In 1979 the first Winter Camp Awareness outdoor session was held near Lake Tahoe and this year also marked the beginning of the end for the old lodge paper records. Starting in 1979 with the aid of a Radio Shack TRS-80 “supercomputer”, Don Wilkinson and the Lodge began the daunting task of converting all of the old Machek N’Gult, Royaneh and Achewon Nimat membership records over into an electronic database. Achewon Nimat was one of the first Lodges in the Country to convert our membership and financial records into an electronic database format. Previously all membership records were contained on a 3 x 8 visual record cards At the 1980 lodge banquet held at the Presidio Officers club in San Francisco, Lodge members feasted on such delicacies as Veal Cordon Bleu and BBQ ground round steak. During the dinner events like blowing up balloons without the use of your hands and keeping a balloon aloft the longest provided fun and amusement for the on-lookers. Winners of these events won a free trip to the 1980 Section Conclave at Camp Parks. Near the end of the year, the Order of the Arrow was saddened by the death of Dr. E Urner Goodman, founder of our Order. Live Oak village hosted a snow trip in Bear Valley at the start of 1981 that was attended by both village and lodge members. The lodge stayed at a three story cabin that could only be reached by hiking up a snow covered road for a mile. Toboggans, inter-tubes and skiing at nearby Mt Reba was the activities for the weekend. A great spaghetti dinner with all the fixins was prepared by village adviser Adrian Stith. In June 1981 the lodge adopted a new yellow bordered flap for service where an arrowman could purchase one flap per ordeal or Mikemosin. NOAC in 1981 was held in Austin, Texas at the University of Austin. Our Lodge had a contingent of about 14 people and we traveled to NOAC in two vans (Bill Parker’s Orange Pumpkin and another van). For whatever reason, the Pumpkin didn’t have any air conditioning and our trip during the summer took us through Barstow, California (one of the hottest places on Earth). As luck would have it, in addition to no air conditioning the drive train on the Pumpkin broke while we were in Barstow. So the contingent had to wait as Bill looked for a place to get the Pumpkin fixed. Nothing like breaking down in Barstow during August. We made it to Austin on time where we stayed in the 10 story dormitory building at UOA (also not air conditioned). In 1982 with the chapter system failing it was decided to discontinue it altogether in lieu of the village system. Ten years after hosting our first conclave at Fort Cronkite, Achewon Nimat would host its second conclave in 1985 at the San Francisco Presidio with the theme of “Service, Tradition & Honor”. Over 125 members attended to help the lodge in its duties and Shepherd Hendrix from Live Oak Village served as the Conclave Chairmen. In September a new unrestricted brotherhood patch was released. The patch used the new updated lodge patch design but would have a red border. In 1986, to help the OA program in Oakland and San Francisco, and to comply with National policy, the lodge re-instituted the chapter system. Live Oak and Golden Acorn Villages merged to form the Oakland Chapter, who called themselves Achewon Tulpe (Strong Turtle). Golden Gate, Mission Trails, and Sierra Villages merged to form the San Francisco Chapter, to be called Royaneh. The three other villages remained the same and were allowed to continue using their Indian names (Tres Ranchos was Amangi Nechochwen, Twin Valley was Seunen Paschengink and Mission Peak remained as Ohlone). The lodge also attained the highest score among all the 69 Western Region Lodges in the Lodge Achievement Program during 1986. In 1990, the lodge celebrated its 25th anniversary and also issued a replica of our original lodge flap with “25” added to it. Requirements were put on the flap, much like the National OA’s 75th Anniversary Award. 1990 Also marked the first time in 25 years that the lodge was unable to achieve the National Honor Lodge Award. This began a time of rebuilding for the lodge. The annual lodge fellowship weekend known as the Mikemosin, was renamed to Achiefest in 1992. That same year the lodge also sent a larger contingent to the National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC) which was held in Knoxville, Tennessee and issued the first NOAC specific lodge flap. In 1993 the lodge continued to grow and prepare for the Conclave and NOAC. 1994 was a banner year for us as we won our first ever Conclave Award at the Alameda Naval Air Station. The lodge had its first Section Officer in 15 years when Jeremy Davis was elected to the section. We also sent the largest contingent in the section to NOAC. Like good fermented grape juice, 1995 was an even better year. The lodge hosted the W3A Conclave at Camp Parks and won our second consecutive Conclave Award. The attendance was great throughout the year, and continued our streak of National Honor Lodge recognition. As this was our 30th anniversary year, the Lodge issued replicas of the Machek N’Gult and Royaneh flaps to members who met a participation requirement. 