Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help), July 15, 2019
Grange cook-out coming in August!
The Grange won’t hold a “regular” meeting in August–but we’ll get together for an outdoor barbecue and potluck/cookout dinner on the first Saturday. August 3rd.
The Grange will buy some burgers–meat and veggie-burgers, some kind of dogs, plus buns, and we’ll be happy get donations to help offset the cost. We ask everyone to bring some side-dishes: salads, chips, dips, ice cream, popsicles, non-dairy frozen treats? Bring your favorites to share! We have freezer space to keep things cold until it’s time to consume them.
We’ll have a couple of grills, and we’ll supply as usual we can supply all the dishes, silverware, serving spoons, etc. We hope you will join us for a sociable evening.
Grange food expert Alison Forrest is our overall grill-meister–but she needs a few volunteers to prep food and to help flip the burgers, grill veggies, etc. Please contact her via email, or reply to me (Tim), or call me: 802-225-8921, to sign up. There’s a picture of her in action at a previous cookout, below.
Regular Grange meetings will start up again in September, on the first Saturday, Sept. 7th. This will be the weekend after Labor Day weekend, due to this year’s vagaries of the calendar.
But let’s not think about the end of summer just yet–join us to celebrate the warm weather while it lasts. If we are lucky, we’ll have some good news to celebrate too–see below!
Why we’re eager for August…besides the cookout
The attentive reader of the Grange Notes–I know you are out there!–will remember that this spring, the Friends of the Capital City Grange Hall, aka the FCCGH,
applied for another grant from the VT Arts Council. We expect to hear
from the Arts Council in early August, about whether we will get a grant
in this year’s cycle.
This grant proposal is for a set of major improvements to the lower
level of the Grange Hall–we have been calling it “Taking it to the Next
Level”. The picture below shows one of our motivations: a recent
example of one of the leaks in the foundation wall, on June 7th of this
year. In addition to liquid water on the floor, which has sometimes
covered 1/3 to 1/2 of the floor, the basement is cold and damp–besides
being uncomfortably hard to heat in the winter, it’s been prone to
mildew. The concrete walls and floors, and the tired, old ceiling tiles
are less-than-attractive.
So–our remodeling proposal includes:
- Interior drain on the east, long wall, draining to a sump with automatic drain pump.
- Insulation on the inside of the walls, on the east, north and west walls (except the kitchen), in the furnace room, and in the stairwells.
- Foam insulation where the joists sit on top of the concrete walls.
- New wall surfaces on the inside of all the newly insulated walls, with 5/8″ firecode sheetrock and light-colored, durable and easily cleaned fiberglass-reinforced-panels.
- New carpet tiles on the floor, which will give a little insulation over the concrete, as well as looking a lot better than the peeling paint.
- New ceiling tiles everywhere except the bathrooms, which already have them.
- Commercial grade dehumidifier which will keep the air much drier, to eliminate mildew.
These
changes will greatly increase the attractiveness of the lower level, as
well as providing significant savings in heating costs. Having the
concrete walls outside the insulation will mean that the lower level can
be heated to comfortable levels much faster in the winter.
Cleanable, attractive surfaces will be easier to maintain. Drier air
will get rid of the smell of mildew.
So–keep your fingers crossed! We expect to hear from the Arts
Council, which administers the Facilities Improvement grants, by early
August–maybe before the cookout on August 3rd!
These changes will greatly increase the attractiveness of the lower level, as well as providing significant savings in heating costs. Having the concrete walls outside the insulation will mean that the lower level can be heated to comfortable levels much faster in the winter. Cleanable, attractive surfaces will be easier to maintain. Drier air will get rid of the smell of mildew.
So–keep your fingers crossed! We expect to hear from the Arts Council, which administers the Facilities Improvement grants, by early August–maybe before the cookout on August 3rd!
