Category: Grange News

Communication Shorts 11-15-2025

By Walter Boomsma,
MSG Communications Director
207 343-1842

Communication Shorts are brief (short) but important items posted for your information and use. Please send us your ideas and thoughts!

November Bulletin

The November Bulletin is available for download. Recent issues of the Bulletin can be found on the Program Books and Information Page in the communications section.

New Words for Thirds Resource

We’ve added a sample press kit to the Words for Thirds Resources. A press kit is often provided to reporters who are attending or writing about a particular event. This one is based on five dictionary days, but is easily adaptable. Help reporters and journalists who are helping you.

Craft Shows

It’s that time of year! In case you missed it, we’ve created a Grange Craft Show Logo or Icon. It will be beneficial when we receive announcements of craft shows that do not include a photo or flyer and help create a sense of “branding” of Grange Craft shows. Feel free to use it! And remember to get your craft show listed on the website, where it will be seen across the state and beyond.

Website Subscribers Sought

See the last page of the November Bulletin! Be sure to share with members!

Don’t Shoot the Piano Player!

He’s playing as fast as he can! We’re still catching up with results and information from the State Session. A printable ODD Directory is now available! Get yours today! (A copy will be snail-mailed to secretaries with the Bulletin.) The online ODD Directory should also be correct.

Think About This!

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Melody Beattie 

An Idea for Your Grange

With all the recent media attention to Food Insecurity, it could make sense to add some food items to your Book Exchange Box. If it’s outside, be aware of freezing!

Subscribe!

Remember, we don’t share your email address with anyone, and you get a weekly summary of what’s been posted. Subscribe here! Share that link with your members and Grange friends!

Online Directories Available 24-7

Thanks to those who help us keep these directories current by letting us know of changes!

  • The Directory of Granges features all Granges in the state with a contact person. Please make sure your listing is correct! Visitors to the site frequently consult these directories.
  • The ODD Directory features all state officers, directors, and deputies, along with their contact information. Updated November 15, 2025.

Hollis Grange Words for Thirds

Hollis Grangers presented dictionaries to Hollis Elementary 3rd graders. Grange presenters were Butch Gannett, Vicki Huff, and Lila Wilkins.

Northeast Grange Leaders’ Conference Information

Key dates:

  • Deadline for Hotel Registration – December 1, 2025
  • Deadline for Registration – December 15, 2025
  • Conference Dates – January 9 – 11, 2026

Registration Form for the conference

Hotel Information

This is the only information we’ve received. There is a contact listed on the registration form

Valley Grange Words for Thirds Team visits local schools

Valley Grange Teams are currently celebrating Dictionary Days and Words for Thirds with area schools.WABI-TV5 caught up with the team at Ridgeview Elementary School in Dexter.

To learn more about the Guilford Grange’s Project, visit the Valley Grange Website or Facebook Page.

Don’t Forget Your Clock!

Daylight Saving Time ends tomorrow morning. No, you really don’t have to stay awake and do it at 2:00 a.m. We could probably have a lot of fun with the question of whether it ends at 2:00 a.m. before or after you change it.

Some people change their clocks before retiring; some wait until the next morning. Some make the change to habits gradually, although that seems potentially confusing, and besides, it’s too late this time.

There’s at least one story suggesting that the idea for the twice-yearly time change came from someone who had a blanket that was too short, so he cut some off one end and sewed it onto the other.

It’s also a good time to check/change the batteries in your smoke detectors. You can do that during the extra hour you’re getting!

Communication Shorts 10-29-2025

By Walter Boomsma,
MSG Communications Director
207 343-1842

Communication Shorts are brief (short) but important items posted for your information and use. Please send us your ideas and thoughts!

November Bulletin

Deadline for the November Bulletin is November 14th. Recent issues of the Bulletin can be found on the Program Books and Information Page in the communications section.

Belated Greetings from the National President

Through what might be seen as a comedy of errors, we missed posting a Maine-specific video of greetings to our State Session from National President Chris Hamp. We’ve now added it to the 151st Session page — you can watch it there or on YouTube by clicking this link.

Bangor Savings Bank PB&J Drive

If you or your Grange were proud participants in the Bangor Savings recent drive collecting PB&J for food banks, you should know! BSB announced that this year’s collection resulted in over 39,000 jars! They estimate that since the program began in 2012, they’ve collected and distributed more than 185,000 jars. That’s enough to make over 3 million PB&J Sandwiches!

Craft Shows

It’s that time of year! In case you missed it, we’ve created a Grange Craft Show Logo or Icon. It will be beneficial when we receive announcements of craft shows that do not include a photo or flyer and help create a sense of “branding” of Grange Craft shows. Feel free to use it! And remember to get your craft show listed on the website, where it will be seen across the state and beyond.

