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In memory of Charles Martin

March 8, 2024 by Tova

by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help) March 7, 2024

Remembering Charles Martin
9/23/1937 to 2/29/2024

We honored Charles with a “Draping the Charter” ceremony, and sharing memories

As many of you know, Charles Martin has been in poor health for quite a while. Even before he broke a hip last August, his energy reserves were clearly getting lower. The stress of the injury to his hip, hip-replacement surgery that followed, and then trying to rehab was very hard on our friend, even after he was able to return home. His husband Richard spent months keeping him company, helping with care, dealing with home-care nurses, physical therapists, and, eventually Hospice care nurses. In his last days, Charles was receiving pain relief and other palliative care, before finally slipping away in the early hours of last Thursday morning.
At our March 2nd meeting, we honored Charles with the Grange ceremony of “Draping the Charter”–placing a black drape around the original Charter of Capital City Grange #460. Our usual Chaplain, Alison Forrest, took on the role of Ceres, the Grange “Grace” who represents the goddess of harvest time. The Chaplain’s role was taken by Liz Benjamin–as usual, we figure out ways to use the available resources.
The ceremony was followed by sharing of memories about Charles and his long career in the Grange. He and Richard joined Capital City Grange in 1980, and also acquired the higher degrees of Grange membership within the next year. We were honored to be joined by a number of VT State Grange officers and former officers, reflecting on Charles’ many years of service at that level, as well as at our community Grange; we also had a few members of the North Branch Grange, of which Charles was the Master for many years.
We at Capital City Grange knew Charles as our Secretary for around 30 years–long before many of us even joined the Grange–and as one of the leading members of the experienced Grangers who welcomed a relative crowd of new members in 2005. People joined the Grange then in order to save this Community Grange and its Hall, but most of us had little or no experience with the organization we were joining. By providing welcoming outreach and good humor, Charles made it easy to relax, easy to ask questions and to appreciate the friendly attitude of the whole Grange organization. We found we could make mistakes, at which Charles, Richard, Les & Phyllis Skinner and the rest would chuckle. Then they would share stories of their own gaffes, and afterward teach us the right way to proceed. While they were taken aback by our naivete, they really appreciated the way that a core group of contra dancers, Afro-Caribbean dancers, and other Grange users wanted to make the Grange Hall a better place for everyone.
Besides working with Charles on Capital City Grange business, we learned that he and Richard were also vital cogs in the Vermont State Grange. Charles was the head of the “Home Economics” committee of the VSG for many years, promoting needlework and cooking contests throughout the state. He was a trustee of the New England Grange Building which is part of the “Big E” Exposition in Springfield MA, helping to manage the building with Grange trustees from the other five New England States, plus New York. He and Richard spent many days and nights staffing the building, which sells hand-made dishcloths, potholders, quilts and other handicrafts made by Grangers. Charles, always working with Richard, also set up the meeting room for the State Grange Annual Session at the Capitol Plaza Hotel for many years, staffed the reception table there, and cleaned up afterwards.
He was himself a serious needleworker. He made many quilts and sewn panels that were displayed in our Grange Hall, plus many that were raffled off as fundraisers at the Big E Grange Building and at other Grange events. He and Richard made the triangular swag curtains that decorate our Main Hall windows. We will be pulling a couple of quilts out of storage to display in his memory.
Charles’ obituary is posted online at the Guare and Sons website. There, you can learn more about his family, his work at the VT State Hospital as a Psychiatric Technician, and his involvement in many other voluntary community organizations. If you want to give a gift in his memory to any of those groups, it will carry on his legacy of community service.

It’s “Family Weekend” coming up

The two family-oriented events we sponsor will take place on this coming weekend–and one of them is completely free this time around!
Saturday:  Kids Trade & Play is the clothing exchange for kids and their families, happening from 9:30 to 11:30 AM (as the sign says).  This month, we won’t be asking for the usual $5 donation per family–because a local donor has offered to donate money so that any family can “shop” for FREE this month!   We really appreciate this generous offer.   Our standard policy is that no one is ever turned away, but this will make it even more open to all.  Please spread the word–we have clean, inspected, high-quality clothing items for kids sized Newborn to Junior 10/12, including shoes, plus some Women’s and Maternity clothes, and also books, games and toys.  Please come and take whatever you can use!  If you have items that we can pass on to others, you can bring them in while we’re open.  For more info, and to set up other times to donate, please see the Facebook Page or email organizer Erin Barry.
Sunday:  Dance Sing & Jump Around is an opportunity for your whole family to get up and move–to live music!   This month, the music is provided by Susan Reid, Grant Orenstein and Kenric Kite.  Movers and shakers of all ages will learn line and circle dances, plus singing games–which often involve jumping around.  All are taught by Liz Benjamin and Stan Carlson.  Always FREE for kids, we ask for a donation of $5 per adult–but no one is ever turned away!
For more info, see the website:  http://dancesingandjumparound.weebly.com/, or call 802-223-1509.

