Capital City Grange

SURJ at the Grange meeting, dance all weekend and eat cake

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Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, President (with everyone’s help) for February 2, 2018

Grange meeting:  Saturday Feb. 3rd, 4:30 PM:  financial choices, projections for the future, and a presentation from Central VT SURJ

We’ve been working on more planning ahead for our Grange than we’ve done before–because it feels as if we have a strong future!   The generosity of the people of Berlin, in exempting us from property tax until 2021 has let us achieve a positive cash-flow, so rather than try to scrape by, we can try to predict our needs.   I’ll be presenting our expenses over the past several years, and some projected expenses that will come up over the next 1 year, 5 year and 10 year periods.    We also have a request from the FCCGH for a significant contribution to the lower level renovation project.   Help us evaluate how to balance our current needs, preventive maintenance and rainy day fund needs.
At about 5:30, we’ll get a presentation from Madeline Sharrow from Central VT SURJ.   This local branch of a national movement is working with white people, who form, of course, the very large majority in our state, to help us all learn how we can support positive changes to the racist legacy of the past, to work toward a more equal future.
Community Potluck after our meeting, as usual!
At about 6:00, we’ll have a chance to chew over the meeting, and also the assortment of delicious dishes brought to share.   Bring your favorite appetizer, main dish, snack, sauce, beverage, bread, spread or dessert treat–and watch it disappear.   It’s a chance to chat with people you may already know, or may have always wanted to get to know, or didn’t know even lived around here!   Please join us–like all Grange events, it’s open to all, and free!
Dance Saturday night and Sunday afternoon with David Kaynor!
Saturday:  Well-known caller, dance organizer and community dance leader David Kaynor will call for the CDU dance from 8:00 to 11:00 on Saturday evening, after the Grange meeting and potluck, with friends George Wilson, Bill Olson and David Guertin providing great dancing music.   We expect the usual crowd of dancers of all types!  Sliding scale admission!
Sunday:  David comes back to call a special community celebration dance!   The Grange is hosting a special event to congratulate the residents of Weston’s Mobile Home Park, just south of the Grange Hall on Rt. 12, who have just formed a co-op and purchased the park!   Assisted by Annik Paul and the Cooperative Development Institute, the park now belongs to the people who live there.    They have come a long way since Tropical Storm Irene flooded the park in 2011–new mobile homes, plus some “tiny houses” now fill the 83-space park.  On January 3rd, they became the 12th (out of 241 parks in VT) to be purchased by their residents, and run as a co-op.   Read more in this Times-Argus article: https://www.timesargus.com/articles/mobile-home-park-now-a-co-op/ 
We’ll have a cake with coffee, tea and refreshments starting at 1:30 PM, with the dancing beginning at 2:00 and going until 3:30.  Music will be provided by members of the VT Fiddle Orchestra, which David Kaynor directs.  All dances will be taught, and it’s a great opportunity to try out community social dancing.  Bring your kids, your friends of all ages and help us celebrate this community milestone!  And you can get home before dark!  We are asking for a $5.00 donation from everyone except the Weston’s residents, to give some gas money to David and the VFO.
Watch the Grange Notes for more events:
  • Baking workshop!
  • Non-profit, community-based, fast internet!
  • Baking contest!
  • Project updates!
All coming up soon at your Community Grange!

Meetings and beyond–special programs and special dances at the Grange

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Grange Notes by Tim Swartz for January 12, 2018

