The new year finds us with a new co-host: Sister Meredith Moore of Dallas Lodge #44 in Texas. Meredith brings a wonderful background in Odd Fellowship and in data collection and analysis to the show and we waste no time in putting her skills to work. She developed and posted a survey on member burnout that got responses from 37 jurisdictions. The results are, in most cases, not surprising. Members like meaning, ritual, and regalia. The real question is whether any action will be taken based on the data from the survey or if higher levels of leadership will just continue on as before.

There's no Shoutout on this episode. We would love it if you would share great things your lodge is doing so we can tell the rest of Odd Fellowship about it. Email us at 3linksoddcast@gmail.com and give us the info about what you're doing. In the Odd Podge, Ainslie shares the exciting news that his father joined the Odd Fellows, Toby talks about a visit from Michael and Ryan Crile of California (including a tour of the Washington Odd Fellows Museum), and Meredith previews the upcoming Encampment and Canton Degree Days at the end of January.

What exactly is a Grinch, anyway? Is it a person? A creature? An outlook on life that sours every interaction? The Three Links Odd Cast does another adaptation of a timeless holiday classic focused on Odd Fellowship as we present, "How The Grand Master Stole Christmas." In our version we get to explore what happens when individual desire supersedes our duties as Odd Fellows and how we can get back in touch with those duties. Our all-star cast returns for this episode, with Gil T. Rodelo, Ian Love-Jones, Matthew Thornton, Evan Ochs, Mason Wolf, Michael Greenzeiger, Steven Cross, Meredith Moore, Kyle Fuller, Kait Osman, and Elizabeth Keena.

Odd Fellowship isn't something that can be joined casually. It requires a certain amount of effort to be expended on behalf of those joining the lodge to fill out an application, pay the application fee, and proceed through the interview and initiation. For the applicant, this process should ensure that they get an opportunity to find out about the nature of the lodge to which they are applying. For the lodge, this process should help them decide if this applicant should become a candidate for membership and, ultimately, a member. For the process to work as intended, the Interviewing Committee must do a thorough job of investigating the applicant and find out if they will make a good member of the lodge. Just like in many other areas of Odd Fellowship, however, that doesn't always happen as intended. Too many lodges treat the Interview as a formality; a speed bump on the path to getting as many people in the lodge as possible as quickly as possible. Ray Jackson, PGM of Illinois, joins us to talk about the application and interviewing process and how it is supposed to go when done properly, and some of the ramifications of it not going properly. The Shoutout goes to another West Virginia Lodge, Harrisville #99. In the Odd Podge, Toby previews his upcoming 50th Birthday Party (hint: it's also a fundraiser), Ray remembers a departed long-time member in Illinois, Ainslie shares the positive outcomes of holding an open meeting at his lodge, and Mike talks about visiting Ainslie's lodge for that open meeting—and then gives us all a shocking surprise!