Our main purpose in sending out this edition of Grange Notes is to let people know about the passing of Charles, but since he was all about community service, these events fit right in.  We are proud to sponsor them in our beautiful community hall!

Filed Under: Grange Notes

Capital City Grange–catching up in March

March 3, 2024 by Tova

Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help) February 28, 2024

We got a good start at our February meeting

We spent quite a bit of our meeting going through a spreadsheet of tasks which Patty Giavara and I have put together, to help us identify how things get done in our Grange organization and in the Grange Hall.  Since providing, maintaining and improving our Hall for families and organizations to use is the major community service mission of our Grange, it looms large in the work we do.
As we hoped, the process of discussing the tasks we listed is serving as a good educational tool for the newer members, and even for people who have been part of the Grange for a while.  In the process, a few people saw opportunities to pitch in–which is great!   For example, Liz Benjamin, Cecile Sherburn, and Marty Roberts have volunteered to organize the annual Grange Cooking Contest which will be held at our May meeting–see more below.   And Susan McKenney contacted me later to say that she’d like to help Amy Handy with maintenance of the flower beds outside the Hall.
Our March meeting, from 4:30 to 6:00 PM this Saturday will continue this discussion.  Please join us, whether you’re a new member, or someone who joined to support the Grange, but hasn’t been to many (or any) meetings, or someone who’s been involved for a while.   Getting input from lots of people will help us put our needs in perspective–and you might hear of something that you’ll enjoy doing, that helps you feel you are really contributing.  Or maybe you’ll notice something we’ve missed–which we need to know about.   At the least, you’ll know what’s going on.
It’s also time to start thinking about replacing and supplementing the efforts of many long-time volunteers.  I’ll speak for myself:  I got elected as Grange President in 2006; if I get re-elected this coming September for another 2-year term, the end of that will be my 20th anniversary…and I can’t keep it up forever.
Please come to the meeting and help us figure this out!  There is a Zoom link for those who can’t make it in person, posted on the Grange Meeting Calendar listing.

Our meeting starts at 4:30 PM, and will go until 6:00 PM, when…

As usual, the monthly Community Potluck Dinner will follow the meeting!

Plumbing at the Grange

During January, at a contra dance, people who used the bathrooms found that the toilet tanks were not filling up, or were doing so veeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly.  After some headscratching, and with the advice of Tom Mulholland, the plumber who did the plumbing work during the 2015 rebuilding of the bathrooms in the lower level, I replaced 4 of the tank-filling valves, which were full of sediment.
Since we have also had sediment in the aerators of the kitchen sinks, we voted at our February meeting to have Tom install a whole-building filter on the incoming line from the pump which supplies the (excellent) water for our Hall.  He did so a couple of weeks ago.   Unfortunately, after he drained the water from the pressure tank to install the water, we had problems with fluctuating water pressure.
It turns out that the pressure tank was about 40 years old–well over the typical 15 year life span–and the membrane inside had failed.   After consulting with several members of the Grange, our “Executive Committee”, we decided to go ahead and hire Tom to install a new one.  So by the Saturday meeting, Tom and I will have replaced the pressure tank.  It’s never fun to have to spend this amount of money–but we are very glad that these problems did not crop up until we recovered from the major cash-flow problems we had due to the COVID-19 pandemic.   Our rentals have come back strong since then, and we are able to handle these expenses.  Our expectation is that the filter will keep sediment from building up again, avoiding the need to replace toilet valves, and to keep cleaning the aerators.

We took care of business:
Keeping our corporation up to date

As predicted in the previous Grange Notes, we took a few minutes at our February meeting to go through the formalities of holding a “Corporation Meeting” for “Capital City Grange #469 Inc.”, which is the formal name for the organization that, among other things, owns the Grange Hall.  Basically, this involved having formal votes accepting the officers of the Grange as the officers of the Corporation, and ratifying the acts of the Grange as the acts of the Corporation.   On such bureaucratic formality is our Grange maintained as a legal entity!