CANCELLED for Jan. 13th:
Kids Trade ‘n’ Play
The poor weather forecast for this Saturday morning has led to this cancellation.
Check out this community event next on Feb. 10th.   Kids Trade ‘n’ Play is special, and public, and regularly wonderful!  Erin Berry, her corps of volunteers, and the Grange sponsor this clothing and toy exchange for kids on every 2nd Saturday, from 9:30 to 11:30.   There are bins of clothing for kids which are begging for new homes–please stop by and take some away!
Still on for Jan. 13th:
Yule enjoy this special dance & dinner!
The Society for Creative Anachronism, Shire of Panther Vale, invites all to join them in revelry–dancing, eating and costumes for all who want to join in–at their annual Yule celebration, on Saturday, Jan. 13th from 2:0 to 10:00 PM.   No admission charge–though they welcome donations–as they open their celebration to all.   As you will see in the event listing,http://capitalcitygrange.org/event/pending-pre-17thcentury-yule-ball/, they will loan costumes, or welcome you if you bring your own.   Medieval dancing will be taught, by Karen H. Veale and Luke Donforth (a familiar face in the Grange Hall!), with introductory lessons in the afternoon and called to live music after the potluck dinner and the gift exchange.   Check it out!
Grange meeting–Postponed to Jan. 20th but not forgotten!  
Our usual meeting time on the first Saturday of the month was awfully cold, somewhere around minus 9 degrees–so we pushed the meeting back to the third Saturday, Jan. 20th.
We hope you will join us at 4:30, to discuss money matters, Grange events, plans for the Hall, and more.  See Merry’s eloquent plea for members to join us for 2018 below!
Followed at 6:00-ish with the Community Potluck, a chance to socialize and share the tasty dishes brought by Grangers and friends.   All of these meetings and dinners are free and open to the public!

Greetings of the New Year!

I’ll get right to the point: It is time to join or renew your membership in CCG#469. All memberships run Jan-December. Membership costs$30/year; check or money order made payable to CCG#469. Send to CCG# 469, PO BOX 208, Northfield Falls, VT 05664. There are several reasons why you should do this:

FIRST GOOD REASON

Capital City Grange #469 was chartered by the National Patrons of Husbandry in 1914 in Montpelier. In 1952-53 the members built the Hall in Berlin and this is where so many of you find activities you enjoy. (You can check us out on the web:  capitalcitygrange.org)

As long as CCG#469 remains an “active” Grange, the members hold the deed and the Hall remains a community center open to and serving all kinds of folks.  But if CCG#469 should fold for lack of members, the Hall will be sold by the State Grange. It could become a funeral parlor or a restaurant and any one of an infinity of things that benefit from “Location! Location! Location!”

SECOND GOOD REASON

The Grange comes to us with a legacy of 19th Century Rural Populism. Really! Between the Civil War and WWI, Grangers advocated for Women’s Suffrage, rural cooperatives and supported a host of progressive practices in farming and domestic arts and government regulation. Granges supported and assisted individual self-improvement and social responsibility. Ideal Grange virtues articulated even back then include frugal personal practices enabling each of us to do more for others. Eleanor Roosevelt was a member. So was Norman Rockwell.

THIRD GOOD REASON

The members of Capital City Grange #469 are striving at both the local and state levels to make these quaint verities relevant in the 21st century. The ritual we use at meetings poetically articulates these values, but we regularly update it to remove sexist or racist or theist language. New songs are learned and sung. New issues are discussed.  Another example: the CCG proposed, and the State Grange adopted a resolution to support S1034, a bill in the US Congress that would provide a legal status for long-term agricultural workers, plus a path to citizenship for immigrant farm workers–check it out in more detail at:  https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1034.

If you don’t see described here the good reason(s) you come to the CCGHALL, maybe you can let us know. Come tell us at the next meeting:4:30 pm, on next Saturday, Jan. 6th!  You can bring your dues check to the meeting!  Most meetings are on the first Saturday of the month at that time, and are followed by an excellent potluck dinner.

Check the Calendar on the website for details and, while you’re there, scroll to the bottom of the Home Page and sign up for GRANGE NOTESif you aren’t already on the list!

