at the meeting. However, the majority of the youth on the committee voted the idea down and no decision was made for a fundraiser.
At the first fellowship after the reorganization in the spring of 2000 the business meeting saw the issue of the Death Flap come to a close. The lodge voted to ask the scout executive to destroy the flaps.
Jumbo Island Flap
The next day at a long Sunday morning executive committee meeting a compromise was reached to meet the goals laid out in the budget to support the island project. The youth finally decided to create a brand new fundraising flap. The flaps were to be sold for $100 to adults and $50 to youth who provided at least 10 hours of service to the camp. The design was done by David Lee, the interim lodge adviser and sent off to the company. However, the first run came back looking “jumbo”. In fact there was some question as to whether they were more of a back-patch than a flap.
Regular Island Flap
The decision was made to order another set of flaps and this time make sure they were the standard size. The executive committee later decided anyone buying the Island flaps would get both the Jumbo Island flap and the Island flap for $100. At the 2001 Fall Fellowship the executive committee made the decision to drop the 10 hours of service requirement and sell the flaps to youth for $50. After over a year of selling almost none of the patches the Executive Committee voted to drop the adult price to $50 and the youth price to $25. By the time this order of slap was completely sold out the price had dropped all the way down to $10 for the Jumbo and $5 for the regular Island flap. Ironically, staff city was never built on the island but the money did go towards the construction of the staff city birdhouse cabins below the dining hall.
F3 - Trader Flap
At the 2001 LLDC in August the executive committee approved a new “Trader Flap” for the lodge. The vote came at the direction of the scout executive in order to have a Santee flap available for open sale in the Florence office. Several designs were drawn up around tables in the dining hall. However, the design which won out was from Brian Howe who used his computer to take the classic Santee twills and create a white twill. Brian added an fleur-de-lis under the “WWW” but otherwise kept the same look as the twills. The youth approved his design because it was very traditional and also because as a twill flap it would not be as desirable as a fully embroidered Santee flap. The flaps arrived in time for the 2001 Fall Fellowship but a little bit of controversy came with them. The Moritz patch company had switched the bird that Brian had proposed and used the bird from the 2001 Fall Fellowship patch to the surprise of the executive committee. Another impact of this change was to drop the fdl that Brian had added to the classic twill look since the 2001 Fall bird has a hidden fdl in the parakeet’s neck. The committee met on Saturday to decide whether to sell the flaps anyways or send them back. The committee decided to send sell them anyways. Randy Dargan wisely made a motion in the business meeting that night that if the patches were reordered that they should keep the design that Moritz sent them instead of going back and using Brian’s design which would have made another lodge issue.
The original order of the Trader Flaps was for three hundred. Most of them were sold at Fall Fellowship to Santee brothers who were not used to being allowed to buy a Santee Flap open sale. Some flaps were taken by the Staff Adviser to be sold in the council office which of course was the first time this had happened in the lodge. By January 2002 all the flaps in the first run were sold out. The lodge eventually reordered 400 more in the fall of 2002. There is no variation in the second run. The last trader flaps were sold at 2006 Fall Fellowship.
