Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help) August 15, 2025
Great weather, good food–including hand-cranked ice cream
Everyone contributed, and appetites were sated!
The Senior Jazz Ensemble played during set-up and the early part of the meal (and then we fed them, of course!). Steve Boylan (in the red shirt & hat, adding ice) set up the ice-cream makers and mixed the ingredients for blueberry & vanilla. We had many hard-working ice-cream crankers, and (when the time came) helpful people who served–and lots of eager eaters! Everyone brought side-dishes of all kinds, and shared everything from salads to extra desserts! Patty, Tim and Kurt cooked black-bean vegan burgers, hot dogs, and beef burgers . Patty, Tim and Merry spoke for the Grange and the FCCGH (see more below). Just Food Hub sold chocolates, coffees, nuts, oils, keffiyehs and more–and donated 25% of their revenues to the Grange! And we had plenty of dishwashing volunteers who made the clean-up easy. All of the excellent pictures above were taken by Jonathan Blake–much appreciated!
Combined with sunny, dry and not-too-hot weather, everyone’s contributions made this a great Grange community event, thanks to everyone who came to join us, and especially all the cheerful volunteers.
An August tradition:
The Challenge Fundraiser!
For over a decade, the Montpelier Contra Dance committee has partnered with the Friends of the Capital City Grange Hall (FCCGH) to raise money to make the Grange Hall even better, with an annual fundraiser. Some generous people from the FCCGH Board, plus other dedicated Grange Hall supporters have pledged $2,000, and challenged the dance community (and other Hall users!) to match that amount. The Challenge was announced at the Aug. 2 picnic; it will run until the Sept. 6 contra dance.
Where does the money go? Read all about it on the Donate page of the Grange website–and while you’re there, consider making a donation if you can! Donations to the Friends are tax deductible to the extent allowed by the IRS. We don’t change the admission for the dances during the fundraiser, because we want everyone to come and dance, just like always.
Looking forward to our next meeting:
September 6
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We resume more typical monthly Grange meetings beginning in September, so we hope you will put our first meeting of the fall on your calendars. One of the orders of business will be performing the Grange ceremony of “Draping the Charter”–a simple way of honoring and remembering Grange members who have passed away. At our meeting, we’ll be honoring Phyllis Skinner, who died on July 9 of this year. This will be an opportunity to share our memories of her, including people who were not able to take part in the Grange service of remembrance that we carried out at the memorial service for Phyllis.
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Our meeting will also be considering the impact of some upcoming work on the Hall–installing a combination of fresh-air ventilation and air-purifying to improve indoor air quality in the Main Hall. Regular readers of the Grange Notes will remember that the FCCGH applied for a grant to pay 50% of the cost for this major improvement–well, we finally got notified that the grant application has been successful! Are you feeling lucky?At our September 6 meeting, you’ll also have the chance to buy raffle tickets to support the VT State Grange Center. This is a camp, with bunkhouses, a shower cabin, and a large kitchen/dining building–and with an historic building (shown above) not used for camping. The State Grange uses it for Grange Family and Youth/Junior camps, plus a Fall Festival every year. The raffles support the Grange Center. |