“Like” us on Facebook, too!  “Capital City Grange Hall”
This message brought to you by our Grange Treasurer, Merry Shernock

Grange meeting on Feb. 3rd will feature a SURJ program
We’ll be back to a regular schedule for Grange meetings on the first Saturday of February, at 4:30.  Our usual business meeting will be followed at about5:30 by a presentation from Central Vermont “Showing Up for Racial Justice”.  SURJ is a national organization working to educate and organize, in particular, white people to change the legacy of white-dominated social structures and attitudes.  With a value of “calling people in, not calling them out”, SURJ seeks to involve people in mutual education, such as through the “Living Room Conversations” which Merry and I, among many others have taken part in.  Check out their national organization website at:  http://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/ and meet local organizers at our Grange meeting.
Community Potluck will follow at about 6:00, so we can continue to talk together after the presentation!   Bring your favorite dish to share!
Celebrate a new sense of community on Feb. 4th,
with a dance and a cake!
The Weston mobile home park, just south of the Grange on Rt. 12 has been one of the larger ones in Vermont  for years.   Now, under an agreement signed at the beginning of January, residents have formed a cooperative ownership group, which has purchased the park!   We have been pleased to donate the use of the Grange Hall for their organizing meetings, and pleased to offer Dancing for Everyone and Everyone Dancing on Sunday afternoon, from 1:30 to 3:30.   Come at the beginning to share in a cake and hear how they did it!   Starting about 2:00, share community dancing with your dancing friends, your kids and their friends, your parents and their friends!   Nationally known caller David Kaynor, with decades of experience teaching people of all ages and abilities, will call dances for everyone, with music by members of the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra!  We applaud the work of the residents, assisted by Annik Paul of the Cooperative Development Institute, in working together to take control of the property on which they live.  Residents will be admitted at no charge; we are asking for a $5 donation from others to pay some gas money to the musicians and a payment to David Kaynor.
Looking ahead to March:
Central Vermont Internet
Just before Town Meeting Day, our March 3rd Grange meeting will feature speakers and a program on a local initiative to bring better broadband connections to central Vermont.   Founded by Berlin Selectboard member Jeremy Hansen, Central Vermont Internet is seeking buy-in from about a dozen communities in our area, to form a “Communications Union District” to provide residents with high-speed, net-neutral Internet service through a non-profit, community owned provider.   Already on the ballot in several towns, CVI would be funded only by subscribers, not by taxpayers in its service area.  CVI is inspired by the “EC Fiber” community internet which is already serving towns south of our area.
You can hear Jeremy interviewed for Vermont Edition on VPR at: http://digital.vpr.net/post/trying-get-central-vermont-wired#stream/0
And you can keep in touch on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CentralVermontInternet/
as well as coming to hear more and ask questions at about 5:30 PM on March 3rd.
Potluck dinner after every Grange meeting
Every Grange meeting is followed by a potluck dinner, which lets us all share good food together–while we also chew over what we’ve discussed at the meeting…and the songs we’ve sung!   YOU are invited to join us–whether or not you’ve come to the meeting!   The dinner starts about 6:00, come on down and eat with us.  The CDU contra dance starts at 8:00, if you want to stay for that as well!

Too cold for Grange meeting Saturday January 6!

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Grange Notes by Tim Swarts for January 5, 2018

Snow, Ice and Cold force us to re-schedule–NO MEETING ON JAN. 6!

Temperatures are expected to stay well below zero all day long this Saturday, so I am re-scheduling the meeting for Jan. 20th, the 3rd Saturday.  We will have to re-schedule Ben Koenig for another meeting date, as he is not available on that Saturday.

Contra Dance is still on for 8:00 on Jan. 6th–you can warm up with the great dancing, to the great music of Dave Langford, Glen Loper and Bethany Waickman, and the great calling of Mary Wesley!    Newcomers’ intro and lesson at about 7:30.

New Year, new song–join us….and rejoin us!

