Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help) October 20, 2024
Starting next Friday!
I’ll be putting up this sign soon, to make the delegates coming from around the state feel welcome. Many are already familiar with our Hall, since we hosted State Session in October of 2020 as well. In that year, it was an abbreviated version, as COVID was all too present. At the time that meeting was held, we were just before the “Delta” variant; we maintained “social distance” (remember that?), wore masks and ventilated as best we could–and no one got sick.
This year, thanks to very widespread vaccination and the attenuation of the virus, we are not too worried about contagion. We’ll still be keeping the Hall ventilated, but we expect more VSG delegates–and we’ll be providing lunches and dinners for everyone who pre-orders them this time. See below how you can help us tickle their tastebuds–and help us clean up afterwards.
Any Grange member can attend the meeting, but we get 2 Voting Delegates. This year, those are me and Erin Barry, with Patty Giavara as the Alternate, who can vote if Erin or I is not available. We have a small crop of Resolutions that we will be voting on, plus officers to elect to the State Grange officer corps. I’ve sent the Resolutions to all up-to-date Grange members, and have received advice from a number of them on Resolutions ranging from naming sleeping cabins at the VT State Grange Center to mandating insurance coverage for IVF treatments in Vermont.
We’ve also been doing some cleaning up of our Hall over the past couple of weeks. Special thanks go out to Joe Blakely, shown below cleaning the windows in the Main Hall, and to Jody Pettersen, Patty Giavara and Liz Benjamin, who all joined me in the effort to make our Grange Hall clean and welcoming for our guests next week–as well as for our many renters and Hall users, of course!
October 5th Grange program:
we learn about managing our money–and making more!
- Micro-Business classes teach: Record-keeping, What you need to know before starting a business, Intro to writing a business plan, Cash-flow projections and forecasts, Marketing 101 and Social media marketing.
- Money Conversations classes teach: Frauds, scams and record-keeping, Spending plan and budgeting, How to save, Credit scores and more, Borrowing wisely and How to steer your way to a great auto purchase.
- These 6 week class cycles repeat throughout the year, and are open to everyone, with no income limits. Space is limited, and you must register!
- A “micro-business” is one with 5 or less people.
- There are a huge number of resources to help save money; one example is a GMP income-sensitive program that can reduce monthly bills by 25% for those who qualify.
- If credit card and other borrowing has got you behind the 8-ball, loans can be consolidated–but it is much better to do it with a non-profit organization like Greenpath Financial Wellness.
Our next Community Program will be at our Dec. 7th meeting, we’ll keep you posted on what’s coming up.
Do these look like your hands?
Do those look like cookies you can bake?
If the answer to either question is yes, you can really help us out as we host the State Grange. Cookies: So far, we still need more folks to make batches of cookies–or quickbreads, if that’s your specialty! We know the State Grange members have sweet-tooths (sweet-teeth?), and we want to finish off the meals with some home-baked treats. We’re perfectly happy to have you freeze your goodies if you want to make them ahead! We’ll just need them to be dropped off on Thursday evening or Friday morning.
Please sign up so we know we have enough, using this free online form: Perfect Potluck. There’s contact info there to get in touch with Merry if you have questions.
And we know that after those meals, there will be dishes to wash! We have volunteer cooks signed up to work all day, and it’s not fair to ask them to wash up too, so please sign up, by contacting Alison Forrest. We’ve got a couple of folks already, and need a few more. We’ve bought extra drainers so that many of the dishes can be left to air-dry–we’re doing our best to make this manageable.