Maine State Grange

Words from Walter…

Depending on your perspective March has much to recommend it! We’ve sprung ahead, the sap is running, Saint Patrick’s Day is coming… and next month is Grange Month! It’s safe to say that information packets should have arrived by now—sometimes in strange places! Just as a reminder, National recommends you check with State Headquarters if you haven’t received yours.When you start using your packet for planning, don’t forget your Maine State Grange website! Please send an email or use the submission tab on the site to tell us about your event. Remember to include all the details—not everyone knows where your Grange Hall is located! And make sure somebody with a camera attends those Grange Month events so we can have some pictures. (Send them as an attachment to an email.)

A special thanks goes to Legislative Director Jim Annis for his column this month and the reminder that it’s not too early to start working on resolutions. As a reminder, State Grange Policy is that we do not post potential resolutions on this site until they’ve been adopted by State Conference. The reasoning is to avoid confusing the public over Grange Policy.

This might also be a good opportunity to remind folks that our general website policy includes not posting fraternal concerns because of their personal nature. We can and do arrange for those with a broad interest to be delivered to subscribers even though they do not appear as a post on the site.

Rest assured, there’s a lot more we will publish than won’t! I occasionally get asked why a particular item or piece of information, contest rule, etc. is not available on the site. More often than not, the answer is “I haven’t received it.” In the interest of accuracy, I generally won’t publish something I’ve “heard” until I have some assurance it’s accurate. I also do not always have time to “chase” stories and verify rumors.  Your patience and help with this is appreciated!

Later tonight I will be attending an “online meeting” of the National Grange Communications Advisory Board. When I received the agenda, I pointed out that based on the number of items on the agenda spending just ten minutes on each would create a meeting that will last nearly four hours! But I think the lengthy agenda does suggest that our organization is not lacking in communication opportunities.

It is perhaps amazing that with all the technology we have available effective communication seems to be on the decline. How is it that I can tell you what a “friend” four states away had for breakfast (thank you, Facebook—I even have a photo) but not when then next meetings of all the Granges in our Pomona are scheduled and what’s on the program?

For those who don’t know, the Ides of March (generally accepted as the 15^th) mark the anniversary of the death of Julius Caesar, an interesting story of itself. When warned by the seer to “Beware the ides of March,” Caesar is reported to have joked that the ides of March had come without effect. The seer replied, “Aye, Caesar; but not gone.”

I do not presume to be a seer, but we might do well to be warned—communicating the wrong things more easily and faster does not qualify as good communication. Unless we look past the technology to consider what we need to know and what we need to share we are, like Caesar, likely to suffer a most unpleasant fate. Although, ironically we’re told by Wikipedia, “The ides of March was enthusiastically celebrated among the common people with picnics, drinking, and revelry.”

I sure hope somebody remembers to tell everybody else about the party.