I, Agnes would like to respond to the State Master’s remarks in the February bulletin about how many of his ancestors were Grange members, My great, great grandfather was George Clements one of the charter members of the Maine State Grange and gatekeeper from 1874-1877. My grandfather and grandmother, Harold and Agnes Clements, were Deputies of the Maine State Grange in the 1950s. He was a member of the Executive Committee from 1952-1962. At the time they were Deputies, my grandfather did Installation of Officers. My mother played the piano and my sisters and I helped as regalia bearers as part of the installing team. My mother, Marjorie Larrabee was a member of the Maine State CWA Committee late 1980s early 1990s. My brother and sister-in-law, Harold and Joyce Larrabee are past Maine State Grange Ag-Committee Directors. There must be grange members out there who served with some of them on committees locally or at the State level?
The signs of Spring are showing up all around. The deer and turkeys are coming out. We have a Great Horned Owl spending a great deal of time hunting in the field behind our house. We saw a flock of robins this morning. A flock of geese flew over today. The snow is about all gone and there is hardly any frost in the ground. The sap is running and the maple sugarhouses are very busy at this time. Maine’s annual open house Maple Sugar Sunday is March 25th. Visit a location near you to see sap being gathered, syrup being boiled down and samples to be tasted. A fun time for all!
It is time for the students applying for the Ag-Scholarship to get their applications in to the State Grange. The deadline is April 30, 2012 for applications. If you know of any eligible students please encourage them to apply.
I am a fairly new member and still learning the structure of the Grange. One area that I am interested in is the Agriculture Committee but I am not finding much information as I would like. I see several interesting Grange articles about agriculture but not sure how or where they came up with them. Are there guide books on the agriculture committee? I am starting with my local Grange (Bingham 237) as well as with any other information that I can get from Grange members. I thank you for your time and support of my Granger journey. Edward McCall
Posted for Vicki Huff…
…To my limited knowledge there is no handbook for the Agriculture Committee. I am a new member of that committee this year and I can list some of the activities we are involved with. In March we assisted with the Legislative Luncheon which is a combined event for the Legislative and Agriculture Committees. This past Sunday we met to decide upon the recipients of this year’s Agriculture scholarships. If asked by a fair we supply the judges to decide the winners of the grange booths at the fair. We are currently assisting the Membership Committee with displays for the fairs. This is in direct correlation with a resolution that was passed at last years state session. We also will have a table set up at Farm Days in August and participate in the open house held at Ingraham Equipment each year.
I am finding that your local extension offices are a great source of information for anything agriculture and information can be found on our National Grange website of issues we are supporting in Washington. nationalgrange.org is the site address. I am not aware of any committee folks writing articles and sending them in to local papers or news outlets and if you have an idea for a project or opportunity we should be looking into please contact us. We are open to ideas.
Thank you very much for your question and if I have not answered anything completely or you have more questions please contact me through this email or our State Master through the website. It may be a day or 2 or 3 before I can get back to you but I will do my best to answer your question(s).