New volunteer Rental Manager and rental phone number for the Grange
We are making a transfer from Jody Pettersen, who has very ably managed all the rentals of the Hall for about the last 8 years. Jody has done a great job, and she’s ready to pass the torch. We’re very lucky that Merry Shernock has volunteered to step into her very large shoes!
As part of this change-over, and along with putting up the new sign, we’re changing the contact info for the rentals. Merry is setting up the Grange’s existing phone number–802-229-9425–to be connected to “GoogleVoice” answering/forwarding service. This will forward every voicemail left to Merry’s phone, plus sending an email to her alerting her to the message. This way, she can monitor the contacts from anywhere.
Merry is looking for collaborators on rental policy and contacts–we all need help and input. If you want to help the Grange with an important part of our survival, please contact Merry–soon, you can leave a message on the Grange phone number to reach her!
Grange Sign from the ground up!
The photo at the top of this email shows the concrete going into the forms for the new Grange sign. Kurt Giavara (right) supervised setting the “big-foot” type forms the week before; I arranged to get some stainless steel bars to anchor in the concrete along with more commercial post-bases. On Friday the 14th, we had the forms filled with concrete, and placed the stainless bars and dummy “posts” in the concrete, at the correct spacing to match the posts and cherry cross-piece donated by TimberHomes LLC. Dave Cain is preparing the lettering on the cherry piece so that we can erect the parts soon.
Looking for carpentry volunteers to help us put up the posts, and to build and install the small roof for the sign. If there is someone who could bring an 8′ or 10′ stepladder, that would be an extra help! Please contact me if you can help us! As usual I can be reached at 225-8921, or the email address for these Grange Notes.
After the whole sign is up, we’ll have electrician Alana Norway pull wires through the conduits placed during the summer by another crew of volunteers. She’ll also install the fluorescent lights which will illuminate the sign. We’ve decided to put the lights on a timer so they will be on from about dusk to midnight, so our sign will be visible.
Our intent is to increase our recognition, so people will know where our Hall is, and that it is available for rental. The sign will give the website, and the phone number for rentals–see below for a transition in our rental agent. As regular readers will know, we badly need to get more tenants to balance our budget. And providing a Hall for public use is the major community service which our Grange provides.
Improving Fire Safety
We’re making the Grange a safer place with our projects to improve the fire exits from the basement level. This re-construction of both exits, funded by the Friends of the Capital City Grange Hall, is in response to the requirements of the Fire Marshal. The new stairs and door on the NW corner of the building have been built by contractor John Mallery; he hired a concrete-cutting company to cut through the outside wall of the basement. John has also framed in the new vestibule at the South end of the basement, around the existing stairs. The new door has a magnetic hold-open, so it can be open for foot traffic, but will close automatically if the new smoke/fire detectors are triggered. The sheetrock and painting are done, and the new doors are installed. Electrical work has been roughed-in and must be completed before the Fire Marshal will sign off on the project–and increase our legal capacity in the basement from its current 49, up to at least 100, we expect!
We are still fundraising and arranging financing for the 2nd phase of this project, rebuilding the bathrooms on the basement level. Keep in touch for updates on this part of the project too! And many thanks to the Legislature for funding the “Cultural Facilities” grant which will be paying for 1/2 of this project–once we raise the matching funds we need!
The fire exit at the northwest corner has been completely re-built; the original stairs were too steep and too little headroom; we had to cut through the concrete wall of the basement to make the stairs come out at ground level. You can see the difference from the outline of the old stairs on the wall!
The Fire Marshal required that we build a vestibule with 1-hour fire rated walls and a door, to separate the downstairs and upstairs levels. 
The new door in the vestibule can be held open with an electro-magnet. If we ever have a fire, the new smoke alarms on either side of the door will make the magnet release to separate the upstairs and downstairs spaces.
What’s going on with the California Granges?
I attended the VT State Grange meeting on Saturday, Oct. 18th, along with Merry; Marj Power went on Friday the 17th. We dealt with various resolutions, some of which we discussed during our October Grange business meeting. On Friday, the retiring State Grange Master gave an address that mentioned a controversy involving the National Grange organization and the California Granges. Intrigued by this, Merry has done some investigating, including contacting the Sonoma Valley Grange (www.sonomavalleygrange.com), which she had visited on a trip earlier this year to California. Then, she was interested to find out more about an active Grange whose Hall is a vital part of the community. Now, she was interested to find out more about the issues that led to the National Grange claiming that the California State Grange was illegitimate, and suing to close the State Grange and re-start it.
At our meeting on Nov. 1st, Merry will tell what she has learned about this controversy, and the issues behind it. Come learn about Green Granges, the question of whether Grange Halls should be saved, and more!
Article by Tim Swartz
Property Tax Reduction Strategy
Join us at our Nov. 1st meeting to make a tax reduction strategy
We’ve talked for years about the burden that our property taxes (over $7,000 per year) place on our budget. About 1/3 of our annual expenses are property taxes paid to Berlin! We’d love to reduce that burden. We’ll be talking about how to reduce or eliminate those at from about 5:30 to 6:30, after our usual business meeting on Nov. 1st. We’d like the expertise and input of our talented membership, and all who want to see our Grange and Hall thrive!
Can we:
get Berlin to reduce our taxes? As in all towns, the Town Meeting would have to vote to reduce or eliminate our property taxes.
transfer legal ownership to a tax-exempt non-profit? The Grange is a “fraternal organization”–a non-profit which is not automatically exempt from property taxes.
come up with more strategies–and plans to actually pursue them?
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