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Grange Notes by Tim Swartz for January 1, 2018

Grange Carol Sing brings people out to sing together
Just before Christmas, on Saturday Dec. 23rd, we got together for an afternoon sing-along, starting at 4:00.   Organized by former Grange MusicianCharles Mayhood and Grange Treasurer Merry Shernock, with piano accompaniment by current Grange Musician Matt Nunnelly, we had a small but enthusiastic turnout.  The weather was not very good–misty rain was falling all day, as I recall, and there was certainly less than great driving.   We had people arrive from Plainfield, Middlesex, Barre Town, Calais, Northfield and Montpelier–we said before we started that anyone who came to join us would be someone who really needed to sing–and we’re glad that we set this up.
Songs were selected by participants, and ranged widely!   We sang Christmas standards from Grange songbooks and special Christmas collections, and the titles ranged from “Deck the Halls” to “Winter Wonderland” to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”.   Come to the next one, and you can bring your favorites!

Greetings of the New Year!

I’ll get right to the point: It is time to join or renew your membership in CCG#469. All memberships run Jan-December. Membership costs$30/year; check or money order made payable to CCG#469. Send to CCG# 469, PO BOX 208, Northfield Falls, VT 05664. There are several reasons why you should do this:

FIRST GOOD REASON

Capital City Grange #469 was chartered by the National Patrons of Husbandry in 1914 in Montpelier. In 1952-53 the members built the Hall in Berlin and this is where so many of you find activities you enjoy. (You can check us out on the web:  capitalcitygrange.org)

As long as CCG#469 remains an “active” Grange, the members hold the deed and the Hall remains a community center open to and serving all kinds of folks.  But if CCG#469 should fold for lack of members, the Hall will be sold by the State Grange. It could become a funeral parlor or a restaurant and any one of an infinity of things that benefit from “Location! Location! Location!”

SECOND GOOD REASON

The Grange comes to us with a legacy of 19th Century Rural Populism. Really! Between the Civil War and WWI, Grangers advocated for Women’s Suffrage, rural cooperatives and supported a host of progressive practices in farming and domestic arts and government regulation. Granges supported and assisted individual self-improvement and social responsibility. Ideal Grange virtues articulated even back then include frugal personal practices enabling each of us to do more for others. Eleanor Roosevelt was a member. So was Norman Rockwell.

THIRD GOOD REASON

The members of Capital City Grange #469 are striving at both the local and state levels to make these quaint verities relevant in the 21st century. The ritual we use at meetings poetically articulates these values, but we regularly update it to remove sexist or racist or theist language. New songs are learned and sung. New issues are discussed.  Another example: the CCG proposed, and the State Grange adopted a resolution to support S1034, a bill in the US Congress that would provide a legal status for long-term agricultural workers, plus a path to citizenship for immigrant farm workers–check it out in more detail at:  https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1034.

If you don’t see described here the good reason(s) you come to the CCGHALL, maybe you can let us know. Come tell us at the next meeting:4:30 pm, on next Saturday, Jan. 6th!  You can bring your dues check to the meeting!  Most meetings are on the first Saturday of the month at that time, and are followed by an excellent potluck dinner.

Check the Calendar on the website for details and, while you’re there, scroll to the bottom of the Home Page and sign up for GRANGE NOTESif you aren’t already on the list!

“Like” us on Facebook, too!  “Capital City Grange Hall”
This message brought to you by our Grange Treasurer, Merry Shernock

Special opportunity:   learn a new song with Ben Koenig!
We have a local celebrity guest to provide our Grange program on Jan. 6th.   Many of us have enjoyed listening to and singing along with Ben Koenig, who performs solo (and with Mark Greenberg, as “Anything Goes”), playing finger-style guitar.   At a recent event at the Labor Hall in Barre, Ben volunteered to teach the Grange a song he wrote which he taught to Pete Seeger!  Join us about 5:30 on the coming Saturday to sing along!
Grange Meeting will work on planning ahead