Grants & the Grange
As with our previous major renovation projects, grants have been a major help for the Grange, covering 50% of the cost of these improvements:
2008: building a new, accessible main entrance, including a ramp for people needing it, on the Northeast corner of the building, as well as installing an ADA-compatible bathroom on the main floor, and a modern upgrade of the electrical service entrance. (Arts Council grant)
2010: replacing all the fluorescent fixtures in the basement with modern, energy efficiency ones. (Efficiency VT rebate program”)
2012: replacing our dance floor, which had been worn through by dancing and other uses, plus replacing all the remaining old single-pane windows upstairs and downstairs with double-pane insulated windows. (Recreational Facilities Grant)
2014/15: Rebuilding our basement emergency exit & stairs to meet the Fire Code, and replacing our decrepit downstairs bathrooms and their drain plumbing with 4 new gender-free stalls and shared sinks, plus another ADA bathroom. We also installed water fountains & a bottle filler outside the Main Hall. (Arts Council grant)
Through these 4 projects, we have invested over $121,000 in the Grange Hall, with about 1/2 of that amount provided by grants and rebates.
Most of the remainder of the costs has been donated by generous members of the Grange Community.
NOTE: I’ve been asked when this year’s fundraiser for the Friends of the Capital City Grange Hall will happen. The Contra Dance Umbrella sponsors this every year–and this year the culmination will be at the dance on October 5th! The festive dance will feature a potluck dessert, plus a tote-board to display the progress to meeting the goal. Stay tuned for more details!
Stay tuned for the decision by the Arts Council!
June 10th: community service by U-32 helps our sign keep its footing
We were lucky to have volunteers from the U-32 High School “Senior Community Service” day come to our Grange Hall to help us with a project. As you can see in the photos above, 3 seniors plus a driver/leader pitched in on a project that needed to be done: the footing of the Grange sign closer to Rt. 12 has been getting exposed by erosion–runoff from the driveway, plus from the roadway has been exposing more and more of it. It’s important to keep the footing buried to reduce the chance of frost heaving.
So I asked for help to move some large rocks, left over from the flower-bed project by the “new” Main Entrance. The students and I lifted them into the back of my tiny Yaris “truck” and ferried them down to the sign. We piled them around the footing, to resist the erosion by rushing water, reinforcing them with other stones and covering it over with dirt. This is purely “seat of the pants” engineering, so we’ll be keeping an eye on it as the summer rains continue–thus far it is holding up well.
After that, they helped with one more chore, cleaning out the dirt from the silt-trap set up by Grange super-volunteer Lewis Neill, when he single-handedly replaced the culvert under the top of the driveway. The trap keeps dirt from washing in and blocking up the culvert, so it’s important to keep cleaning out the accumulated silt.
Many thanks to the volunteers, and we hope this experience encourages them to find enjoyment in service work throughout their lives!
We Love a parade…
Especially one that features one of the largest groups that call the Grange Hall “home”!
Congratulations to the Contra Dance Umbrella, which put together a great display of street-contra-dancing, with extremely “live” music from Pete’s Posse. The musicians: Oliver Scanlon, Pete Sutherland and Tristan Henderson, and dance-caller Dana Dwinell-Yardley
used wireless microphones, which allowed the musicians and caller to
perform while walking. The 30 or so dancers, garnered from the ranks
of the CDU plus a few “dance-ons” from the crowd along the way did a lot
of “promenade forward” to keep up with the truck, driven by the CDU’s Thomas Weiss.
The dancers were dancing all the way, about 3/4 of a mile, and smiled the whole way.
We learned later that the CDU’s parade entry came in 5th in the voting!
Thanks to all the contra-dance and Grange supporters who voted in the
on-line tally.
Thanks also to the Parade Committee members and the volunteers who helped decorate the truck. Jody Pettersen, Thomas Weiss and Merry Shernock recruited, organized and made the banners, Thomas and I decorated the truck, which was loaned by Duncan Robb, and Ceile Kronick controlled the sound!
Congratulations to another Grange-based organization, the BarreTones acapella Women’s Chorus & Quartets, which also marched in the parade. This year is their 50th anniversary!