1996 was the year in which we ended a 20-year Most Indian Lodge Award drought. To top off yet another great conclave, we again won the Conclave Award, making it three years straight, we had another member become a section officer, Ken Morton, and we sent another large contingent to NOAC at Indiana University. In 1997 Jeremy Davis became Section W3A chief. Achewon Nimat won its fourth Conclave Award in a row and our second consecutive Most Indian Lodge Award, but lost our Indian Handball championship. During this year, 2 more members of our lodge became section officers, Rocky Fernandez and Ed Smith. In the duration of 1998 through 2000 we continued with our streak of winning Conclave and Most Indian Lodge Awards. In 2000, the lodge dance team achieved its long term goal of winning the Indian Dance competition and taking home the coveted (and enormous) Dance Trophy. 2002 proved to be an outstanding year for the lodge. We brought our streak of winning the Conclave Award to nine straight years, when we hosted the W3A Conclave at Camp Royaneh. This same year Dominic Pascucci was elected Western Region Chief, the second national officer in the history of our Lodge (Larry Teshara was National vice chief in 1961 from Royaneh Lodge). In 2003, our streak of winning the Conclave Award was brought to an end when the Lodge placed third at the Conclave at Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton, CA. Matt Griffis who was Lodge Chief in 2001 & 2002 was elected Western Region Chief, marking the first time ever that any lodge in the country has had back-to-back national officers. The lodge commemorated this event by issuing a special lodge flap. In 2004 the lodge took second place at the Conclave, which was held at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville. In the summer of 2004 the lodge sent a contingent of 10 members to NOAC, which was held at the Iowa State University. At the conference, the standing Western Region Chief resigned from his position due to personal reasons and the National Chief appointed Matt Griffis to finish the term. For their service to the Order of the Arrow, Dominic Pascucci and Matt Griffis both received the Distinguished Service Award. In 2006 Achewon Nimat Lodge joined the online world when our Web site “AchewonNimat.org” was created and launched by Lodge Adviser Charles Hoffman. 2006 also saw us winning our tenth conclave award when the conclave was located at Cutter Scout Reservation. In 2008 eleven arrowmen from Achie participated in the ArrowCorps 5 project in the Shasta-Trinity Mountains. The arrowmen spent a week working on the Pacific Crest trail and assisting the National Forest service. The following year when Achewon Nimat hosted the 2009 Conclave at Camp Royaneh we took home the coveted Conclave award for an astonishing 11th time. In 2010 during the centennial celebration of the Boy Scouts of America, Achewon Nimat celebrated 45 years as a combined lodge and 66 years since our founding lodges were formed. One of the big events of the year that the lodge was involved with was the Northern California Jamboree that was held at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. Over 20,000 Scouts, Leaders and the public participated in this three day event to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Scouting. At the Section Conclave held at the Presidio of Monterey, Achewon Nimat Lodge Chief Indy Nelson was voted as the new Section Chief of the W3S section for the 2011-2012 scouting year. Indy would become the 9th member of our lodge to lead the section since its founding in 1965. 2011 was a sad year for our Lodge as we lost two dedicated and longtime great members, Bill Parker and Jim Smith. In honor of their dedication and commitment to the ideals of scouting and the Order of the Arrow, a NOAC Conferenceship Fund was setup in Bill Parkers name. This endowment fund is setup in perpetuity to recognize Bill’s passion for NOAC and his years of service to Scouting and the Order of the Arrow. The purpose of the endowment fund is to provide monies toward a youth’s participation in the National Order of the Arrow Conference. In October of 2011 after months of discussions, the SFBAC and the Mt. Diablo/Silverado Councils announced that our two great councils would be merging sometime in 2012 pending the outcome of the stakeholders meeting on August 29th, 2012. Along with the merging of the Council so too would Achewon Nimat Lodge and Ut-in Selica Lodge combine their membership into one strong Lodge. Although almost two years of discussion and planning went into the anticipated merger, on August 29th, 91% of the SFBAC voted in favor of the merge while 60% of the voting members of the Mt Diablo Silverado Council voted not to unite. Misleading information distributed by some of the MSDC members upset at the possible merger officially ended the creation of the Golden Gate Area Council. Achewon Nimat would continue to serve as the Order of the Arrow Lodge for the San Francisco Bay Area