Upgrading our foyer floor

Another thing you may or may not have noticed is the foyer floor at the original entrance–the “near-stairs” one at the end of the Hall opposite the stage.  Over the years, we’ve had a variety of mats there, which have done an indifferent job of covering the floor and catching the dirt from the shoes of visitors.  Our 2023 rebuilding of the wall between the foyer and the Main Hall has improved the walls that enclose this area, and taken away the clutter of table storage cart, trash cans, brooms and snow shovels that used to be there. All of this has made the floor problems look even worse by comparison!
At our February meeting, we voted to bite the bullet and invest in installation of carpet tiles made for entrance spaces, with “water-hog” texture designed to trap and hold water and grit brought in on boots and shoes, and allow it to be vacuumed up later.   We have the installation scheduled for April 5th–which will likely be in the middle of Mud Season!  The carpet tiles will allow us to replace worn sections, in the future, without needing to replace all the flooring.

Filed Under: Grange Notes

Saturday Grange meeting reminder! Looking to the future…

February 6, 2024 by Tova

Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help) February 2, 2024

Now that you’ve joined the Grange, what do you want to know about how it runs?

The Grange is a busy place, and a lot of jobs need to get done to keep it running smoothly.   As mentioned in the last Grange Notes, a few of us started listing all the tasks that need to get done to keep the Grange organization going and to take care of the Grange Hall adequately.  The latter is especially important, because providing an “affordable and accessible” community hall is our major public service.   Many of us got involved because we belong to organizations that likely would not exist without our Hall–and that helps us recognize how much the many groups that our Hall serves depend on it.
It turns out that, as many have said, “it takes a village….”.   For example:
  • How do we get toilet paper and paper towels?
  • Who hires and supervises cleaning services?
  • How do our tablecloths get washed?
  • Who shovels the steps and exits when it snows?
  • Who maintains our First Aid kits (did you know we have them?)
  • How do “Grange Officers” get elected, and what do they do?
     These are just a few of the tasks on our list.  We’ll be looking at a fairly comprehensive list compiled largely by Patty and Tim, and see what tasks we have missed, or need a better solution for handling them.  Our goal is to not “burn out” people, but to share tasks out to make them manageable.   We think that there are Grange members–and others–who want to support the Hall by pitching in on some of the tasks, and who will find it rewarding–if the jobs are identified, limited in scope and manageable.
Please come to the meeting and help us figure this out!  and maybe you have noticed an important task or two that we have missed.  Our meeting starts at 4:30 PM, and will go until 6:00 PM, when…
As usual, the monthly Community Potluck Dinner will follow the meeting!

Taking care of business:
Keeping our corporation up to date

You may never have noticed that our Grange is incorporated.  Like any other business entity, we need to be registered with the State of Vermont, and follow certain rules.   For example, every 2 years, we have to file a “biennial report” with the Secretary of State’s office, and we’ve been doing that–it’s pretty easy.
Another formality is holding a “corporation meeting” at least once a year–and this is something that we haven’t been doing.  Luckily, it won’t be too much of a burden, and I think we can take care of it in about 15 minutes at our meeting.  I’ve been taking notes while the State Grange holds their own corporation meeting at the Annual State Grange Session in October.   In essence, I will “convene a corporation meeting”, and ask for Grange members to ratify the acts of the corporation, and to recognize the President, Secretary and Treasurer of the Grange as the officers of the Corporation.   Then we’ll adjourn, and go back to more usual Grange business.  We’ll have a record of these quick actions in our Minutes.  That’s all it will take.
Come and take part in these momentous proceedings!

Upgrading our foyer

Another thing you may never have noticed is the foyer floor at the original entrance–the “near-stairs” one at the end of the Hall opposite the stage.  Over the years, we’ve had a variety of mats there, which have done an indifferent job of covering the floor and catching the dirt from the shoes of visitors.  Our 2023 rebuilding of the wall between the foyer and the Main Hall has improved the walls that enclose this area, and taken away the clutter of table storage cart, trash cans, brooms and snow shovels that used to be there. All of this has made the floor problems look even worse by comparison!
Patty Giavara has taken the lead to get quotes from 3 different flooring companies for new carpet to completely cover this floor area.  At our meeting, we’ll be voting to (I hope) choose one of the options.   Grange members are required to vote in advance on expenditures of over $250, as part of our tradition of responsible, transparent management of our finances.  This project is well over that limit!   If you haven’t paid your 2024 dues yet, bring a check with you to the meeting, and you’ll be able to vote yourself!

We’ve got their back!