Our usual monthly business meeting will start at 4:30; in addition to the usual reports and discussions about Agricultural and Legislative developments, we will have the next installment in the novel practice of financial planning for the Grange.  We have now had a couple of years of enjoying a closer relationship with the Town of Berlin, solidified with the Town Meeting vote in 2015 which has relieved us of property tax payments.  This has allowed us to actually stop losing money, for the first time in many years!   This has in turn allowed us to consider our future needs, beyond just trying to survive, year by year.
In the past couple of meetings, we’ve talked about future needs for building repairs, upgrades of our kitchen appliances and our water heater, contributing to the improvements planned by the Friends of the Capital City Grange Hall, and about how we can put aside money to be ready to respond to our needs.
Come help us deal with these questions–we need all the help we can get to build a good financial foundation for the work of the Grange!
Revisiting our Resolution
I reported in the last Grange Notes that the National Grange had rejected the resolution we proposed, and the VT State Grange endorsed, which Merry mentions above.   The National Meeting chose to see our support for legislation designed for workers who are full-time agricultural immigrants, as concerned with the seasonal workers who are already addressed in the National Agricultural policies.
Let’s start working on a new version, to make the need for protection for the year-round workers who immigrate to Vermont and other states.   U.S. Senate bill S1034, designed to provide a legal status for just these people, is a good vehicle to achieve this, and we’ll do what we can to support it.
Potluck dinner after the Grange meeting
Every Grange meeting is followed by a potluck dinner, which lets us all share good food together–while we also chew over what we’ve discussed at the meeting…and the songs we’ve sung!   YOU are invited to join us–whether or not you’ve come to the meeting!   The dinner starts about 6:00, come on down and eat with us.  The CDU contra dance starts at 8:00, if you want to stay for that as well!
Grange Friends’ End-of-Year Fundraising Campaign

The FCCGH has been soliciting donations for the next large Grange Hall project:  improvements in the basement level including waterproofing, insulation for the exterior walls, floor finishing, heating improvements, new tables, and more.   Starting in mid-November with mailed appeals to previous donors, the campaign has been
As of today, over $4,500 has come in, by checks or by direct donation via Paypal on the Grange website.  This gets us well on our way to the $20,000 or $25,000 we need to raise–and you can help us keep moving toward that goal.   Make your check payable to “FCCGH” and send it to:

FCCGH
PO Box 192
Northfield Falls VT 05664

Or you can give securely via the CCG website:  http://capitalcitygrange.org/donate/
And your donations to the FCCGH are tax-deductible for you (to the extent allowed by law) since the Friends are a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization. The Donate page lists the wonderful projects which have been completed with their help since 2012.  Also on the website, the “Hall Projects” page has information on the scope and plans for the “Mess Hall to Dining Hall” project.  As one of the donors said, with all the great work that has been done on the Grange Hall, shouldn’t the basement be a nice space as well?
We give great thanks to those who have already donated, and we hope many more of our Members and Friends will join them.

Holiday dinners, singing carols together and resolution results

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Grange Notes by Tim Swartz for December 17, 2017

Holiday food boxes will make a few tables happier
We  can applaud the efforts of a good number of people from the Grange community, who have put together 6 extra-full food boxes, designed to create a bountiful feast for families who need support in this holiday season.   The boxes will be distributed by Central Vermont Head Start early next week.   Here is part of the list of the food for each box donated by people who are Grange members and users, including items bought with generous monetary contributions:   pasta, canned fruits and frozen vegetables, 5 lbs. of potatoes, 5 lbs. of clementines, plus a frozen turkey (seen stored in the Grange refrigerator/freezer), two sticks of butter and a foil roasting pan!   And some candy for the kids as well.
Lots of people chipped in time as well as food and $$–planning and executing this doesn’t happen by magic.   I hope I don’t leave out anybody when I list:  Alison Forrest, Merry Shernock, Carla Kevorkian and the Afro-Caribbean dance class.     Anonymous donors–you know who you are, and how much your contributions are valued.
Carol singing in the Hall on Dec. 23rd–welcoming all to join in
4:00 to 6:30 PM
Charles, the former Musician for CCG#469, invites everyone to forget the hustle and pressure of the season and come to the CCGHALL to sing and be merry, instead.  Bring some cookies, if you want.  Bring some friends.  All ages welcome and no need to worry about being a member, or paying a fee, or knowing how to sing or dance.  Join us in the carol, the merry, merry carol!