Council. Also in 2011 the San Francisco Bay Area Council Campership Fund was started with a “seed” gift from Achewon Nimat Lodge. In 2013 at the new Summit Bechtel Jamboree site in West Virginia, a building was dedicated to the Order of the Arrow which contains a giant fireplace that hark’s back to the late 1940’s when E. Urner Goodman built a stone fireplace at his residence in Bondville, Vermont. What’s special about the fireplace is that it contains rocks provided by the different Lodges from across the Country. The rock from our council is inscribed with “Achewon Nimat, San Leandro” and came from an outcropping of rocks located at Wente Scout Reservation near the dam. The fireplace at E. Urner Goodman’s Brotherhood Barn next to his home residence in Vermont also contains a special rock from the Oakland Area Council inscribed with the symbol of Camp Dimond-O which closed in 1978. In October of 2013 with the number of active arrowmen in the Lodge decreasing, a number of changes were instituted that affected the entire Lodge. The villages of Amangi Nechochwen and Achewon Tulpe merged to form the Wekemnayon village (meaning New Brotherhood). Wekemnayon was one of the chapters in our lodge in the mid 1970’s that encompassed the villages of Live Oak, Golden Acorn, and Charrowood. So it was a good fit to once again use the Wekemnayon name. The other major change was that the number of ordeals was reduced from three ordeals per year to two ordeals per year and the Klondike Derby snow camping adventure was canceled until more arrowmen become active. At the 48th annual banquet, Lodge Chief Hans Mortimer resigned due to school commitments at UC Berkeley. Vice-chief Ryan Shepodd stepped up and was sworn in as the new lodge chief to complete the 2013-2014 lodge year. Early in 2014, the NOAC centennial project for the 100th anniversary of the Order of the Arrow was begun which included creating a booklet to document the history of our lodge. The second portion of the project was the centennial crate to hold wood from our council camps to be burned at NOAC. The ashes would be comingled with the ashes from other lodges and given to attendees at NOAC as a memento. The NOAC centennial crate from Achewon Nimat contained a sampling of wood from each of the council camps where our lodge has held ceremonies since 1944. Redwood to symbolize the majestic tall trees from Camp Royaneh in Sonoma County and Camp Lilienthal in Marin County where Royaneh Lodge was founded. Cedar to symbolize the trees from the hills of Camp Dimond-O near Yosemite and pine to symbolize the local trees from Wente Scout Reservation in Willits, Rancho Los Mochos in the Livermore hills and Camp Dimond in Oakland where Machek N’Gult was founded. 2014 also marked the first time since the early 1990’s that unit elections and tap outs would be held at summer camp. The Scout Exec agreed to a plan that would designate one camp staff member as the Order of the Arrow camp representative who would have the responsibility to promote the OA and run elections during summer camp. As 2014 is closed out, a special 50th anniversary banquet honoring the merging of Machek N’Gult Lodge 375 and Royaneh Lodge 282 was planned for the end of the year. On December 13, 2014 exactly 50 years to the day that our two former lodges merged at Goodman’s restaurant in Oakland, a similar celebration was held once again but this time at the Council Office with over 100 Arrowmen in attendance. A special issue lodge flap available only at the dinner to commemorate the event was made available to those in attendance. Former lodge advisers, chiefs and arrowmen from both Machek N’Gult and Royaneh were in attendance and the theme of the night was “A Blast to our Past” with memorabilia displays featuring both former lodges. The year 2015 began with the Winter Camp Awareness training session held aboard the USS Hornet in Alameda. Over 260 Scouts and 40 arrowmen from the SFBAC and other councils attended the day-long event. In preparation for the NOAC 2015 event, the Order of the Arrow requested that all former or discontinued lodges provide a rock for the temporary centennial fireplace to be built at NOAC. The rocks would then be transported to the Summit Bechtel Reserve to be incorporated in a permanent fireplace honoring all lodges of the Order of the Arrow. Two rocks were obtained for Machek N’Gult and Royaneh Lodges. The rock for Machek N’Gult was located on the former grounds of Camp Dimond in Oakland near the site of the amphitheater where Machek N’Gult was founded. The rock for Royaneh was located at Camp Royaneh down in the river bed of East Austin Creek where ceremonies were held at the camp. The former lodge names were then inscribed in the two rocks by the Bras & Mattos Monument Company of Hayward. In May the lodge youth leaders attended a weekend retreat at the Youth Retreat Center operated by the Diocese of Oakland in Pleasant Hill. The two day event was used to discuss the operations of the lodge and planning the events of the next year. The site offered a great location to hold the leadership training.