A few weeks ago, we were contacted by a local childcare organization, the “Sweet Clover Nursery”, a division of the Orchard Valley School.  Newly located about 1/4 mile north of the Grange Hall on Northfield St./Rt. 12 in Montpelier, this is a small operation, and as part of their licensing, they have to designate an “emergency evacuation” location.  It’s very unlikely that they will ever need to evacuate their building, but it’s always good to have backup.
After consulting among Grange officers, we’ve decided that this is something we can do, so our Hall is going to be listed as the evacuation site.   They are very appreciative, and we are glad to be able to help them out as they get set up in their new location.

Jan. 20:  A Vermont Grange damaged by fire

I’m sorry to have to report that the largest Grange in Vermont has had major damage done by a fire.  Middle Branch Grange, a very active Community Grange in East Bethel, with about 95 members, needed the help of 5 volunteer fire departments to put out a fire which seems to have started from one of the two wood-burning furnaces in the building.   From what I can tell, in articles from the Valley News and the Herald of Randolph newspaper sites, the building has heavy damage at that end, and smoke and water damage throughout.  Thankfully, no loss of life or injuries reported.
I’m sure that there will be fundraising efforts, to repair and rebuild their beautiful Grange Hall, which housed two levels of Grange activities, including a Junior Grange (for kids 6 to 14).   I will pass on info when I get it.
The Middle Branch Grange was featured, along with Riverside Grange in West Topsham in a film called “Rooted:  Cultivating Community in Vermont Granges”, released in 2018.   This well-made film documents two of the more traditional community Grange organizations, and their many activities.   It’s well worth watching; it was broadcast on VT PBS in 2018, and is now available here on Youtube.
I will spread more news about the recovery of Middle Branch as I get it.

Filed Under: Grange Notes

Grange welcomes new members

January 27, 2024 by Tova

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!

We are glad that a number of 2023 members have sent in their dues, to maintain their active status in the Grange.  We’d love to have you all as active, involved members–there’s plenty to do and ways we could be doing more, with more enthusiastic people involved.
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:
PO Box 234
Northfield Falls, VT  05664
        If you aren’t yet a member, but would like to be, just click this link, which will download a Membership Application.   You can also find the link on the “About Us” tab on our Grange website. Please fill in the blanks, and send it to Grange Secretary Charles Mayhood at his address:
2459 W. County Rd.
Calais, VT  05648
AND send a check for $30 to Merry at the address above.
      Remember, anyone may attend Grange Meetings, whether you are a member or not–but you can’t vote unless you are a paid-up member!  We hope you’ll join us–in person and on paper.  Please get in touch with me with any questions–Tim Swartz, President (with everyone’s help):  swartztim15@gmail.com.
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.

 

Filed Under: Grange Notes

Saturday, Jan. 6: join us for a Grange meeting to start the year!

January 3, 2024 by Tova

Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help) January 1, 2024

January 6:  We’re meeting at the Grange Hall, in person, so we can revive our rituals

This coming Saturday gives us a chance to relive the traditions of being a Grange member, as we’ll put on a meeting complete with the opening and closing rituals, plus an initiation ceremony for members who have joined over the last several years.   We’ve decided to do this to revive our continuity with the Grangers who have come before us, who built this organization–and the Grange Hall–and have passed down the legacy of community service we strive to carry out.
We want to strongly encourage anyone who has joined the Capital City Grange, but has not been to a full meeting to please come to this one, so you can see and hear what you’ve missed.   We have found the ritual a useful way to organize the meeting and set an agenda, as well as ensuring that we remember those who came before us.  And it makes sure that we all stand up and sing at least a couple of songs at every meeting!  For those of you who don’t know already, the Musician is a full officer in every Grange, and is vital to the meetings!  When you come, you’ll be given a songbook, and we’ll expect you to sing out when the time comes.
The ritual we use is a modified one, somewhat shortened and streamlined from the version in the Grange Manual.   We have removed the requirement for hearing a password from everyone, for example.  But we’ve kept the sashes–they are beautiful blue velvet with gold trim–and a lot of the original, well-written language that urges us, for example, that “whatever you do, strive to do well” at the end of every meeting.  It’s well worth hearing and taking part!
We also think this is important because we are strongly connected with the rest of the Grange organization in the State of Vermont, and even across the country, through the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry.   In our own history, the VT State Grange organization has been vital to our success.  They supported us when a bunch of “outsiders” from the contra dance and other rental groups joined en masse in 2005 (about 70 new members!).   They have continued to support us, with financing loans that have been essential to completing the renovations and improvement projects that have made our Hall more efficient, more welcoming and more functional.  Those of you who have gone to State Grange meetings know that the “ritual work” is still a vital part of those events.   Being familiar with the meeting rituals keeps us connected.
I’m asking all the “experienced” members who have taken part in our meetings with ritual to show up by 3:45 PM at the latest to have a quick “practice session” before the actual meeting starts at 4:30 PM.   We’ll also be sending out E-Vites to all the Grange members on our books, to make sure that they remember to show up–this is going to be fun!
If anyone wants to get a PDF copy of the “Meeting Ritual” we use, and/or the “Obligation” ceremony we use to initiate new members, please send me an email:  swartztim15@gmail.com.  I’ll bring printed copies to the meeting.
During the meeting, I’ll be asking for reports from all of the “standing committees”:  Agriculture, Legislative, Family Activities, Health Concerns, the Hall and Community Service.  We’ll also hear and discuss the Treasurer’s report, and solicit any “Suggestions for the Good of the Order”–which is what led to our plan to revive the ritual form for this meeting–and future ones, I hope.
We’ll also be singing at this meeting–another good reason to get together in person.   Every meeting features both an Opening and a Closing Song, led by our Grange Musician, plus an “anthem”–we do the Star-Spangled Banner in even-numbered months, and an alternative, like “This Land is Your Land” in odd-numbered months.  So bring your vocal cords with you.
We’ll also be performing the “Obligation” ceremony–a brief initiation ritual to welcome members into the Grange.  If you’ve joined in the past several years, but haven’t had this experience, please take part–it’s not only painless, we really do want to welcome you.
Any other questions–you know where to reach me!

