Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help) January 24, 2024
New year, with new members!
We were pleased to be joined at our meeting by 5 members who have joined the Grange at the beginning of this year! In addition to these truly new members, we included several members who have actually been actively involved our Grange for a few years, but whom we’d never officially “initiated”. We welcomed all of them to our Grange with the “Obligation Ceremony” which is the short version–about 15 minutes–of initiation into the “Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry”. This ceremony includes a brief explanation of some of the Grange ritual, then features a “welcome circle” of Grange members with the new members, and us all singing a song together–this time, our Grange Musician chose “Lean on Me”, the Bill Withers classic.
We gave each of the people included in this group a certificate, suitable for framing! There are still a good number of people out there who have paid dues to be part of our Grange, but weren’t able to get to the meeting. Please contact me to let me know when we can include you in a similar welcome, and give you your own certificate!
Please Renew Your Memberships!
Being an active member can mean coming to meetings, helping us discuss the management of the Grange Hall, which is the main focus of our Grange. We believe that it is a vital part of culture and community in Central Vermont, a place where people meet, talk, rehearse, dance, attend church services and classes, and work together as partners in all sorts of organizations.
Grange members also organize and take part in community service projects, including ongoing ones like Kids Trade & Play and Dance, Sing and Jump Around! We are very open to other projects–as long as we have people to help us organize and make them happen.
If you’ve been a member in the past, to re-activate your membership, just send a check for the $30 annual dues to Grange Treasurer Merry Shernock at the Grange mailing address:
Northfield Falls, VT 05664
Calais, VT 05648
If for some reason you want to give up your Grange membership, please let me know that as well, and we’ll honor your withdrawal with a “Demit” vote at one of our meetings.
February 3 Grange meeting:
Looking at how the Grange gets it done
We’re skipping our usual Program held in even-numbered months, in favor of a discussion of “Grange Operations”. This is based on a spreadsheet set up by Patty Giavara, which she and I have been compiling. The sheet lists the things that need to get done to keep our Grange and our Hall running, who’s taking care those tasks get done now–and which ones have no one doing them.
Our hope is that a broader discussion of the way Grange operations get done will help us organize them better, make them easier to understand, and more easily accomplished.
We think there are other people out there who would like to be part of keeping our vibrant Grange going for the long term–and we definitely can use more help. Please join us in figuring out where you can fit in, and ways that we can all be more effective in our mission.
We’ll be meeting from 4:30 to 6:00 PM on Saturday, Feb. 3, at the Grange Hall. And at 6:00, we’ll adjourn our meeting, and start our eating, at the…
…Community Potluck!
Every month, we invite anyone hungry to join us following the Grange Meeting to share food, conversation and fellowship from 6 to 7:00 PM, in the Lower Level of the Hall. We always get a wide variety of contributions, from simple to complex, purchased at a store on the way over, or prepared at home. We serve the casseroles, side dishes, main courses, appetizers, soups, desserts and everything else from the serving hatches in the kitchen, and sit at the cafeteria tables to enjoy tasty food and good conversation, using the Grange’s vintage assortment of dishes.
You know you’re going to eat dinner somewhere, why not here?
Cleaning up our act…
…or at least our carpet. The carpet squares installed in our big 2020 renovation of the Lower Level have been accumulating spills and some stains. It’s not too surprising, given the busy-ness of our Grange Hall. Many thanks are due to Patty Giavara, who spearheaded the process of getting estimates for a professional carpet-cleaning job, and (along with Kurt Giavara) moved chairs and stacked tables to make way for Delair’s Carpet and Flooring‘s crew on Jan. 9th. Compare the Before (above) photos to the After (below) photos to see the difference! Note that the carpet was still damp when the “After” photos were taken.
We expect to get on a regular cleaning schedule for the Lower Level carpet from now on, seeing the big improvement this makes.