Or put another way, forget the last minute rushing around, the pressures of the holiday,  come and relax with friends and community singing–Christmas favorites. Bring your guitar, your flute–your friends! If you are able,  bring some cookies or treats to share.   We have a piano!
You get the message–we really want you to come and sing with us!
We’ll have song leaders, Grange songbooks and some lyric sheets to share, and other people who love to sing.

Updating our offices

Alert readers will have noticed that with this edition, the Grange Notes are being sent from me as the President of the Grange.    From now on, that is the name for the office.   At our Dec. 2 meeting, all of us voted together to update the titles  of our executive positions–from Master to President, and from Overseer to Vice President.
In the last set of Notes, I told about my reasons for making this change, in recognition of the connotations of the older names in relation to African-Americans.   We are joining the practice of the National Grange and many other Community Granges, especially in Southern states.
As we improve the words we use to name our offices, we recognize the impact that words can have on people, and we look forward to continuing to improve our communications and relations with the diverse public which takes part in our community organization.

National Grange stalls our resolution on year-round immigrant farmworkers
Our Grange and the Vermont State Grange voted in October to support the resolution crafted by Merry, which supports an effort by Senators to provide a legal status for year-round immigrants who work on Vermont farms and others around the country.   Our own Senator Pat Leahy has joined as a co-sponsor.
After passage by the State Grange, this resolution was sent on to the National Grange meeting in November, in Washington State.  Unfortunately, the resolution was mis-identified as dealing with seasonal immigrants, legal status for which is already a policy of the National Grange.   The committee there tabled the resolution and did not even bring it up for a vote.
Our intent was clear, to expand legal protection and a path to permanent residency for year-round immigrants–and we will revise and resubmit it next year!

Grange Friends and community members give a great start to fundraising for the next big project!

The last “Grange Notes” described the agreement between the Grange and the Friends of the CC Grange Hall to pursue the “Mess Hall to Dining Hall” project.   The FCCGH has begun the next phase of fundraising, to collect the funds we will need to match the grant for which we are applying.  Mailed appeals have been sent to people who have donated in the past, and the results have been impressive!
As of today, almost $4,000 has come in, by checks or by direct donation via Paypal on the Grange website.  This gets us well on our way to the $20,000 or $25,000 we need to raise–can you help us get to the next milestone?  Make your check payable to “FCCGH” and send it to:

FCCGH
PO Box 192
Northfield Falls VT 05664

Or you can give securely via the CCG website:  http://capitalcitygrange.org/donate/
And your donations to the FCCGH are tax-deductible for you (to the extent allowed by law) since the Friends are a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization. The Donate page lists the wonderful projects which have been completed with their help since 2012.  Also on the website, the “Hall Projects” page has information on the scope and plans for the proejct.
We give great thanks to those who have already donated, and we’ll feel equally grateful for all the donations we will need to complete it.

Next Grange meeting:  2018!  Join us on Jan. 6th at 4:30
We’ll be in the new year by then–watch for more information after the Christmas holiday–but put it on your calendar!
Chow down with us–Community Potluck at 6:00!
Our meeting in January will be followed as usual with a tasty potluck dinner.  Bring your favorite dish to share. We’ll have the usual combination of great food and great socializing, please join us!  It’s a chance to “digest” what we’ve learned, after chewing it over with the people of the Grange community.

Contact Us

Tim Swartz, President
Capital City Grange #469
802-225-8921 (cell - not available during work)
802-431-0129 (work - direct line)
grangepresident@capitalcitygrange.org

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