Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help) for October 3, 2018
Window cleaning on Oct. 6th postponed–Hall is too busy
In case you heard me announce it at the Sept. 29th contra dance–we had originally hoped to do a Hall cleaning party before the Oct. 6th Grange meeting, but we’ll have to re-schedule that–there is a “Intensive Youth Musical Theater Workshop” happening, from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. We’ll send out a new schedule as soon as possible.
October Grange meeting starting at 4:15 PM on Saturday
We’re starting 15 minutes earlier than usual, so we can deal with a good-sized agenda:
- Elections of officers: every 2 years, we must hold Grange elections. We’d love to have some more candidates, some of us old war-horses are getting pretty creaky! We’ll happily train you!
- Discussion of resolutions: the State Grange meeting on Oct. 18 & 19 will consider proposed resolutions from Community Granges like ours. They range from calling for more regulation of neo-nicitinoid pesticides, to changing the day of town meetings, state and national elections to Saturday, to supporting the Equal Rights Amendment, to eliminating Daylight Savings Time–and many more. You can see more info, and download all the Resolutions at the CCG website: 2018 vt state grange proposed resolutions Let us know what you think! I’ll have a number of printed copies for the meeting.
- Continued discussion of how to better define the “mission” of our Grange–besides maintaining and improving the Hall, how can we best involve more people in the Grange and do more community service? After this meeting, we provide a chance to meet the local candidates; we’ve been sponsoring cooking classes, which have been very popular–are there other new things we could do? We’d welcome your suggestions!
After the meeting comes the greeting and the eating
The other reason that we want to start a bit early is that we want to have time to Meet the State Rep Candidates.
At the Nov. 6th election, voters in the Washington-1 district (Berlin and Northfield) will be asked to choose 2 of the 6 candidates. We’ve invited all of them to come by about 5:45, so anyone can come to meet them. They will be staying for the Community Potluck dinner, so you can meet them, then sit down and interrogate them over home-made food.The 6 candidates on the ballot:
At the Nov. 6th election, voters in the Washington-1 district (Berlin and Northfield) will be asked to choose 2 of the 6 candidates. We’ve invited all of them to come by about 5:45, so anyone can come to meet them. They will be staying for the Community Potluck dinner, so you can meet them, then sit down and interrogate them over home-made food.The 6 candidates on the ballot:
- Gordon Bock–Independent
- Anne Donahue–Republican (unable to come because of a family reunion in PA)
- Kenneth Goslant–Republican
- Jeremy Hansen–Progressive/Democrat
- Denise MacMartin–Democrat
- Rebecca Trower–Independent
Community Potluck Dinner
Now that we are back to 1st Saturday meetings for the fall, winter and spring, you can put on your calendar the regular schedule of 1st Saturday potlucks, starting about 6:00. This month’s dinner will have special guests, as noted above, but like all of them, it will also feature tasty dishes brought in by our Grange members and friends. We usually have everything from chips to casseroles, salads to sweet treats. It’s a delicious way to socialize, and to get to know your neighbors–and your State Rep candidates this time!
Completing the landscaping
A dedicated crew went back to work on the flower beds by the “new” entrance–the one added to the building in 2008, which we put in to allow access to everyone. Take a look at the photos below, to see a few pictures of the process, from moving stones to the finished product. There are more in the Photo Gallery at the CCG website: https://capitalcitygrange.org/
This group of volunteers is pretty much the same as the one which put in the first set of flower-beds in 2017–with a new Community Service Volunteer. The bottom right picture shows the crew with the extremely helpful Kubota, which helped us place the rocks. From left to right: Gerold & Carol, Ryk, Tim & Merry enjoy the late afternoon sun and a job well done. Elizabeth had to leave before the photo, but was also a stalwart worker.
We also want to thank Ann Pearce & Carol Noyes for donating plants, and also Berlin neighbor Gale who brought over some daylilies, and offered good suggestions on the old entrance flower beds.
We’d like to recruit some more help to keep the flowers weeded and watered next year–we have an outside faucet now which will make the watering much easier! And there is much more that could be done to improve the old flower beds by the original “dancers'” entrance, add plantings to other areas, etc. Please contact Merry Shernock (rentals@capitalcitygrange.org
This group of volunteers is pretty much the same as the one which put in the first set of flower-beds in 2017–with a new Community Service Volunteer. The bottom right picture shows the crew with the extremely helpful Kubota, which helped us place the rocks. From left to right: Gerold & Carol, Ryk, Tim & Merry enjoy the late afternoon sun and a job well done. Elizabeth had to leave before the photo, but was also a stalwart worker.
We also want to thank Ann Pearce & Carol Noyes for donating plants, and also Berlin neighbor Gale who brought over some daylilies, and offered good suggestions on the old entrance flower beds.
We’d like to recruit some more help to keep the flowers weeded and watered next year–we have an outside faucet now which will make the watering much easier! And there is much more that could be done to improve the old flower beds by the original “dancers'” entrance, add plantings to other areas, etc. Please contact Merry Shernock (rentals@capitalcitygrange.org
