Capital City Grange

  • Grange Notes
  • Photo Gallery
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • History of the Capital City Grange
    • Grange Officers & Committees
    • Contact Us
    • Grange Notes
  • Dancing
    • Contra Dancing
    • Afro-Caribbean Dance
    • The Dancers’ News
  • Rentals
  • Support the Hall
    • DONATE
    • Friends of the Capital City Grange Hall
    • Hall Projects
    • Completed Projects
  • Community
  • Calendar
You are here: Home / Grange Notes / Meetings and beyond–special programs and special dances at the Grange

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

January 15, 2018 by Tova

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!

Filed Under: Grange Notes

Contact Us

Tim Swartz, President
802-225-8921 (cell)
grangepresident@capitalcitygrange.org

Recent Posts

  • March contra dances: trying out “Larks & Ravens”
  • Hot new dance joins the Grange lineup on Sunday! Dance, Sing & Jump Around, plus Kids Trade & Play on Saturday make for a family-friendly weekend.
  • Did you know we are halfway to Spring?–shoveling snow, cleaning the Grange Hall, and meeting on Groundhog day!

Copyright © 2019 · Outreach Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in