Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help), June 9, 2019
Updating our walls with panels ‘n’ art
We had a somewhat sparsely attended, but very productive work party on Sunday, June 2nd. With just 5 of us, we assembled and hung 20 panels! It was an efficient crew. A few photos above show the crew in action: Patty Giavara, Kurt Giavara, Stan Carlson, Merry Shernock & Tim Swartz. The photos above show some views of the assembly process, from putting in the batts, to cutting fabric, to wrapping it around the panels. Then there are a couple showing how we hung the panels on the wall with “french cleats”, and Kurt on the “Little Giant” ladder while Stan & I help out.
The “stitched” panorama photo below makes it look as if the wall opposite the stage is curved…but it’s the best I could do to show how we have more than doubled the square feet of acoustically absorbent surface on the walls. We put together: 14 panels 2′ x 4′, plus 4 panels 17-1/2″ x 41″ (these fit above the windows). We hung all of these, plus a couple more 2′ x 4′ left over from our previous assembly party. We’re eager to hear from Hall users if they can hear a difference in the level of reverberation which has been a problem in the past.
Adding these panels also made necessary some re-arrangement of the great variety of art which we have been exhibiting on the walls of the Hall. Attentive readers will remember that we are showing off the art collected by Berlin Elementary Art Teacher Lynn Spencer from her classes’ work over many years. Merry and I re-hung all of the art around the new panels–gives us all a new perspective!
We have 10 more panel frames to fill with acoustic-absorbing rock-wool, wrap with fabric and hang–watch for a quick work-day coming soon, date TBD. Are you sorry you missed the event on June 2? Let me know when you can come to the next one, and we’ll work out the best time for the most people.
June 10th: rocking the Hall clean-up, with earth-moving too.
We will be getting the benefit of a “Senior Community Service Day” on Monday, June 10th. This is an annual event run by students from the U-32 high school, which includes students from Berlin, our home town. We are now confirmed to have 3 students help us from 10:00 AM to Noon.
The project I’d like them to help with is some re-grading and reinforcement of the area around the footings of the Grange sign, which have been eroding from driveway and road run-off. We have a nice pile of rocks left over from our flower-bed construction last year. I plan to have the students help me move the rocks (with my Toyota Yaris “truck” and my wheelbarrow) to form the foundation of some water diversion around the footing. We also are ready to have some weed-whacking done around the Hall–Merry and I can loan our electric weed-wacker. And there is more winter clean-up work available outside, as well as windows to clean and screens to vacuum inside. No shortage of projects, in other words!
Would you like to join us? As a mostly-retired person, I will have time to be the overall supervisor…but I’d love to have some other Grange friends join me! It’s an opportunity to leverage some extra help to make our Hall better looking and cleaner. Please contact me, Tim Swartz via email or phone: 802-225-8921 if you can help us out!
Summer time is finally here…and we’ll have a cook-out to celebrate, on Aug. 3rd.
We held our final meeting of the spring season on Saturday, June 1st, and had just enough people to make a quorum at first–the weather is finally getting good! We had a vigorous sing-along after the meeting, with songs ranging from “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” to “It’s a Small World”. We followed that with another tasty potluck dinner.
In the week since, we’ve dipped back into cool & cloudy–and emerged into hot & sunny for several days in a row! We all hope that this means really sunny & warm weather is here to (mostly) stay for a while.
But as we all know, Vermont summers are short. So we are planning ahead. We won’t hold a “regular” meeting in July or August–but we’ll get together for an outdoor barbecue and potluck/cookout dinner on the first Saturday of August. We’ll have a couple of grills, and as usual we can supply all the dishes, silverware, serving spoons, etc. We hope you will join us for a sociable evening. Want to bring some ice cream, popsicles, non-dairy frozen treats? We have freezer space!
Regular meetings will start up again in September, on the 3rd Saturday, Sept. 15th. The first Saturday is Labor Day Weekend, so we know people will be busy with other activities.
But let’s not think about the end of summer just yet–enjoy the nice weather while it is here!