Grange Notes by Tim Swartz, Grange President (with everyone’s help) March 19, 2024
April 6: Grange Program will feature former VT AFL-CIO chair David Van Deusen
Mark your calendars for our next Grange program, on Saturday April 6, from 5:00 to 6:00. Following up on a program last year with the current Executive Director, Liz Medina, for our April program, we’ll hear from former VT AFL-CIO President David Van Deusen, seen above addressing a 350 Vermont rally in 2019.
Van Deusen is about to release a book, Insurgent Labor, which describes the trials and tribulations of bringing change to the VT State Labor Council (another name for the VT AFL-CIO). In 2019, he led a slate of candidates onto the Board of Directors, with the goal of creating a progressive and militant labor organization. His book chronicles victories during his 4-year tenure as President, including expanding union democracy into the rank and file and moving power away from single individuals and into democratic structures.
We hope you’ll join us for this discussion, which will follow a 30-minute Grange meeting and will in turn be followed by a Grange Community Potluck!
March meeting: continuing to look at our list of tasks
If anyone else would like to see the current list of “Grange Operations by Task”, please email me (you can reply to this Grange Notes) and I’ll send you a copy; we’re happy to spread the word about what we do!
2024 Grange Cooking Contest!
So that you can start experimenting, here’s the contest, as set forth in the VT State Grange Program book: you can make anything you want…as long as it contains at least one cup (or more) of Cabot Cheese. That’s the whole requirement. Now, as we have done before, for our own Grange’s contest, we’re going to accept entries which use other types of cheese–like sheep’s milk, goat’s milk, and also non-dairy cheeses! We know that some of our members can’t eat cows-milk cheeses, and others are vegans, and we don’t want anyone to be left out. Plus, we’re curious about what different dishes people come up with–so start your experiments to perfect your favorite cheesy (or cheese-like) recipe!
We do have to note that if people want to have their recipes judged at the VT State Grange Family Camp session in July, you will have to stick to the Cabot Cheese requirement, and bring along either packaging or a sales slip. You’ll need to bring a serving for 2 people for the judges to test.
We’ll remind you again via the Grange Notes, well before the May meeting!
Keeping our mission in mind
As a preface to the “tasks” spreadsheet, Patty Giavara wrote a clear statement about our Grange: “Our Grange’s major community service is providing, maintaining and improving our beautiful Grange Hall as a resource for Berlin and surrounding communities in Central Vermont. Our centrally located Hall, with lots of parking, full accessibility for all sorts of people, and affordable rental rates is a vital resource for many small organizations, local families, musical, dance and theatrical rehearsals, and much more.” We have never adopted a mission statement for our Grange, but I think that this could be a start toward writing one.
I would like to have us focus on composing a mission statement, at our next full meeting (one not shortened by having a Program, as will happen in April). Please come and help us work on describing our mission at our May 4 meeting.
I also welcome people sending in ideas of what should be included. For example, the statement in italics above deals with our Hall, but does not include the events we sponsor ourselves, at least explicitly. I’m sure other people will have other ideas–and we’ll need help making it a concise and clear statement. You can email me by replying to this newsletter, or to my personal email: swartzim15@gmail.com.
The National Grange and its mission
I was stimulated to think about a mission statement for our Grange by reading in the “Patron’s Chain” email newsletter of the National Grange about the updated mission just adopted by that organization–see above. All of the issues of that weekly newsletter are available to anyone here.
In the March 8 issue, I was also pleased to see an extract from the National Grange “Declaration of Purposes” that: “We proclaim it among our purposes to continue our historical appreciation of the abilities and equality of women“. This is a good reminder, in “Women’s History Month”, that the Grange was the first fraternal organization to give women full equality–including full voting rights–from its foundation in 1867. That was more than 50 years before the 19th Amendment allowed women to vote.
The National Grange website has lots more history and info; please check it out when you get a chance. We are not a carbon copy of the National organization, but we can learn from them.
The Grange as “infrastructure”
Yet another stimulating article in the March 8th Patron’s Chain newsletter was one by the Communications Director of the Maine State Grange asking “Where does your community Grange fit into your community’s infrastructure?” I found this an excellent concept–and one which should be part of our discussion of a “mission” for our Grange. He writes about Grange Halls being part of “Hard Infrastructure” for local communities, and also cites things like monthly community suppers (like our Community Potlucks) as a way for people “to simply be together, enjoy and know each other“–and therefore also part of community infrastructure. I hope you also find this concept a good one for thinking about communities, what they need, and what the Grange can do to strengthen them.
The Old and the New
As described in a previous edition of Grange Notes, we decided we needed to replace the old pressure tank (located under the stairs to the Lower Level). It was clear that it was “waterlogged”–meaning that the rubber membrane inside had leaked, allowing the “air space” above it to become “water space” instead. We were impressed that the old one was dated 7/13/1976. A 48 year life is pretty impressive, when the average is more like 15 years. The old one also lacked a pressure relief valve.
Plumber Tom Mulholland and I performed the extraction and replacement on the evening of February 29th. We are hoping that installing it on that date will mean it will last four times as long…