Website Subscribers Sought and Found!

We added 14 website subscribers during the State Session. “Inquiring minds want to know!” We’ve also been getting more since then. Here’s a form you can print (there are two per page) to post and hand out to your members and guests to help keep them in the know! 2025 FOMO Subscriber Form.

Don’t Shoot the Piano Player!

He’s playing as fast as he can! We’re still catching up with results and information from State Session.

Think About This! CHANGE

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

Melody Beattie 

An Idea for Your Grange

Before you get overwhelmed with the holidays, it’s a great time to review the status of your future projects, such as Words for Thirds and your Book Exchange Box.

Subscribe!

Remember, we don’t share your email address with anyone, and you get a weekly summary of what’s been posted. Subscribe here! Share that link with your members and Grange friends!

Online Directories Available 24-7

Thanks to those who help us keep these directories current by letting us know of changes! The officer portion of the ODD Directory should now be accurate. Deputies and Directors are being updated.

  • The Directory of Granges features all Granges in the state with a contact person. Please make sure your listing is correct! Visitors to the site frequently consult these directories.
  • The ODD Directory features all state officers, directors, and deputies, along with their contact information.

Excelsior Grange Craft Show

November 29, 2025

Excelsior Grange is looking for crafters and vendors for our annual Christmas Fair to be held on November 29, 2025, from 9 am to 2 pm. The Grange will serve lunch and will be selling wreaths. To reserve an eight-foot table ($20) or for more info about the fair, please contact Excelsior Grange #5 on Facebook or by calling 998-2301.

Excelsior Grange is located at 446 Harris Hill Road in Poland, Maine.

Mill Stream Grange Trunk or Treat

Friday, October 31, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. Mill Stream Grange is located at 128 Town House Road in Vienna. FMI visit their Facebook Group.

Grange Today! 10-24-2025

The Newsletter of the National Grange

Articles in this edition include:

  • National Grange President to Join National Panel on Rural Women’s Health
  •  Prepare to celebrate National Rural Health Day
  •  Save the Date: National Grange Honors Night
  •  National Ag in the Classroom Grants and Scholarships Cycle Open
  •  Grange Member Benefit: SingleCare / GoodRx
  •  View from the Hill
  •  Home Fire Prevention Tips
  •  We need Red, White, and YOU!
  •  Recipes from the Heartland
  •  Grange Store: #GrangeStrong Socks & 60-year membership pin 

Click the button below to read and/or subscribe to Grange Today!

Read THE Current Issue

Note that all recent issues are available on the National Grange Website. To save server space, we only post the table of contents on the MSG Website.

A Dynamic Duo

Mill Stream Grange in Vienna has a dynamic duo of Junior Grangers! If you’ve been following recent posts, you may have noticed them.

Natalie proudly displays her well-deserved awards.

Natalie Heck recently received the Passion to Progress Award, bestowed through the Maine Academic Scholarship Pageant and presented by Rosie Haibon, USA Ambassador Miss.  The award is based on her essay regarding volunteering at the Mount Vernon Food Bank this past year. Natalie also earned the Crossroads Leadership Volunteer Service Award for completing 50+ hours of community service during her reign as 2025 Miss Western Maine Pre-Teen.

We were pleased to recently feature her as a guest columnist with her award-winning Passion to Progress Essay.

Caroline and Project Advisor Jill Sampson are collecting books.

Natalie’s sister Caroline is equally ambitious and community service-minded. Caroline is working on an outreach program to raise awareness of the importance of childhood literacy. The project includes building and placing a Little Free Library TM at the Mill Stream Grange Hall. Her outreach includes designing a bookmark with statistics and facts about the importance of reading to children. These will be printed and shared locally through her Girl Scout Troop and Service Unit, in the pre-K classrooms at Mount Vernon and Cape Cod Hill elementary schools, and in Mill Stream’s Words for Thirds.

She has already collected 203 books, a mix of board books, picture books, early chapter books, and middle-grade novels, all donated by the local community. If you’d like to support Caroline’s outreach program, contact her Mom, Kirstine Heck, or visit the Vienna, Maine, Mill Stream Grange Facebook Group.

Both girls demonstrate the value and power that come from collaborating with like-minded organizations. Energy creates energy. We are grateful and proud of their efforts and accomplishments.

A third Junior Granger, Sam Hanley, recently became an adult member and will surely continue to support his friends and the community. Earlier this summer, these Junior Grangers and another friend organized a Coastal Clean-Up that brought people together to clean the banks of the Mill Stream, which gives the Grange its name. They know how much fun Community Service can be! Maybe we should all find some kids to hang around with!