Erin:  getting ready to Emerge

Many of the readers of these Grange Notes will know Erin Barry, the organizer who brought the idea of the Kids Trade & Play clothing exchange to the Grange, and who has kept it going for 7-1/2 years.  Well, it turns out that she does other things besides the great work she does as a Grange member and volunteer.   Erin has been chosen as part of the 2024 class of “Emerge Vermont“, the state branch of a national organization that encourages and trains women who want to run for office.  The 2024 cohort of 18 “future leaders” will receive 70+ hours of training over 5 months, aimed at equipping them to run for and win offices–from local to national.   42 past members are now in the VT State Legislature, and other members include our Vermont Secretary of State and Attorney General, plus our U.S. Congress member, Becca Balint.
We will be watching Erin’s future career with interest–she’s already on the School Board in Marshfield and clearly, the sky is the limit!  To learn more about Emerge Vermont, which was founded in 2013 by former Gov. Madeline Kunin, check out their website!

New year, dues year!

We are pleased to have about 30 current Grange Members as of 2023.  Now that we are at the beginning of 2024…guess what, it’s time to pay up again to be a Grange member:  $30 per year.
Before you make a decision–here are a few factors to consider:
  1. We’d love to have you as an active Grange member–one who wants to come to meetings and help to run the organization.   Being a paid-up member entitles you to vote on decisions in the meetings.  And we really need more people who want to pitch in and work with us–on community service projects as well as on painting & construction projects.  Even if you don’t want to come to every meeting, we can keep you involved and busy!
  2. 75% of a Grange members’ dues ($24 out of $30) get sent on to the VT State Grange.  They go to support the State and National Grange organizations–ones which help to support us.  We appreciate the interest-free construction loans that have helped to finance the major projects we have done, and the loan which helped us purchase the wood-pellet furnace in 2022!
  3. If your aim is mostly to help the Grange financially, rather than to be an active member, another way is to donate to the Friends of the Capital City Grange.   Your contribution will help to fund further projects to improve our wonderful Grange Hall, and can also be tax-deductible!  You can make those donations online at:  https://capitalcitygrange.org/donate/.
  4. If you want to join the Grange, we encourage you to do so, by downloading the application, using the link under “How Can I Join?” on the About Page on our website!  Just fill it out, and follow the instructions on where to send the form and the dues check.   Or bring them to a meeting–this one or any of our monthly meetings.
      Remember, anyone may attend Grange Meetings, whether you are a member or not–but you can’t vote unless you are a paid-up member!  We hope you’ll join us–in person and on paper.

Thanks to all who have been contributing!

In the last issue of Grange Notes, I reminded readers that the Friends of the Capital City Grange Hall are still running our year-end fundraising campaign–and it’s been great to see some more contributions come in!  Obviously, we’re past the “year-end” now, but the Friends’ bank account is still open for contributions!   Follow the link on the Support the Hall/Donate page on the website, or give a check to any member of the Friends, or mail it to:
FCCGH
PO Box 192
Northfield Falls, VT  05664
           Please contact me with any questions!

Filed Under: Grange Notes

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Contact Us

Tim Swartz, President, CCG#469
802-225-8921 (cell)
grangepresident@capitalcitygrange.org

 

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